Tuesday, May 03, 2011

No Pictures, and Not Much Knitting

Usually when life gets a little overwhelming, all I want to do is knit.  But for the last month or so, even knitting has been a little much.  All I've wanted to do is read blogs -- knitting, of course, but also adorable cute kitten blogs, cooking blogs, and even nail polish blogs!

You see, my library's four-story building is closing for 3 months, while they do some massive -- but mostly invisible to the naked eye -- renovations. Duct work will be cut out and replaced, lighting will be replaced, ceiling tile will be changed out.  And a little bit of asbestos will be removed along the way.  All of this will make our almost 40-year-old building greener.  A few weeks ago, it was decided that the carpet on the 4th floor would also be replaced -- it's the last of the original harvest-gold and is mostly held together with duct tape.  Carpeting around the stacks was discussed, but it was pointed out that if we ever moved the stacks, that would be a problem.  Another problem is that our stacks aren't 36" apart, so they aren't ADA compliant.  If the stacks were taken down, they needed to go back up compliant.

So, now we're getting new carpet and ADA compliant shelving, which also means we had to figure out how to fit all our books onto fewer stacks.  Luckily, we are in the midst of a major shift, so about 15% of our shelves on that floor are empty at the moment.  We're pretty sure everything that's up there now will fit in the new arrangement, but we won't know for sure until August.

Of course, we've also had to make arrangements to move the books (about 80,000 of them) to temporary, but accessible storage, to have a couple of temporary locations where we can still help our patrons, and to find space for everyone to work during the summer.  Add to the fact that this closure happens exactly in the middle of our largest conference, and it's very stressful!  We're almost there -- we close the library on May 13 and open in our temporary locations on May 16, but everyday brings new issues (today's: library staff use four faculty studies for storage, and everyone thought that someone else was getting them cleaned out so that new carpet can go in!)

I've got lists out the wazoo, and even knitting seems a little too complicated right now!

I need to remember to take some before and after pictures, too.....  have to add that to a list....

8 comments:

Kaye said...

Good grief! Sounds simple enough, but not really huh? Here's hoping your patrons are understanding!
Can you guys purge some of the older/not as used books? I only ask b/c I hit a book sale this weekend and scored some awesome discards.

Steven said...

I hear you on the knitting slump. I'm in one, too. Don't worry -- it will all fit. I went through a big shelving/planning thing with our new campus last summer. But I lived. Hang in there!

Rebekah said...

I'm exhausted just reading about it! Hopefully you will survive and find your way back to the needles when life isn't so overwhelming. That's the one thing I love about knitting, it will always be there waiting for me.

Chris said...

Hang in there!! Like Rebekah, I'm exhausted just reading about it...

LamoreAllure said...

At least you know you'll have your knitting waiting for you after the dust settles.
Try to keep smiling!
Linda L

Anonymous said...

I'm sure you've discussed the awesome moving stacks (UofI has some). They let you fit more shelves in because you get, say, ten shelves (call them 18" deep) in 210" (or if you need 48" to be compliant that would be 228"). There is only one aisle ... you just shift the shelving units from side to side until the aisle is between the two shelves you need to access.

Meanwhile, will you be ... oh... visiting Illinois during this renovation?

Mary Lou said...

Good luck. I just got back from a visit to San Antonio. The weather was spectacular and unusual for May, I guess. 65-75 sunny and no humidity. I know they need rain, but after our recent weather it was a real treat.

Janelle said...

I feel your pain. My library stacks are 98.something % full so we are weed weed weeding... It WILL be nice to have ADA compliance, though!