UNLV staff starts stocking shelves of new library

Jace Radke

Wednesday, June 28, 2000 | 10:52 a.m.

Metallic panels, dark wood work stations and a mammoth atrium that stretches seven stories to a curving metal ceiling will greet UNLV students when the much delayed $50 million Lied Library opens in January.

The building is scheduled to be turned over to the university by the state within the next few days, giving library staff about six months to get the library up and running.

"Now is the hard part," Library Manager Daryl Privott said. "We've got the building ready to go, but now we have to turn it into a library. That means moving about 2 million items including 900,000 volumes."

Between now and the opening date of Jan. 8, UNLV Dean of Libraries Kenneth Marks, Privott and his staff will be on a tight schedule making sure all the needed furniture, computers and the collection get into the building.

Once they finish they don't plan on going anywhere for awhile, Marks said.

"The life span of the building should be anywhere from 25 to 50 years," Marks said. "We have plenty of room to expand the collection to over 2 million volumes, so there is space to grow here."

The library's ability to grow is connected to its robotic book storage and retrieval system that is housed in the southern end of the building. Blue metal shelves, 30 feet tall and 25 yards wide, line the warehouse-like end of the building, with a robotic crane running on a track between each row.

Lining the shelves are 5,600 bins that can store as many as 600,000 items that are not used frequently, including older journals, manuscripts and selected government publications. The system, which cost more than $2 million, can be expanded with additional shelves to hold up to 1.2 million items, Marks said.

"This is the same technology that is used in warehouses for stores like JC Penney or Wal-Mart except we are using it on a much smaller scale," Marks said. "People will be able to go onto our online catalog and request something that is stored in the bins, and the robot will go fetch it for them.

"The request can be made from their office home or anywhere over the Internet, and the book will be waiting for them at the desk."

The only other libraries in the country using the system are at Eastern Michigan University and Cal-State Sonoma.

Other highlights of the building include suspended walkways and a three-story reading room that balances on two pillars as it juts out into the atrium.

The reading rooms on the third and fourth floors have floor-to-ceiling windows and the fifth floor has only a waist-high glass partition separating visitors from the atrium floor. From this vantage point the 96 work stations on the first floor covered by metallic canopies look like futuristic covered wagons.

The 302,000-square-foot library will have more than 350 computers available, Marks said.

"We wanted to have everything that a student needs to be able to come in, sit at a work station, and literally complete their entire assignment," Marks said. "All the Internet resources, Word, Excel and Power Point programs will be there."

On the west end of the fifth floor is a section of partitioned study areas that pushes up against floor-to-ceiling windows that overlook Las Vegas Boulevard.

With metal fixtures and panels dotting the white walls of the building, UNLV spokesman Tom Flagg likens the library to a space shuttle, but there also are touches that are subtle reminders of Las Vegas.

On the western wall of the first floor are a line of group study rooms, but in front of them are seven oversized booths reminiscent of seating at a casino showroom. Each "study booth" has outlets for laptop computers.

Another addition that seems to fit with the 24-hour mentality of the city is a 100-seat extended study area and cafe that could be available for use at all hours.

The area, near the library's main entrance, will have a separate entrance and has the potential to allow student use at all hours by swiping a card at the front door.

Scaffolding and blueprints can still be found inside the building, but Marks is optimistic that there will be no more delays in opening the library that was originally scheduled to be ready in April 1999.

Tibesar Construction, the project's general contractor, has blamed delays on faulty maps and demands for changes by the university. A temporary restraining order also put a halt to a construction phase at one point, after questions about irregularities in the awarding of the library's communication wiring contract wound up in District Court.

Despite the delays, Marks says he believes the university may now have a new centerpiece building.

"It's exciting now because the building has been completed," Marks said. "To see it take a three-dimensional shape is very exciting, and it almost makes you wish you could get the next six months out of the way. But we'll use that time to make sure that when we throw the switches in January everything will be working."