Recognzie
this place? Not likely. It's the basement of Hesburgh Library
following a nearly two-year renovation.
The gutted and rebuilt lower level reopened in late August,
2003.
Gone are the Formica booths and vending machines of The Pit
snack area (the machines are now in a room on the first floor)
and the maze of blank corridors and windowless offices. Many of
the offices belonged to non-library operations that have been
dispatched to other locations on campus.
In addition to its elegant furnishings, the area features compact
shelving, which is an increasingly popular storage system. There
are no permanent aisles between the shelves. To get to a book,
the seeker turns a crank that pushes the shelves apart.
The basement was the only level of the 40-year-old library strong
enough to support the extra weight of books stored on compact
shelving. The system is so efficient that it's expected to increase
the library's capacity for print materials by roughly one-third.
By 2004 the basement -- or "lower level," as library officials
prefer to call it -- is expected to hold more than half-a-million
volumes, including virtually all of those currently shelved on
the fourth and fifth floors and half from the 13th.
The basement also contains storage space for Rare Books and
Special Collections and the Microtext and Government Documents
collection, formerly on the first floor.
The entire space is equipped for both wired and wireless access
to the Internet, and there are four group-study rooms and six
study booths.
The make-over constitutes Phase I of a long-term renovation
of the library. The project was underwritten with part of a $16
million benefaction from the estate of William J. Carey '46, the
largest estate gift in Notre Dame history.
* * *
(October 2003)
