Cal Poly Starts Library Upgrade

By Esther Chou, San Gabriel Valley Tribune, Calif.

Feb. 21–Cal Poly Pomona begins construction today on a $58.5 million project to build an addition and renovate the University Library.

All six floors of the library will be improved, and the building will get an additional 101,000 square feet of space, mostly with money from Propositions 47 and 55, passed in 2002 and 2004. The library will remain open during the two years of construction, but its collections, services and staff have been consolidated on the top three floors.

The lower three floors are already cleared, and fencing for construction will go up soon.

By spring 2008, the library will have a new entrance lobby, an information commons area with computer research workstations, a two-story reading room, 24-hour research lab, five listening rooms and group study rooms.

“The underlying theme is this is designed as a people place,” said Harold Schleifer, dean of the University Library. “We’re really not focusing on being a warehouse for things.

“This will be a place where people come to because they want to, not because they have to,” Schleifer said.

School officials said there will be some inconveniences during construction. The Learning Resource Center and University Writing Center, which were on the library’s ground floor, have been temporarily relocated.

Construction noise is expected, especially when workers remove the building’s existing concrete panels, according to Leatha Elsdon, senior project manager in facilities planning, design and construction.

“It will be noisy, but there’s nothing you can do about it,” Elsdon said. “There’s really no way to mitigate it since you’re renovating an existing building.”

About 40 percent of the library’s collections — lesser-used materials and items available at other libraries — have been moved into storage.

To go inside the library, patrons will go through a temporary tunnel that leads to the elevators, Elsdon said.

Construction is expected to take up 185 parking spaces in Lot D. However, when school resumes in the fall, when the parking demand is at its highest, the new 2,438-stall parking structure should be open, according to Elsdon.

The updated library will also have wiring for computing and telecommunications technology; a full-service Starbucks with indoor and outdoor seating; and an information learning center with electronic smart boards, computer workstations and video conferencing.

With a collection of more than 3 million items, the University Library was built in 1968 with four floors; the upper two floors were added in 1989, for a total of 205,000 square feet.

—–

To see more of the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.sgvtribune.com.

Copyright (c) 2006, San Gabriel Valley Tribune, Calif.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.