Nuclear Bunker Converted
to Library Storage
Five Massachusetts colleges are turning a former nuclear shelter near Amherst College into a massive underground library storage facility.
Amherst College, which bought the bunker in 1992 for about $500,000 and has since put another $1 million into renovations, is working with Mount Holyoke, Smith, and Hampshire colleges and the University of Massachusetts to convert the three-story facility into a repository for 500,000 books and journals, the Associated Press reported December 18.
“It’s so ironic,” said Amherst College Librarian Willis Bridegam. “Here is something dedicated to war and we are storing library material in it. But there it was 4.5 miles south of the campus. And why not?”
The bunker was built near Westover Air Reserve Base in 1957 to accommodate 300 men for 30 days in case of nuclear attack. Most materials stored there will never leave the building; in most cases, archive staff will retrieve books from the stacks for researchers.
Posted December 23, 2002.
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