Remodeled Library Takes Shape

Remodeled Library Takes Shape, by Ed Hungerford

East Wing Addition Will Be Occupied Between May 27 and mid-July

Have you walked on campus lately to see the progress of the SOU Library building? The new brick exterior of the Lenn and Dixie Hannon central library has been virtually completed, and work is continuing on the all-new entrance rotunda, a spectacular cylinder design which forms the new entrance across from the Administration Building. But there is still another year of interior work ahead, before the entire complex can be claimed as nearly finished.

The Library Expansion and Enhancement project, costing over $20 million, will just about double the amount of floor space when compared with the older Vince Oredson-designed library first opened in the late 1960s. Yet the old building is sound, and is contained within the new design. When you are walking past the building, an entirely different exterior presents itself now: all-brick, with towers dividing the spaces of the new exterior. These towers are part of a retrofit to upgrade and to provide new seismic protection.

The new East wing will have many uses, several of which are new and some uses which have been moved from the older Oredson building. On the first floor, ground level, a coffee shop will be installed next to the rotunda entrance. Beyond that will be two computer lab rooms, and in the remodeled section will be the librarian’s office and the entire U. S. documents collection. Formerly on the third floor, documents will eventually be back of the circulation desk.

The East wing’s second floor will contain the Special Collections: the Margery Bailey Collection of Elizabethan studies and other relatively rare books; also a new humidity controlled room for the most valuable books, which do not circulate; also librarians’ offices and book stacks.

On the third floor, East, there will be a large, 80 seat meeting room, and a new conference room, resembling a corporation Board Room, with 24 chairs, a central large table, and more space for temporary chairs. Also, of course, more book stacks, and the Library Director’s office. Third floor work on both buildings will proceed all during the coming summer months. The book collection will get moved around twice in this process; then work will begin in February 2005 to open all the second floor for public use.

The Old Library Transformed (West Building)

Returning to the "old library," the existing building with a new façade and towers, the western side of the main building has added a glassed-in lounge area, already completed and in use. Two-story windows face uphill toward the Science building; new furniture and art work have been installed here, and students have already been attracted to its comfortable overstuffed chairs.

In this older part of the library the present stairways will be renovated and retained, but the existing entrance has been closed off. The only entrance and exit for the public will be from the new Rotunda Entrance. In addition to the present elevator, a new elevator near the Rotunda will be available to the public, and its use encouraged.

A long corridor-like area, in the West building (present library) contains new reading tables and the entire Reference Collection in low stacks, including map cases. Circulation and check-out services are at present in temporary space near the East building, awaiting the finishing of the cylindrical tower of the Rotunda entrance. When that structure is finished, the floors opening from the Rotunda will have more lounge space, plus three fireplaces, one on each floor. In this area on all three floors, new paintings by Jim Lavadour will back up the lounge walls—paintings that resemble western landscapes, paid for by the State’s One Per Cent for Art program.

Dedication of the finished building, East and West together, is now scheduled for May of 2005.