A formal grand opening of the Zimmerman Library Basement area will be held from 2 – 4 p.m. on Wednesday, April 30. President David J. Schmidly and others will speak at 2:30 p.m. April 30, 2008 is the two-year anniversary of the fire that destroyed a part of the periodical collection housed in the basement.
The fire displaced more than 100 members of the library staff as the building was smoke damaged. It came at a difficult time, just as students were preparing for final exams and library staff moved quickly to set up special reference desks and study areas in the Student Union Building and expand hours at the other three libraries on campus to help students prepare for exams.
Contractors removed all the periodicals for cleaning and gutted the basement so the entire area could be rearranged and rebuilt to make it more student-friendly. The new carpeting had just been laid last fall when a 10-inch fire suppression pipe broke as it was being tested. The entire basement area was flooded to a depth of several inches. Recovery required a complete removal of carpeting and work on dry wall throughout the area to prevent problems with mold.
The Zimmerman Basement quietly reopened last month to students as library staff worked to re-shelve the thousands of bound periodicals that have been in storage. Now everyone is ready to celebrate the 10 new group study rooms for students, the 20 new computers, the new 40-seat computer classroom and the six new microform reader-printers with attached scanners. The new compact shelving also makes it possible to expand the storage space for periodicals.