From The Daily Progress:
A $160 million renovation to the University of Virginia’s Alderman Library may limit access to book collections and squeeze storage and study space even tighter during the work.
Students and faculty on Wednesday and Thursday got more details about proposed renovations to the university’s biggest library. Alderman, completed in 1938, is at capacity and far out of code; library officials said replacing its book stacks and adding more classrooms and workspaces should take the building into its second century.
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The first phase of the two-stage renovation, set to begin in 2020, is still in the planning stages.
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Faculty also expressed concerns about the amount of time a large number of books would be out of general circulation while the stacks are renovated. Part of the magic of academic research, one said, is the ability to pick up a random book and connect it to current research.
[John] Unsworth [Dean of Libraries] tried to soothe fears that academic books would be pushed to Ivy Stacks and only high-circulation books would remain on Grounds. He and staff are currently cataloguing all of the books in Alderman, he said, and have a system to track books that are pulled off the shelf and used at a library desk but never checked out.
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