Administrators await more donations before building new library.

By Nicole LaPrade

Demolition for Orradre Library may be pushed back from its original date of summer 2005 to the following year due to a lack of funding, university officials say.

"When the total cost of the new library ($82.1 million) is pledged, construction can begin," said Joe Sugg, assistant vice president of operations.

Currently, $25 million has been officially pledged and the school expects another $21 million in the near future. But at its current fund raising pace, demolition would not begin before summer of 2005, says Chief Information Officer Ron Danielson.

Once President Paul Locatelli, S.J., signals for the demolition of Orradre to begin, construction of the new 184,000 sq. ft. library will take approximately three years, according to university planners. Construction for the Automated Retrieval System, the structure between Orradre and Malley, is currently on schedule and should be completed this December.

In January, library staff will begin moving library materials that will be stored in the ARS even after the construction of the new library is completed such as microprint, microcards, older periodicals and government documents.

Other library materials won't be moved into the ARS until just before the demolition of Orradre and construction of the new building begin-- according to current Orradre Librarian Liz Salzer.

The ARS will house all the library collections except certain reference collections, course reserve materials, current periodicals and the microfilm and microfiche that are stored in cases during the construction of the new library building. Those items will be moved to the interim library space, Salzer said.

"We are still in the process of planning where the interim library space will be, but we will do the best we can to make sure that services that are currently offered to students will continue to be offered whether they are at the interim space or another," said Fred Gertler, head of customer services at Orradre.

As long as Orradre remains open, the ARS will have little impact on students because most of the collections will remain in Orradre. But when the time comes to move into the interim space and all the collections are moved into the ARS, the library staff will coordinate retrieving materials from the system based on the needs of students.

Sugg has about eight potential locations for the interim library in mind which all depend on the status of other construction projects at the time needed.

Currently, the most ideal locations for the interim library would be in Nobili Hall or Kenna Hall, both of which may become available when either the new Jesuit community or the new Leavey Business School is completed.

Other options include using new and existing space in Benson, building a second story above the library, or creating a temporary building in the mall between Benson and Orradre.

All Information Technology offices and Media Services resources will eventually be moved into the new library and eventually the archaeology lab will be moved into the observatory.

Student services and the circulation desk will be in one location during the interim library period, but it is possible that the back room offices and staff, people that don't directly deal with the students, will be in a separate location.

It has yet to be determined where the pickup location for materials that are requested by students to be retrieved from the ARS will be, but library officials say that it will likely be at the circulation desk in the interim library, according to Salzer.

As far as computer lab space is concerned, the Kenna lab will remain open, but other lab space is dependent on the interim library space available. All the computers in the interim library would be for applications and electronic resources, whereas the computers in the Orradre lab are the only ones in the library that are equipped with applications.

According to Gertler, there's yet to be discussion of the possibility of providing shuttle services to the Martin Luther King library at San Jose State Univ., but since Santa Clara is a member of the LINK + system, Santa Clara students would be able to use their library and even borrow materials. And many San Jose State students took advantage of Santa Clara's Orradre resources towards the end of construction of their new library.

*Contact Nicole LaPrade at (408) 554-4546 or nlaprade@scu.edu.