c/o Noa Yassky, Contributing Photographer

Olin Memorial Library will be closed for the entire day on Saturday, Feb. 19 due to a scheduled water shutdown and will reopen for normal hours on Sunday, Feb. 20 at 10 a.m. Due to water line maintenance, Olin’s bathrooms and water fountains will be unusable for the day. If the library remained open, this would pose a public health risk.

According to Physical Plant Projects Manager Mike Rosalie, the library will be disconnected from one of Middletown’s oldest water lines and connect to a newer water line below Church Street. The shutdown is part of a larger pattern of utility maintenance that the University routinely undergoes, and Rosalie pointed to the recent loss of water access at Exley Science Center as an example of why this water line work is necessary. 

“We change out water services on campus relatively frequently,” Rosalie wrote in an email to The Argus. “A good example of why this is important is the failure and repair of the water line feeding Exley just last week. The water feed to Olin Memorial Library is one of the last segments of an active 1892 water line in Middletown that the City desires to abandon.”

Rosalie also explained how the ongoing construction on the Public Affairs Center (PAC) has affected the closure of Olin. 

“The PAC was fed from portions of the 1892 water line and coincidentally we are installing a hot water pipe as part of our carbon neutrality planning very close to this water line,” Rosalie wrote. “The City asked that we move our water services off of the 1892 line…. They worked with our construction team to make the connection as quickly as possible, so we didn’t end up with another emergency similar to that at Exley.” 

The Science Library will still remain open from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 19, providing an alternative space for those who normally study in Olin. In addition, Caleb T. Winchester University Librarian Andrew White advised students that the majority of the library’s resources are available online and remained optimistic that Olin will not see further disruptions to its normal hours for the rest of the semester.

“It does seem like we are beset by water emergencies lately, doesn’t it,” White wrote in an email to The Argus. “I don’t expect any further disruptions to library building hours during the semester.”

Aris Dashiell can be reached at adashiell@wesleyan.edu.