wayfinding and serendipity: the traditional library presents the visitor with an infernal matrix of materials, technologies, and 'specialists'. it is often a demoralizing process—a trail of tears through alien dewey decimal numbers, bifurcated classifications, mysterious floor numbers, and antiquated or redundant categories (should crime and punishment be in literature, humanities, or fiction?!)

NCL’s vertical typological organization eases wayfinding while celebrating serendipity. by example, the books box is a single vessel of media connected by an interior stair case and perimeter ramps. if, while researching carl sagan’s pioneering work on exobiology in science, health, and arts, a patron discovers sagan was also a novelist, his book contact could be found two flights up on the fiction and literature floor without leaving the books box.