Because the campus Facilities Planning is upgrading the electrical system in our building, we lost a little space on every floor, and about half the Library's basement. We installed motorized compact shelving in the remaining basement space to maximize the storage capacity there; that propelled our decision to rearrange our collections to take the best advantage of this change. In short:
- All circulating books - 3rd floor
- All bound journals - 1st floor & Basement
Unfortunately, due to bureaucratic issues, we are not allowed to use the basement yet. Thus, the journals shelved there are unavailable to us until the Amherst Fire Department signs off on the room. Articles from those journals can be requested through Interlibrary Loan.
Also, the long-awaited elevator replacement project has begun. The north elevator in the Lederle Low Rise was replaced over the summer. They are now working (intermittently) on the one in SEL. Until they are done, we must use the elevator at the north end outside the Library to move books from floor to floor (for reshelving, e.g.). If you need to get from floor to floor in the Library, and have limited mobility, please let us know and we can assist.
Finally, we have amended the name of the Library, dropping "Integrated" because it doesn't mean anything now, and because it caused confusion for our patrons, who have been known to go by mistake to the new Integrated Sciences Building instead of Lederle to reach us. This required a lot of website editing, and I'm not convinced we found them all, so if you find "Integrated Sciences and Engineering Library" on our website, please let us know! I also changed the name of the blog - since we are now acronym-ized as SEL, we are blogging as @SEL. Hope you like the change.
