Uncategorized

Library’s new look

5.7kviews

Toward the west on the Colorado State University-Pueblo Campus stands a tall building, the library. It has been in that spot since 1965 and has only had cosmetic work done, but has never been completely remodeled until now. The library will soon get a new face and a new name, said Rhonda Gonzales, dean of the library.

Gonzales said, once complete, the first floor will have a coffee shop, student lounging, and computers. The second floor will be more like a student services floor, with Student Academic Services, Student Support Services, the First Year Center and academic advisor offices. The third floor will contain books, study areas and reading rooms for students.

Gonzales said the new library will also have more windows and will be called Academic Resource Center.

The purpose of the recent remodel, Gonzales said, is to give it more of a “technology infrastructure,” because it is not currently laid out for student learning or student groups. She said, while the computers have found a temporary place, the books will have to be shuffled around during construction.

“There isn’t any place on campus big enough for all the books,” Gonzales said, “but we will be keeping the computers in The Underground.”

The second floor of the library is currently home to 80 computers. By putting these computers in The Underground, Gonzales said, there will still be room for them to be set up and used by students.

“I just hope the students won’t mind us using The Underground,” she said.

The books will be kept in the building during construction. The wings of the library will be the first things to undergo construction. While they are being worked on, the books will remain in place. After the wings are completed and work begins on the tower, the books will be placed in the wings.

During construction, there will be no public access to books. In order to check out books, students will have to find their book in the library catalog, write down the title and author of the book, and have library staff get the book for them, Gonzales said.

The construction is scheduled to begin next year and should take at least two years, she said.

“We are going to start evacuating the building in January of 2009 and hope to have the library up and running again in the spring of 2011,” Gonzales said.

Although students won’t be able to walk through the books to find what they need for the next two years, Gonzales said, the same services will be provided as they were when students could get what they needed on their own.

A timeline, new decisions and additional information will be updated to the library website regularly so students will know what is going on with the campus library.