When students return from Fall Break on Oct. 15, they will find that the Marriott Library isn’t as accessible as it used to be.
As part of the renovation project underway at the library, the east entrance will be closed until construction is completed next fall. In the meantime, students will have to use the west entrance located near the University Campus Store.
“The most important thing for students to know is that we are open…(and) our hours are the same,” said Ian Godfrey, facilities manager at the library.
In conjunction with the renovation project, the Marriott Library will add an Automatic Retrieval Center — a storage center that will make it easier for patrons to receive books.
The ARC will be located on the west side of the building. After requesting an item from the ARC online, the item will be retrieved by one of four robots, called “cherry pickers,” and the patron will pick up the item at the reserve desk.
Godfrey said the machine is the most cost-effective way to store library material.
“The ARC has allowed us to free up space so we could put group study rooms in the library, build new classrooms and add a lot of new things…(where) books used to take up the space,” Godfrey said.
Library employees are currently working to load the ARC with more than one million books. Items put away for storage in the ARC are low-use items, said Godfrey, so people still have the ability to browse through the majority of the library’s collections.
The ARC has the capacity to hold two million items, but in anticipation of future growth, the library is only loading the center to about half its capacity.
Library administrators said the construction project, which began in March 2005, is on schedule.
“Students have been more than understanding about the noise and the disruption that they’ve had to face with the construction,” library spokesperson Heidi Brett said. “Students know that in the end, this is going to be a really great thing for future students.”