Interim plans for library questioned by prospectives

By Nicole LaPrade

The impending demolition of Orradre Library is leading prospective students and parents to question student tour guides about access to study space on campus while the new library is being built.

Library facilities are a key part of the tours led by student employees in the undergraduate admissions office. Construction on the new library is scheduled to begin later this year.

According to Miranda Niemoth, assistant director of undergraduate admissions, reactions to upcoming construction was mixed during student receptions and preview days.

"The underlying concern is that there's not going to be one place for my son or daughter who starts at your campus next year to be studying in," she said. "So, I think it's much more of a space concern than anything else."

During tours, each guide takes a slightly different route, but touches on key aspects of student life at Santa Clara. One of those aspects discussed is the library and its upcoming construction.

Senior Brad Mills said he always takes his tour groups into the library to see the construction model.

"I crowd around that. I say, all of what you're seeing right now will be gone come this summer. And I got into what the new library is, why we're building a new library -- because we want more study space. We want a more modern facility. We want more group study space," Mills said.

A common question for Mills, and other guides, is what alternatives are being offered during the interim period.

"There's a little bit of apprehension in that sense, but I've never had anyone react negatively," Mills said. "I don't think at all that it would be something that would prevent someone from coming to Santa Clara."

Though sophomore tour guide Brian Ross doesn't take tours in Orradre, people ask about facilities.

"All we do is go through and explain the options that will be available to them," he said. "The reaction is mixed. I think that there are some parents that don't understand that the library is less of a resource now and more of a study space."

Mills and Ross, along with other guides, emphasize study spaces that will be opened on the first floor of Nobili Hall, and the storage of library materials in the Automated Retrieval System.

"When I first saw it, it wasn't the prettiest thing I'd ever seen," Haley Tucker, admitted student from San Diego, said of Orradre. "I think that it will be better when it opens again and I think that they're making accommodations pretty well, so I wouldn't be bothered by it at all."

Following the Preview Days weekend, Tucker was almost sure she would choose Santa Clara.

"It's not off-putting or something that would make me not what to go to this school. It's pretty enough, even with the construction. I think its fine -- the alternate study spaces that they're going to make and stuff. It's fine. It doesn't make me not want to go here, by any means," Tucker said.

Admissions allows the student guides discretion on their tours.

"They didn't really tell us what to tell people. They tell us what's going on and we choose from that," Mills said.

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