Curriculum Center and Children's Collection

The Curriculum Center has a new home in the east end of the north wing. The wooden shelves that had held reference, reserves and current periodicals have been reconfigured into a shallow U-shaped alcove. Lois and Craig arranged the children's books on flat shelves, fiction on one side, Bible story books and non-fiction on the other side. These books used to be in the lower periodical stacks.

The slanted current periodical shelving is perfect for the display of curriculum materials for children, youth and adults. Our goal is to carry samples of all current Faith and Life Resources. We have the Gather 'Round Sunday School curriculum, Generation Why (for high school), Fast Lane Bible Studies (for junior youth) and Good Ground (for adults). Earlier curriculum resources such as Jubilee and Foundations Series are also available.

The Curriculum Center also has Faith and Life Resources Bible School curriculum including Living Stones. Sample curriculum materials from other denominations are also available for comparison.

Now for a peek in the old Curriculum Center, soon to be an !Explore office.

Across the hall is the old library storage room, now being prepared for Janeen Bertsche Johnson's office. The new window was installed by Frank of DJ Construction. This picture is actually a few days old. The construction materials are all out and the room is prepared for painting.

More next week!

Basement Reborn for Storage

If you have not been in the library recently, you will not recognize this picture. It was taken looking into the old basement from the double doors at the base of the old library steps. The view of the dark grey basement full of books is now a clean white hallway with good lighting in a bright ceiling. (The construction materials piled in the middle are now in storage.) These new walls now divide the lower level into two storage room, the east one for the library and the west one for general campus storage. At the far end of this hall, there is a double door on each side.

If you walk in the door on the right, you are in the east storage room looking down the wall where the biography and fiction used to be shelved. There are no shelves on the walls now. The ceiling tiles are gone and the old lights are suspended from the ceiling in an arrangement that actually gives better illumination than the room ever had before.

On Monday and Wednesday this week, a crew of volunteers headed by Dave Bertsche took down the gold shelving in the reading room and reconstructed it in this room, the east end of the former lower book stacks. Dave was assisted by Owen Hess, Lew Naylor and Bill Swartzentruber. On Wednesday afternoon, the crew helped Craig Neufeld load carts of back periodicals from the old lower stacks, roll them into the new building, down the elevator (We love the elevator!) and into this room. Lois Longenecker arranged the volumes on the shelves. The goal is to have the more frequently used back periodicals on the main floor and the lesser used volumes in the lower level. Library staff will retrieve volumes as needed. The remainder of this move will be completed early next week.

Thursday morning, the work crew brought two trailer loads of all the remaining gold shelving pieces from the barn where it has been in storage since about 1990. The just emptied reading room has now become a place to sort pieces of shelving, to decide what to keep, what to give away and what to send for metal recycling. On Saturday, some volunteers from the Butler Public Library near Fort Wayne will come to take the black shelving from the conference Room.

Bob Yoder from DJ Construction is putting finishing touches on door hardware in the new library. Frank is deconstructing the stairwell in the north hallway up to the Conference Room in order to install the new lift. They have moved their tool boxes into the northwest corner of the old library reading room. On the left you can see the railing from the top of the stairsto the Conference Room. It is in the foreground of the lower picture, the area where the Reference Collection was located just a couple days ago. What happened to all the wooden shelving? Read the next post to find out.

Furniture In! Furniture Out!

Chris and Tiny of Meilahn Manufacturing in Chicago delivered seven new library study tables. One large table is in the AV viewing room at the east end of the south wing. The other is in the special collections room. Three slightly smaller tables are in the north reading area. These tables were designed by Sally Anglemyer of the Troyer Group with our interior designer, Ann Graber Miller. Don Steider and Cal Zehr helped with engineering the tables for stability. The study tables that are not in study rooms will have lamps with power and data receptacles.

Just as the new tables were coming into the library, the old study carrels from the library basement were being taken away by Jim Flora, maintenance supervisor of the Elkhart Christian Academy and his student helpers. The Academy will use our old carrels in the Resource Room where students receive individualized instruction. The old carrels just fit in the new elevator which made it much easier to get them up to the ground level. Here are the carrels in the gallery area outside the bookstore just prior to loading.


Meilahn is currently manufacturing cherry study carrels which will line the windows of the north wing of the library. We expect them to be delivered by the end of August.

Even with all these transitions, the library is still an inviting place to study.

Reference and Curriculum Center

The first three days of this week have seen many moves of both collections and furniture. Lois finished moving the Reference Collection into the new library.

Don Steider, Fred from DJ Construction and some members of the summer crew brought the wooden shelving from the old reading room into the new library. They took all the wooden units to the east end of the north wing where these shelves will define an alcove for the Curriculum Center and the children's collection. The angled display shelves that used to hold current periodicals will now provide generous visibility for curriculum materials. AMBS has a standing order with Faith and Life Resources . Come to the library to examine the latest curriculum materials from our denomination!

The AMBS Cooperative Bookstore Now Open

The AMBS Bookstore officially opened in its new facility in order to serve the participants of the Bridgefolk Catholic-Mennonite Conference July 26 - 29. Guests from across North America enjoyed the opportunity to purchase books and other materials in the spacious and well-lit bookstore.

The Bookstore is open Monday through Friday during the month of August from 9 a.m. to noon and 1 to 4 p.m. Come and check out the new store.

Contact the bookstore: bookstore@ambs.edu