Renovations in the Old Library

The electricians have begun deconstruction and rewiring in the old library workroom. The ceiling has been removed in Brent Koehn's former work area and temporary lights have been installed. Some of the wall by the old book dumbwaiter has been torn out. The dumbwaiter will be completely removed to open up more space in that area.

The constructions workers can't go any further until all AMBS stuff is out of the library. So, the push is on to remove the last pieces of shelving from the old reading room. On the right you can see the lift that will soon provide access to the Conference Room and upper office suite.

The biggest job remaining is my office. There are two problems. First, the furniture in my new office cannot be finally assembled until some missing parts arrive. Second, I have been in my current office over twenty years and I cannot move without major weeding. I have 13 file drawers jammed in that office and I need to reduce to no more than four lateral file drawers. I welcome the opportunity to clean out but it takes time since old files bring back so many memories. I definitely want to move tomorrow even if it means working off a cart in the space outside my office!

Library Open for the Fall Semester

It's been a busy two weeks since the party in the library. In that last week, the maintenance staff installed lamps on the tables and connected the power and data to the floor boxes. Construction trash was removed and final clean-up completed. Toilet paper units and soap dispensers arrived for the bathrooms. We got a cart to receive books left in the book drop by the front entrance. I have a long list of unfinished tasks but I won't bore you!

The fall semester began last week with two days of orientation and the start of classes on Thursday, September 6. Students and faculty are thrilled with the new library and are coming in droves to study here. We have lots of visitors who want to tour the facility. On Tuesday the local Central District Conference pastors met here and I showed them through the library.

Today I was finally able to take some pictures again. This is the computer lab area with adjacent study tables.

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.

Site Work and Landscaping

A couple weeks ago, workers from the the landscaping subcontrator, Lovisa and Barone, began preparing the site for planting. Trees and shrubs went in the ground just in time for several good soaking rains. Reddish shrubs will screen the electrical equipment from view in this courtyard north of the bookstore.

We are looking out at a lot of mud and weeds right now with pools of of water to support the mosquito population. Seeds and plugs will be started in September when the sun is a bit lower in the sky and there is a better chance of regular gentle rains.

The site of the new building has been graded to channel the stormwater off the roof away from the building and into raingardens where it will seep into the soil. Raingardens will be established in between the wings of the building using native plants that have deep root systems for absorbing and cleansing the rain water. In heavy downpours, water that cannot be absorbed by the rain gardens will be directed north to the large area near the seminary drive where prairie grass will be planted. We have had several heavy rains in the past couple weeks so we can see that the grading is working as planned.

It will take a couple years for the plants to become established in the raingardens and the prairie restoration areas both north of the building and over the geothermal well field. During this time, we will be looking at scraggly seedlings and bare ground. Weeds will be managed by mowing before seeds develop.

The AMBS maintenance staff is prepared for the challenge of nurturing the native plants and prairie. JF New, a local firm that specializes in restorative landscaping, will provide services and advice during these first growing seasons as the plants become established. Don Yoder, retired landscape designer, is a valued volunteer who has worked on other prairie restoration projects in southern Michigan.

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.