Library
offers upgrades automated checkout
By Sean Emery
On-line Forty-Niner
University
Library officials met with Associated Students
Inc. last week to present their plans for
a $19 million addition and renovation project.
Funded by Proposition 47, which passed last
November, the purpose of the project is
to reorganize the way the Library stores
and retrieves material, as well as upgrading
the infrastructure of the West Library.
It is estimated that the project will take
three years to complete.
“Our goal is to significantly improve services
to students, faculty and the community by
creating more pleasant study surroundings,”
said Roman Kochan, dean of Library Services.
The centerpiece of the project is the creation
of the Automated Storage and Retrieval System.
The system, which was created by HK Systems,
will allow the Library to have a place to
store infrequently used materials, back
files of periodicals, items that are vulnerable
to theft and destruction and archival collections.
“[The system] is a four story structure
which will be constructed alongside the
Library, at the back of the building,” said
Henry Dubois, the associate director in
the library administration. “It would contain
a robotic forklift, shelves and bins of
books that are placed into automatic storage
and retrieval.”
The Automated Storage and Retrieval System
will also allow for the retrieval of items
from the archive by students and faculty.
Items stored in the archive can be looked
up in the Library’s COAST system.
These items will be marked as “storage”
and, once requested by the individual using
the system, will be delivered to the circulation
desk within five minutes of the request.
“This is a system which libraries are beginning
to adopt quite widely. Twelve years
ago, [CSU] Northridge was the first academic
library in the U.S. to have this device.
It had been used in industry and pharmaceutical
companies and various other applications,
but it had never been used in libraries,”
Dubois said. “It has been in use there for
12 years, so it is proven technology.”
Dubois said that the Cal State Long Beach
archival system will be known as ORCA, online
remote collections access, “in keeping with
our beach theme.”
The project will also involve various renovations
within the Library. These include
the building of an Internet café,
a new main lobby design that includes public
bathrooms, more group study rooms, more
electrical outlets, computer cabling and
wireless access points.
As part of the project, the building that
is now the East Wing of the Library will
be and turned into faculty offices.
Library officials said that will help to
resolve the problem of lack of space for
faculty offices, and will allow the Library
to move out of a building they view as being
too old for their purposes.
Dubois stressed that since the funds for
the project are from Proposition 47, it
will have no effect on the school budget.
“Because this is bond money, it’s not related
to the current state budget crisis,” Dubois
said. “In fact, the governor has indicated
[that] he wants bond projects to move forward
rapidly because it means that more people
will be employed.”
According to Kochan, the library will work
to make sure that construction will not
interfere with the ability of students and
faculty to make use of Library Services.
“Our challenge is going to be planning this
in a way in which it is not all happening
at once,” Kochan said. “We do not plan to
have any parts of our collection unavailable.”
These renovations and additions will be
the first for the Library since 1994, and
will be the biggest since the West Library
was constructed in 1971. Library officials
hope that the project will be completed
by the end of 2006.
“[The project] will provide for this building
for another generation,” Dubois said. “It
will provide for our future students and
their needs. These are needs that
we wouldn’t have been able to address without
this project.”
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