A certain amount of secrecy surrounds the recent renovations made to the basement of the Science Library. While an official opening took place two weeks ago, relatively few students uninvolved in the sciences are aware of the massive improvements made to this previously neglected study space.
Science Librarian Steven Bischof has called the renovations “the greatest stealth project on campus.”
Renovations to the Science Library basement had been in development for over seven years. This space had not been upgraded since the Science Tower was first built in the 1960s.
“We weren’t going to build another building, so this was just a project that just had to be done,” Bischof said. “The paint on the walls was thirty years old. There was water damage from a decade ago, from where the basement extends out underneath the outside patio.”
“It was essentially unchanged since I was a Wes student in the mid 1970s,” said University Archivist and Head of Special Collections Suzy Taraba ’77. “Pretty grim.”
According to the Library website, the recent changes have doubled the amount of available shelf space, allowing for approximately another 15 years of collection growth. The basement now features compact, moveable shelving that greatly economizes the existing space. Electronic controls allow for sets of shelves to be accessed when desired, with sensors ensuring that the shelves remain immobile whenever anyone is in between two neighboring sets. The library also received all new furniture, new carpeting, remodeled restrooms, an improved air circulation system, and a locked area for archival documents.
Prior to the renovations, a significant number of documents were housed outside of the library. According to Associate University Librarian Patricia Tully, who headed the library planning committee, a large collection of older material was previously in storage at Amato’s Toy Store in downtown Middletown, while a smaller collection was held in the basement of PAC.
Brandi Hood, senior project coordinator at Physical Plant, was responsible for the programming and schematic design, which faced several challenges.
“The building structure is a concern when dealing with the amount of weight within the compact shelving system,” Hood said. “The shelving rail placement was carefully engineered so that is would not compromise the structural integrity of the basement concrete slab. The second challenge was to add dehumidification to the HVAC [Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning] system so that the people and books in that space would be more comfortable.”
Most of the construction took place over the summer of 2006. Bischof noted that the project was so extensive that it required every book in the library to be moved at least once, and many to be temporarily stored off campus.
Tully estimated the total cost of the project at $2 million.
“We feel really proud of the results,” Tully said. “It greatly increased our shelf capacity, and the collections are much more accessible to students and faculty. The study area has been completely transformed into a well-lit, comfortable space that can be used for research or relaxation.”
Lagu Androga ’07, a chemistry and economics double major, was enthusiastic about the changes.
“It’s really conducive to studying now, I was reading there the other day and got a lot of work done,” he said.
The only significant renovation that has yet to be finalized is the installation of 12 study carrels, which will be open for next year’s thesis writers. The carrels will consist of semi-enclosed cubicles with lockable shelves, providing more secure storage than the existing Science Library carrels located on the second floor.
There are not currently any plans to modernize the shelving in Olin Library in the same way.
“It is hard to know how much additional physical space the library will need for collections,” Tully said. “More and more periodicals, indexes and books are electronic and so do not take up space on the shelves. This is not to say that the library will stop collecting print books, periodicals and other physical materials—far from it! But we think that the growth of physical collections will not be as rapid as it was in the past.”
Leave a Reply