The MacArthur Campus Library re-opened for the school year as a new two-story building. The building is part of a campus expansion project that also includes the new College of Education building next door and a new student union, The Burrow.
The library is now across the soccer field behind the Student Resources building, its former site before The Burrow took its place. Previously, it was a small, un-partitioned area forcing students to accommodate a small area and with minimal space for books, which required bookshelves on a track that were hand-cranked when not placed next to each other.
As Jeff Alexander reported for The Jupiter Courier (“FAU’s Jupiter campus has new library, student services center” 9/1/2004), the library is now 22,000 square feet, as opposed to the previous 12,000 square feet. With two stories, the library can accommodate a larger catalog, but why do the hand-cranked shelves remain?
The MacArthur Library staff plans every four years for a new library, tracking how many books they will inventory each year, and they expect in four years all of their shelves will be full, which demands that the hand-cranks remain to maximize room.
MacArthur Librarian Patricia Roshaven comments, “We were running out of space fast. Our shelves were already full.” This is largely due to a 20,000-book donation from the late FAU social sciences professor, Dr. Standford Layman, as well as an expanded selection of video tapes, DVDs, and recently music CDs. “If we were in the old library, we wouldn’t have been able to fit them in. We’d have to take out all the study tables.”
Now, instead of just study tables, students can research and work in quiet corridors on the second floor or curl up in the over-sized sofa chairs on the first floor, each with an attached arm-desk. Copier machines are in an isolated room, and computers have been moved to computer lab that doubles as an instruction lab for seminars hosted by librarians and MacArthur faculty. These seminars show how to use LexisNexis and databases when researching and takes place in a separate room so not to bother students looking through books or studying.
Roshaven hopes the seminars will inform the students but understands demand for them will not peak until later in the semester. “It’s hard to get students interested about the library until they have an assignment due. And we understand that. Library work is difficult. Once the term starts, things move fast.”
To further minimize the difficulty of such work, the library is keeping its lobby open as a 24-hour study area. The library will remain closed for the night, but students will be able to enter the lobby by swiping their OWL Cards through the electronic lock.
A list of September seminars is available at the “What’s New” section of the library’s web site at http://www.library.fau.edu/npb/wn0409.htm.
For more information about seminars and tours, or to leave a suggestion, call the Library Service Desk at 561-799-8530.
