Students Find Preferred Seating

It's one thing to arrange tables and chairs on a flat sheet of paper in the design process. Over a year ago, we tried to predict where people would want to study and their preferences for study furniture. This week the furniture arrived and now we will see where people choose to sit.

The plan called for soft chairs at all the big windows in the north reading area. However, on the two sides of the room, we decided to put study tables instead of soft chairs. Today, those tables were the first ones chosen for sustained study by visiting scholar, Josh Yoder and AMBS student, Christina Litwiller.

The new photocopier was supposed to arrive today but it didn't. We expected the periodical display shelving to be completed today but the technician didn't show up. Somethings will have to wait for next week.

However, I did catch Bob Yoder, site supervisor for DJ Construction, in action. Bob has been here almost every day since ground breaking on April 17, 2006. Now he is finishing up the details of the project which today meant installing the walk-off mat in the entryway. Bob's partner today was Christopher Payne.

Bob will stay at AMBS for the renovations in Waltner Hall. DJ Construction took away Bob's trailer office out on the construction site. His new office/shop / scrap pile is in the library reading room. Next week he will direct the installation of the lift just off the hallway in the north wing of Waltner Hall. This lift will make the Conference Room handicap accessible.

Volunteers Complete Half of Shelf-Reading

For the past two weeks, we have had volunteers working to prepare the library for operation. They have moved shelving units and books. They have cleaned shelves and prepared lunches. Best of all, they have begun the huge task of taking inventory in the circulating book collection. Each card in our holdings catalog must be compared to the shelf to confirm that every book is accounted for and in the right place.

Vernard Ginguerich, retired Elkhart County pastor, has completed two weeks of shelf reading, the library term for inventory. On Monday, former AMBS Board member Bob Carlson and his wife Phyllis from the Kansas City area began work in the stacks. AMBS alumni parents Ed and Hedy Rempel from Chatham, Ontario joined the crew for the week. Rhoda Schrag, local pastor and teacher, enjoyed the detail-oriented work of shelf reading and also prepared fabulous lunches for the team using fresh local fruits and vegetables.

Willis Sutter, a retired dentist from Illinois, has taken on the tedious task of putting security strips in the circulating book collection. Lorna McDougall, AMBS faculty spouse, prepared delicious lunches every Monday. Sharon Baker, AMBS volunteer coordinator provided support with morning snacks and other logistics.

We expect a small group of volunteers next week. Please contact me if you would like to join the group even if it is just for one day.

Furniture Arrives

Last week the library tables arrived in two shipments, some on Wednesday and the remainder on Friday. Then today the upholstered chairs arrived from Sauder Woodworking. In the foreground of this picture you can see two of the study tables. They are solid cherry with a durable linoleum work surface. This is the same linoleum that is on the floor in the back hallways. We purchased the popular three-position study chairs for use at the tables. The are visible in the foreground. The wood frames match the cherry tables. This photo was taken in the central reading area adjacent to the reference collection. Two of these six lounge chairs will eventually be placed closer to the entrance in the current periodicals reading area.

The gallery/commons area has two loveseats back-to-back and six chairs arranged to form two conversation areas by the large window. In this area you can see across the courtyard to the Conference Room.

The bookstore has two chairs for customer comfort and that "Barnes and Noble" atmosphere. You can even buy coffee, fair trade, that is.

As if this was not enough excitement, we also welcomed Virgil Kilpin and crew who brought the new periodical display shelving. They are now erecting the shelving just inside the entrance to the library. Every current title will have a space on a slanted display shelf. Earlier issues from the current year are stored under the hinged shelf. There will be two rows of display shelving in front of the back periodicals and also three sections of wall shelving in the corner for the Peace Periodicals Collection.

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

Minor Moves - Back Periodicals and Videos

The next deadline the library staff faces is to prepare the lower periodical stacks for the installation of a wheelchair lift that will make the Conference Room handicap accessible. This lift will be installed off the north hallway in the area where Barb Nelson Gingerich's office is located, just outside the Conference Room. Barb will soon be moving into the former bookstore sales area in the south wing. DJ Construction is installing a window in that room in preparation for Barb's relocation.

The library's highest priority is to clear out the back periodical stacks so that DJ workers can begin demolition around the stairwell. On Thursday, Lois Longenecker and student Craig Neufeld shifted the remaining back periodical volumes to the far side of the room. Craig moved oversized bound volumes of Mennonite newspapers onto the carrels. This picture was taken down one of the aisles and shows a carrel at the far end and the compacted bound volumes on the shelves.

These back periodicals will eventually be located in the old basement book stacks. But, before that can happen, volunteers will move the gold shelving from the library reading room down to basement storage. This gold shelving will hold the back periodicals and other little used materials that have been stored in boxes during construction.

The audiovisual collection and other materials on the south wall of the lower periodical stacks also need to be moved. Craig Neufeld has already taken the videos and DVD's to their final home in the east end of the south wing of the new library. This small area of shelving behind the back periodicals will hold all of our AV collection. The adjacent room will have video viewing equipment for individuals and small groups. There is still some adjustment being done to the lighting in this area so there is a ladder in the photo and some fixtures are in pieces.

Notice that the green boxes of Student Papers and General Papers have also made their move up to this area. In the distance you can see the end of the back periodical shelving.

The AV collection includes CD's, slides, and audiotapes which will soon be shelved near the videos and DVD's. But, what about the filmstrips, LP's (what?), maps, transparencies and picture sets? Should these outdated formats be shelved on the ground floor? relegated to lower level storage? discarded? What do you think?

These moves all took place while I was participating in the Bridgefolk Catholic-Mennonite Conference and leading tours to the Mennohof visitors' center in Shipshewana. Thank you Lois, Craig and Joanne!

First Sale in the Bookstore

All week long, Christina Litwiller has pushed cartloads of books from the old bookstore around the long corridors of Waltner Hall to the new bookstore. She organized books and other merchandise in order to open the new bookstore in time for the Bridgefolk gathering which began today, Thursday afternoon.

Actually, the first sale in the new bookstore happened on Tuesday, when Mary Sue Miller of Goshen wandered in looking for a place to purchase a copy of the new hymnal supplement, Sing the Story.

AMBS is very fortunate to have an experienced bookstore manager managing the transition to the new bookstore. Christina Litwiller is a full time student from Illinois.

Major Moves Completed

The library move continued on Tuesday as books were taken from the Conference Room and the Witmarsum Room to the north wing of the new library. Debbie Musser, the Hallett coordinator demonstrates perfect book moving technique here as she unloads the blue shelves of the Witmarsum Room.

Seven sections of grey shelving needed to be taken from the reading room to the north wing of the new library. Jess Smith and Joseph Kabui from the AMBS Summer Crew separated the sections. Joseph and Matt Tschetter managed to carry two entire units into the building without unbolting the bases.

Getting the filled missles up the steps from the lower level presented an engineering challenge to Al Parton of Hallett Movers. He expertly constructed a plywood ramp along the reserve shelves to an elevated platform by the new book shelves. The ramp continued up the stairs at an angle that was not too steep for the heavy missiles. By Wednesday morning, only a few rows of back periodicals remained to be brought up from the lower level. With energy and flair, Al pushed dozens of loaded missiles up the ramp into the reading room.

While missiles waited for unloading in the south wing, Andrea Kraybill arranged back periodicals on the shelves.

By the late morning on Wednesday, only cleanup tasks remained. AMBS grad Leroy Bechler put on bookends. Sarah Farmwald of Goshen helped Al and Debbie stack dollies and missiles for loading in the truck.

Before the Hallett movers left, I showed them through the new library and the old lower books stacks where the books had been before the April 2006 move. They joined me for my first trip in the new elevator.

The AMBS Library staff is very grateful for the fine work done by the Hallett Movers at AMBS Library. Their efficiency, ingenuity, professionalism and humor made the job look easy. Thank you Debbie, Al and Blake for caring for our library collection and for the people of AMBS.

The Big Move

The big book move actually began Friday, July 20 when Debbie Musser from Hallett Movers and two assistants spent the day measuring and tagging the collection. After she measured the collection and counted the shelves, we agreed to fill six shelves in each section leaving the top shelf empty. With 25 inches of books on each 36-inch shelf, we would fill the entire north wing with the circulating book collection. The workers put a consecutively numbered sticker on each shelf. They then put the same consecutively numbered stickers on the books at 25 inch intervals. The collection was then ready for "the big move", matching the each book with a sticker on the destination shelf with the same numbered sticker.

On July 23rd, the Hallett Movers truck arrived with containers for the books (missiles), sheets of corrugated cardboard to divide layers of books, and dollies, four wheel carts on which to roll the dollies. Blue protective cardboard was taped on the doors, walls and service desk in the new building to protect from scratches. Nine temporary workers (AMBS students, alumni, and children of employees) loaded the missiles and rolled them into the new library for unloading. The morning shift worked from 7 a.m. to noon. The afternoon brought 7 more workers from 1 to 6 p.m. Blake Hallett, Debbie's nephew worked both shifts each day, setting the pace for the other workers.

By the end of the first day, the old reading room was almost emptied and those books were shelved in the north wing of the new library. By the end of the second day, the Conference Room and the Witmarsum Room were emptied. Books fill the north wing of the new library from west to east.

We expect to complete the job on Wednesday. Stay tuned.....