Party On!!!

What??? A party in the library?

When threatening thunderstorms forced a cancellation of the faculty/staff/family river boat cruise, creative minds suggested that the dinner in the Lambright Center be followed by a party in the new library. Spouses and kids got to explore the new space with a scavenger hunt devised by Nelson Kraybill. Eric Saner provided great background music with selections on his iPod.

Library study tables are great for board games since the study lamps have not yet been mounted. There were at least two games of Dutch Blitz, one of Blokus and another of Apples to Apples. At least one person could not resist long hidden library resources. Loren Johns preferred New Testament Abstracts to Dutch Blitz.

Vacating the Old; Entering the New

The old Conference Room is empty now. Ted Koontz took the last sections of steel shelving including the two frames still in this photo.

While I was in Kansas, Lois Longenecker and Craig Neufeld almost emptied the old library workroom. Brent Koehn's work area is still in the back. His new worktable will be ready by the middle of next week so hopefully he can move in at the end of the week.

Lois and Craig are settling in to the new library. This is the student work area. The service desk is through the windows to the left. This long counter has built in shelves at each end for books in progress. There is just enough space at the bottom for the carts to fit inside the shelf. The workroom is so spacious that we will not have to move carts out of the way to get around the furniture. Hooray!

Sharon Baker, AMBS volunteer, is prepared to serve YOU at the service desk. Oops! What's that stack of books to the left? We're going to have to keep up with the shelving to avoid unsightly piles of books visible above the beautiful service desk. Notice the slot in the service desk to the lower left? This is the book drop. Books slide into at receiving area behind the desk so they don't clutter up the space on the desk. Such efficiency!

Construction Begins on Lift to Conference Room

It's been almost two weeks since my last post. My son Mark's wedding was in Newton, Kansas last week took my attention away from library moving. I've been back since Tuesday but the press of getting ready for the fall semester has kept me from blogging.

So, can you guess what this photo is? It is a picture from the north corridor of Waltner Hall. The old stairwell to the Conference Room has been torn out. You are looking from the hallway down into the back periodical stacks right about where the Mennonite Quarterly Review used to be shelved.

Bob Yoder and his assistant from DJ Construction have prepared the base for the new stairway that will go up to the Conference Room. The top of the stairs will be a landing from which you can enter the office of Brent Graber, John Rempel or Erland Waltner or you can go directly into the Conference Room. This landing area used to be the office of Barb Nelson Gingerich, Assistant to the Institute of Mennonite Studies. Barb's new office in the south wing was formerly the old bookstore sales room.

A lift will be installed in north hallway just to the right of the new stairs. This will provide access to the Conference Room and offices for people who cannot manage the stairs. The work will not be completed for the fall semester so classes have not been scheduled to meet in the Conference Room.

This is a view down the corridor from the old library entrance. The construction workers have stacked lumber in the hallway. Not the map of the world on the wall to the right.