Students say library overdue

Originally schedued to open during this spring semester, and now said to open this summer, the sliding glass doors in the new Ina Dillard Russell Library remain closed to the public.
Georgia College & State University students say the opening is long overdue.
“I figure it is typical of GC&SU to take so long,” sophomore nursing major Beth Tarleton said. “They need to get their act together. Hopefully, I’ll get to use it one day.”
Psychology major Lindsay Kerr agrees.
“As a senior in my final semester, it has been extremely difficult to not have access to library materials,” she said. “It’s imperative that the library opens so students, especially seniors, can have all the services of the library, not to mention a quiet place to study.”
Library officials say they’re waiting on a Certificate of Occupancy, which will allow the public inside.
“The codes are rather extensive and sometimes certain issues come down to a matter of interpretation,” said Project Manager Mark Bowen. “Since the person who initially reviewed and approved the drawings is not the person who does the field inspections and issues the final Certificate of Occupancy, sometimes the field inspector interprets codes differently and requires changes, or sees certain situations the reviewer did not see.”
The State Fire Marshall issues a Certificate of Occupancy once a building has been found in compliance with all fire code issues. Plans for a building must be submitted to a state agency for approval in meeting fire and life safety codes before construction may begin.
According to Bowen, the majority of the things the field inspector noted were items that the contractor simply needed to add – extra fire caulk to seal penetrations and adding a few more exit signs. Some unexpected additions included, closing certain openings, installing door closers in certain rooms and adding a post indicator valve, which allows local firemen to check the flow of water in the sprinkler system without going inside the building.
Several other issues have also delayed the library’s opening. Still on the construction side of the delay is the completion of a punch list, which is a list of outstanding items or corrections the contractor has to complete. According to Bowen, the list is now 90 percent complete and has been worked on for the last couple of months.
The last outstanding issue of delay is the delivery of custom furniture that will fill the area in the library deemed for student use. Lorene Flanders, assistant university librarian, said she’s waiting for tables, reader chairs and computer desks to arrive.

“The custom furniture was ordered after the collections were moved,” said Flanders. “The tables should be here by the end of May.”
Flanders expressed frustration over the delay the furniture has caused and communicated that many options have been considered. One option was to bring over the remaining furniture from the old library. Administrators also considered renting tables, but neither of these options proved to be beneficial enough to pursue.
The computer labs, housed in the bottom floor of the library, are very close to being ready, if not completely ready. GC&SU students have planned to decorate the labs with a “digital garage” theme, but Flanders says that plan has been put on hold.
“We felt we needed to bring the interior designers into this project,” she said, “as they have spent lots of time choosing surfaces, colors and themes over the course of the building process.”

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Apr 23 2004. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry