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Hale Library Blog

Month: August 2018

The future of the “We Are the Dream” mural

Posted on by Brenna Leahy

A full view of the mural, which features symbols of Native American culture, including a bison; images representing black American struggle such as Martin Luther King Jr. speaking on the Washington mall; and leading Hispanic activists such as Cesar Chavez. Stars and stripes from the U.S. flag form the backdrop.

Maybe you’ve never seen it. The “We Are the Dream” mural on the fourth floor of Hale Library is not heavily trafficked, but it’s an important record of the struggle of K-State’s underrepresented students to be seen and heard.

“We Are the Dream,” which was sponsored by the Black Student Union, Movimiento Estudiantil de Chicanos de Aztlan (MEChA, a Hispanic student group), and the Native American Indian Student Body, was painted and dedicated in 1980. At that time, it was a striking focal point in the Minorities Resources/Research Center. In recent years, the space has served as the Academic Learning Center, a daytime study location for student athletes. 

A man stands on a ladder at right with his hand outstretched to work on portraits of a Hispanic family that are featured in the mural.
Harold Carter started the “We are the Dream” painting in May 1980. He was a senior in landscape architecture when the mural was dedicated that fall.

This summer, the “We Are the Dream” mural was damaged in the May 22 fire, along with the rest of the building. In fact, the Academic Learning Center staff, led by Liane Fowler, assistant director of Student Academic Services, was the first to smell the smoke in their space directly in front of the painting.

Their area is located on the opposite side of the wall from the Great Room Murals, so the two works of art have undergone some of the same challenges. Both suffered from significant water damage and soiling, and it is imperative that the the wall between them dries out. The “We Are the Dream” mural had mold trapped behind it: While the images are beautiful, the paint created a barrier that inhibited the moisture from escaping.

An interior scene of the Academic Learning Center with the mural on the wall at left. The carpet, half a dozen round wooden tables, and black office chairs are covered in plaster debris.
The Academic Learning Center was very near the site where the fire started on the roof and suffered extensive water damage. May 24, 2018.

Rachel Gilberti, the chief conservator at John Canning Company, has been working with the damaged mural since June 22, after her company was contacted by Julia Mathias Manglitz, the preservation architect with TreanorHL. 

“The ‘We Are the Dream’ mural is painted on burlap that was incorporated in the original 1927 building construction, so that’s been there for a long time,” Gilberti said. “When they made the mural in the early ’80s, they came in and painted over everything that was existing. So, in reality, that surface was never really prepared for a painting.”

Two women in yellow construction vests sit on metal scaffolding as they remove a section of the mural from the wooden planks behind it that run horizontally across the length of the wall.
Conservationists carefully remove the mural in sections. The squares on the painting are facing paper, which is made of mulberry fibers and helps protect the surface as the painting is handled and moved. August 6, 2018. 

“Another challenge is that we have multiple types of adhesives going on behind the burlap. There’s the original adhesive used when the burlap was installed, and over the years, as the seams started coming apart, they started injecting other adhesives on the seams. There are 15 pieces of burlap, so a lot of the seams have a different type of adhesive, and each type reacts differently.”

Gilberti and her conservation associates have removed each section of burlap from the wall, which will allow air to reach the wall behind the painting and dry it out.

The “We are the Dream” mural has been moved in pieces to another floor in the library and spread on tables so the conservationists can clean them.

Two women wearing white hard hats and yellow construction vests lean over large brown rectangular panels of the murals spread on library tables so they can carefully remove debris.
After deinstallation, the painting was laid out face-down on tables in the library so conservationists Grace Moran and Juliana Roy could clean the burlap on the reverse side. August 10, 2018. 

However, the Libraries administration’s hope that the mural won’t remain in pieces. It will be safely stored by John Canning Company in a climate-controlled space until it can be reinstalled in a clean, renovated Hale Library. 

“They are salvageable,” Gilberti said. “Every piece of art is salvageable. It’s not one of those things. Conservators are here for exactly that reason, to salvage the artwork and preserve what the original artist’s intent is. So they will be saved.”

When asked about the “We Are the Dream” mural, Dean of Libraries Lori Goetsch noted that it’s an important part of K-State’s cultural history.

“We love having it as part of Hale Library and look forward to its restoration,” she said. “The fact that this mural celebrates diversity and progress at K-State makes it an important piece of work to be treated with respect and preserved as well as it can be.”

A woman sits on yellow scaffolding several feet off of the ground in front of a section of the mural featuring large red and white stripes and portraits of an Hispanic man, woman, and infant.
August 6, 2018. 

The mural has been an important symbol to many K-Staters over the years. In May 1993, students gathered around the mural to mourn the death of Hispanic activist and leader Cesar Chavez, who is pictured in the painting.

The Kansas State Collegian reported that members of HALO, (Hispanic American Leadership Organization), sang, listened to music and talked about Chavez’s impact on their lives in front of the “We Are the Dream” mural.

Elsa Diaz, the president of HALO at that time, said the mural is significant to minorities on campus because it is the only thing on campus that can give them a sense of belonging. “The mural means a lot to a number of people,” Diaz said. “It is important to people who want to come and worship their heroes.”

A panoramic shot of the room without the mural: Wooden planks run lengthwise along the top two-thirds of the wall while the bottom third is exposed stone.
The fourth floor space after the “We Are the Dream” mural was deinstalled. August 21, 2018.

 

Saving the Great Room murals

Posted on by Sarah McGreer Hoyt

The Great Room murals, painted in 1934 by David Hicks Overmyer, are the most iconic works of art on the K-State campus

During the fire, some of the most serious damage occurred in the Great Room ceiling immediately above the murals. Water from both the sprinkler system and from the firefighting efforts on the roof saturated the wall and dripped over the surface of the paintings. Then, in the following days, the plaster and masonry wall behind the mural absorbed a large amount of water that was still flowing through the building.

Hale Library Great Room – 07/20/2018 – Spherical Image – RICOH THETA

Early June

Since early June, the future of the Great Room and its murals have been in the hands of Julia Mathias Manglitz, preservation architect with TreanorHL.

Manglitz examined the murals post-fire. At that time, she worked from a lift to document soiling and streaking on the paintings that resulted from sap running from wood trim directly above. The murals were also stained by dirty water that came from the attic. Additionally, Manglitz discovered areas where paint was cracking and areas that were already exhibiting very small areas of paint loss.

A woman with one hand resting on red metal scaffolding wears a white construction hat and a yellow safety vest. She stands in the foreground of the Great Room while workers in the background examine the murals on the walls.
Manglitz, a preservation architect with two decades of experience, majored in aeronautical engineering in undergrad. “My bosses at TreanorHL like to joke with people: ‘And this is Julia, our resident rocket scientist.’” July 20, 2018. 

When public information officer Darchelle Martin spoke with Manglitz in late July, Manglitz explained that the murals are painted directly on plaster that is attached directly to the masonry walls. In other words, the paint needs to adhere to the plaster, and the plaster needs to adhere to the walls.

“If we lose the plaster, we’ve lost the paintings as well,” Manglitz said. “So I inspected the murals as closely as I could by doing what’s called ‘sounding.’ When we work with materials like plaster and stone, we tap on them with a rubber mallet, and depending on what sound comes back to us, we can tell if something is well-bonded. Hollow sounding plaster is an indication that layers of plaster are starting to delaminate from each other or from the masonry. On my initial evaluation, even though I wasn’t seeing plaster coming away from the walls except in small areas, what I found were large areas that sounded hollow.”

A line drawing of cross sections of the library building indicates where the fire occurred on the roof, the directions from which water entered the building, and how water flow impacted the murals.
“That hollow area was worse once I got near and below the fourth floor line,” she said. “The Great Room is a two-story space, and the fourth floor meets on the back side of this wall. So the water that hit the fourth floor was then funneled back into the plaster and masonry. The entire thickness got wet; it’s not just where it ran down the face of the wall.” 

Late June

Between concerns for paint loss and the potential for plaster loss, Manglitz decided to contact a conservation contractor as quickly as possible. Based on her experience working with John Canning Company on the extensive renovation and restoration of the Kansas Statehouse in Topeka, she recommended they be brought onto the project.

Rachel Gilberti, chief conservator at John Canning, has been working in Hale Library since June 22.

Once Gilberti joined the project, more intensive mapping of the mural damage began. By this time, scaffolding had been erected so they could finally make a thorough, up-close examination. They discovered small areas of plaster deformation where it was starting to delaminate from the wall. Other areas of the paint were marked by a fine pattern of dense cracking called craquelure.

At right, a woman wearing a white hard hat scans the surface of a mural with a hand-held black light device.
A black light allows Gilberti to see damage not visible under normal lighting conditions. July 20, 2018. 

“Water escapes through the cracks, which is a good thing, but sometimes the paint can come off, too,” Manglitz said.

Gilberti also noted that it’s important that the wall needs to dry at a stable rate. “If it starts to dry too quickly, the layers begin to separate from one another,” she said. “It’s also important to have the wall dry from both sides and meet in the middle. If it dries just from the back, all of the salts in the stone get pulled into the front and the material on the surface of the stone will come out.”

It could be a long time before the walls are thoroughly dry.

“The walls are fourteen inches thick, and the general rule of thumb for drying mass masonry is one inch per month,” Manglitz said. “That said, it doesn’t have to be perfectly dry before we start the conservation process to visually restore the appearance, but we needed to get it to the point where we feel like it’s safe.”

A woman with one hand resting on red metal scaffolding wears a white construction hat and a yellow safety vest. She stands in the foreground of the Great Room while workers in the background examine the murals on the walls.
We work with sculpture, murals, paintings, anything that’s in the architectural art realm all over the United States. I’ve been doing this almost 14 years in Europe and the United States. It’s a lot of travel, but you go where the art is, and it’s a great pleasure to see all of this beauty that’s spread throughout the country.

Late July

When the wall started to dry, additional small areas of paint began to flake off. Gilberti and her team began a triage campaign to repair small areas of damage and prevent others from worsening.

They used syringes to insert thermoplastic adhesive where they found paint cracking and peeling. Once the adhesive seeped in, they placed a clear piece of mylar over it and heated it with a small iron to get it to set. The process helped them keep the paint layer in place and on the wall.

In the foreground at right, a woman wearing a white hard hat and yellow safety vest applies a white substance onto the wall at left, while in the background, another woman observes the process.
Gilberti oversees conservation specialist Grace Moran administering the thermoplastic adhesive. July 20, 2018. 

As they monitored the drying-out process and addressed the paint delamination, they noted that different colors of paint reacted differently.

“Each color, each pigment in itself has unique traits,” Gilberti said. “Some pigments have less binding in them. All the reds in general are more sensitive pigments, so they react differently, especially to water. Greens are also very sensitive. White is a very stable pigment, so paints mixed with white did very well. The ones that don’t have that extra binding power are what we tried to stop from flaking with the thermoplastic adhesive.”

August

Since the beginning of their efforts to preserve the murals, Manglitz and her team have been collecting data regarding how wet the walls are. Initially, they could only take measurements at the surface, but since then, they’ve inserted probes seven inches or eight inches into the masonry to determine the moisture levels inside the walls.

In a detail from the art deco style "Arts" mural, an actor in flowing maroon robes extends one arm while the other hand is wrapped around his torso in a dramatic gesture.
Metered moisture readings indicate that the surface of the art mural is around 30%, but the in-wall moisture content at the floor level is at 90%, which is very wet for masonry. “This is the most fragile mural, the one we’re most concerned about,” Manglitz said. “We can’t remove the varnish until we’re more confident that it’s stable.” July 20, 2018. 

“Once we determined that the easternmost mural, Industry, was dry and stable enough, we were able to do a surface cleaning to remove the drips from the wood trim above without having paint actively flake off,” Gilberti said. “After that we began removing the varnish coating.”

The protective varnish was applied the last time the murals were cleaned and restored in 2011. Stripping that layer will increase the breathability of the wall.

As the process of stabilizing, drying, cleaning and stripping the murals of varnish continues, Manglitz and her team have several important questions to weigh regarding next steps.

Close-up of the streaking on the surface of the "Arts" Great Room mural which features a female violinist with shoulder-length brown hair.
Detail of the Arts mural. July 20, 2018.

“We need to decide when it’s appropriate to do the conservation work on the murals given amount of repair that has to be completed in the rest of the space and above this space,” she said. “Roof repairs come with the risk of water infiltration, so we’ll be asking ourselves, ‘What can we do to protect the murals? When do we think it’s appropriate to move forward with conservation? What should the sequence be?’”

Even though those questions haven’t been fully answered yet, Gilberti is confident that they will find a way forward to ensure the future of the Great Room murals.

“Every piece of art is salvageable,” she said. “Conservators are here for exactly that reason, to salvage the artwork and preserve what the original artist’s intent is. It’s not one of those situations where they’re going to disappear: They will be saved. We’ve just got to assess as we go. The murals will have damage, but we are here to mitigate that.”

 

But what about the Great Room?

Posted on by Sarah McGreer Hoyt

Perhaps the most-frequently asked question we’ve received since the fire is “Will the Great Room be okay?”

The answer is a complicated yes.

Charred insulation hangs from a hole in the ceiling between two large oak beams.
The fire came through the ceiling in two locations on the south side of the Great Room.

Historic Farrell Library, the original 1927 library building, sustained significant damage, and it has been a long and difficult process to determine the next steps for preserving the structure.

The fire started in the roof just south of the Great Room, and it spread quickly, so it was difficult to isolate and extinguish. Because the room was at the center of the firefighting efforts, it took on a significant amount of water from both the firefighting and the sprinkler system. Since the building materials in Farrell—plaster, limestone, wood—are all highly porous, they absorbed a lot of water.

TreanorHL, an architecture firm with strengths in historic preservation, and John Canning Studios, a conservation/preservation studio, have subcontracted with Belfor Property Restoration, our emergency recovery team. The two organizations are assessing the damage and executing the subsequent recovery processes to aid in returning the space to its original state.

Some metal scaffolding sits on the elevated plywood floor directly under the Great Room's ceiling and wooden beams.
The Great Room is filled with scaffolding that supports a plywood floor. From this height, crews can reach the ceiling to assess the extensive smoke, water and mold damage.

Connecticut-based John Canning Studios has worked across the country on projects such as the White House and the US Treasury Building. In Topeka, they installed plaster beams and capitals in the Kansas Statehouse that were part of the original plans but never executed. They also completed extensive plaster repairs in 100 spaces throughout the capitol.

On July 20, Darchelle Martin, public information officer, spoke with Dave Gough, John Canning Studios’ historic preservation manager.

A man in a hardhat and yellow construction vest leans against red metal scaffolding in the Great Room.
Dave Gough, John Canning Studios’ historic preservation manager.

Gough, who has been with Canning for more than 10 years, arrived in Manhattan on July 5 to assess the damage. Since then, their top priority has been drying the space, but the process must happen slowly in order to prevent additional damage.

Currently, they’re working on removal of architectural paint. Gough said that paint acts as a barrier that keeps moisture from evaporating, so eliminating the paint from the walls, columns, and capitals (the ornamental plaster at the top of the columns), will help the walls dry more quickly.

He also explained that a lot of plaster delamination has occurred throughout the space: The top, protective layers of plaster were compromised by the water, and the exposed surface is much more porous, which increases the ability of the wall to breathe and dry. The loss, while unfortunate, is repairable.

“Right now we are in defensive mode, especially regarding the murals,” Gough said. “We’re trying to stop any more damage from occurring.”

A man in a white hardhat and yellow construction vest faces a wood beam and examines it with a flashlight.
Gough examines a section of oak woodwork on the Great Room ceiling.

Once the drying process is further along, the focus will shift to preserving the space and restoring it as much as possible to its original state. The paint colors, the light fixtures and all other components of the room will be examined in historic photos and analyzed through scientific methods, too, so they can determine what it looked like in its very earliest days. The option to restore the room to a more historically accurate appearance is being explored.

“We will take paint samples from the painted surfaces and make an analysis under a microscope,” Gough said. “We will find out what the original historic colors were, in order to learn what the original architect’s design intent was. There’s a lot of science involved in what we do.”

In a vintage black-and-white photo of the Great Room, students study at large wooden tables. The building's heavy wooden ceiling beams, ornate light fixtures, and leaded glass windows are visible.
The Great Room, shown here in the late 1930s, used to feature ornate light fixtures. They were removed several decades later.

Plaster and paint are just two of the materials that will be preserved. The team has a complex system in place to make sure all of the oak woodwork in the room is restored.

“We’re removing all the wood in pieces,” Gough said. “We catalog it, we’ll clean the backside of it and get rid of any biological growth, such as mold and mildew. Then we’re going to strip the front of it, preserve it. Finally, the wood will all be stored until the rest of the space has been repaired and it can be refinished and reinstalled.”

Gough said that the bookshelves and bookcases in the room are all oak, too, but they’ve determined that not all of the material is original to the room. Only the portions that are original will be salvaged and receive the same treatment as the oak beams and other ornate woodwork.

Hale Library Great Room – 07/20/2018 – Spherical Image – RICOH THETA

“It’s going to be a time intensive job,” Gough said. “There is a lot involved in keeping it organized and keeping the pieces together. It’s a process of reverse engineering, taking it apart piece by piece, preserving it, and making sure it all goes back together in the same place. It’s going to be quite a feat.”

The timeline is equally complicated.

“We don’t know yet when it can go back up,” he said. “It depends on a lot of circumstances, like how dry the building is and how quickly the roof and ceiling can be rebuilt. They’ll also put in a fireproof ceiling and venting. Once all that construction is done, we’ll hope to be back on site and start reinstallation.”

A close-up view of an acorn the size of a volleyball that's carved out of oak and affixed to one of the ceiling beams in the Great Room.
Decorative elements of the Great Room, including carved wooden features like this acorn, will be preserved.

In our next post, we’ll tackle another big question: “What will happen to the Great Room murals?”

Hale Library and IT services continue availability for upcoming school year

Posted on by Sarah McGreer Hoyt

Obviously, we’ve been thinking about the Hale Library fire all summer. Like, constantly.

We recognize, though, that some K-Staters spent the last three months in far-flung locales, thinking about internships, summer jobs, beach vacations … *sigh*

But pretty soon, a lot of folks will return to campus and wonder how life will change without Hale. While tons of general information is available on the Hale Library Recovery Plan website, we’d like to address some specific questions here.

For example, where will you go if you need help with Canvas? What will you do if you need to borrow a laptop or projector? The IT Help Desk and equipment checkout, both formerly on Hale’s second floor, are now in the K-State Union.

The IT Help Desk is now on the second floor Cat’s Pause Lounge. 

And what if you need access to Adobe Creative Cloud, iMovie or Auto CAD? Why, you’ll head to the NEW Media Development Center, of course! They’re opening in Seaton Hall 1 on August 20.

Mourning the loss of your favorite table in Hale Library? We’re certain you’ll find a new home base in one of our many alternate study locations, like the Math/Physics Library.

A smiling library employee stands next to the large purple Library sign at the entrance to the Math/Physics Library. The Math/Physics Library in Cardwell Hall is one of several branch libraries on campus.

Basically, what we’re saying is that services and amenities formerly available in Hale Library have been relocated.

For a directory of all of the important spots, just visit the K-State campus map. You’ll see where you can

  • Print
  • Get help from a librarian
  • Save money by borrowing textbooks on reserve
  • Study with classmates
  • Find a peaceful location to escape your classmates

It’s all there, listed right under “Hale Recovery.”

(And speaking of printing: Students now get $20 of free printing per semester. That’s twice as much as in previous years!)

Now, while all of our online library resources are available, most of the 1.5 million Hale Library books and other physical materials will not be available during the 2018-19 academic year.

What to do? Use interlibrary loan! Our free interlibrary loan service gets the the books and articles you need by borrowing them for you on your behalf from other libraries.

A smiling student takes a book from a seated librarian at a Library Help desk in the Student Union.
Once your interlibrary loan arrives, you can pick it up at Library Help in the Union or one of our branch library locations. Need a journal article or just one chapter in a book? You’ll receive an email when a scanned, digital version is ready for you to download! 

Unfortunately, we usually aren’t able to provide textbooks through interlibrary loan, but be sure to check whether we have your textbook on reserve at Library Help in the Union. Borrow it for a short period, scan what you need, save money, repeat!

If you need help looking for that textbook or have any questions we haven’t addressed, contact us through Ask a Librarian. We are still here to help you! Your K-State Libraries are so much more than buildings. We’re #Family!

Nearly 100 employees wearing purple Hale Library t-shirts gather for a group photo on the grass in front of the Hale Library building.
More than 100 K-State Libraries and IT Services employees have been relocated across campus since May, but we’re still here to help you!

 

Book Report: Wet materials and new warehouses

Posted on by Rebekah Branch

As soon as K-State Libraries and Belfor Property Restoration employees were allowed back in Hale Library after the fire, we removed wet books as quickly as possible.

Several weeks ago, we wrote about that process: books were packed out of the building and stored in freezers on campus until they could be shipped in refrigeration trucks to a Belfor facility in Fort Worth, Tex.

Two weeks ago, Kathryn Talbot, preservation coordinator, and Michelle Turvey-Welch, head of metadata, preservation and digital initiatives at K-State Libraries, went down to Fort Worth to check on our materials.

Four people stand in a row smiling.
From left to right, Jeff Zieber, Kirk Lively, Michelle Turvey-Welch and Kathryn Talbot at Belfor in Fort Worth. July 23, 2018. 

A total of 3,500 boxes of wet books were sent to the Belfor facility. Once they arrived, a two-step process of freeze drying and then cleaning the books began. The boxes stay in the freeze drying chambers for about a week.

Books that come out of the freeze dry chambers with mold on them are gamma radiated to kill the mold spores, and books with pages that dry wavy are pressed flat. After that, all items that are in acceptable condition will be transported back to Manhattan and stored in a leased offsite facility dedicated to clean materials.

“We reviewed the books during our visit,” said Talbot. “We believe that at least 90 percent of the books will come back to Manhattan. Some will be discolored or have wavy pages, but they are still usable. The books that could not be salvaged were those with excessive mold growth on the interior pages.”

A women looks into a brown box next to a giant freezer and a man stands behind her surveying the stack of cardboard boxes.
Turvey-Welch surveys books that came out of the freeze drying chamber. July 23, 2018. 

Book Removal

Initially, we hoped that some of the books in Hale Library’s Stacks A-H could be cleaned inside the library. Unfortunately, the temperature and the humidity levels in the building are unreliable. It’s been difficult to ensure the consistent power that’s necessary to run the air conditioning units. As a result, more than 1.5 million items in Hale Library will be removed and cleaned offsite.

We are especially concerned about providing an environment that’s appropriate for materials from the Richard L. D. & Marjorie J. Morse Department of Special Collections. Air conditioning is struggling to reach those items on Stack G and H.

Student employees in orange vests and hardhats smile in Stack H.
From left: Student employees Patrick Dittamo, Andrew Le and Shannon Harkins were a part of the team that helped to label and inventory approximately 18,000 linear feet of shelving in Special Collections. That’s the equivalent to the length of 60 football fields! July 19, 2018.
Students use flashlights to inventory boxes of special collections' material.
Team members worked under heavy plastic sheeting that is in place to protect materials from water damage. Each shelf was labeled with location, range number, section number, and shelf number so they can be returned to the correct place. July 19, 2018.

Currently, Stack A has been emptied and Belfor is boxing and moving Stacks B and G. We are hoping to have the all eight stack levels emptied by the beginning of September.

Once those books are removed, they’re sent to offsite warehouse space. K-State Libraries has leased three separate buildings where dirty materials are stored. Executive Court, an office building near the airport that was most recently used by the College of Architecture, Planning & Design during the Seaton Hall renovation, has been filled with more than 68,000 boxes of books.

Since we have tens of thousands of additional boxes to accommodate, we’ve also leased space in the Ag Press building in Manhattan and an entire former lumber yard building on the east edge of Junction City.

Inside Ag Press building with plywood floors and boxes of books.
The inside of Ag Press has been prepped with clean plywood floors, and boxes of books are filling up the new space. July 31, 2018.
Boxes on pallets arrive at Hale Library
A fresh batch of boxes is unloaded at Hale. They will be used to pack up books and other library material. About 14,000 boxes are delivered multiple times a week. July 31, 2018.
Belfor employees take apart book shelving on the fourth floor of Hale.
With the books removed from fourth floor, Belfor takes down the shelving for removal. August 2, 2018.
Parts of book shelves are piled in an alcove.
Book shelving parts are piled in an alcove on the fourth floor. August 2, 2018.

Obviously, most of our collection will be unavailable during the 2018-19 academic year. However, we still have access to hundreds of databases and other online resources. Current periodicals are located in the Math and Physics library. Course reserves are available so students can access textbooks and other materials at Library Help in the Union. Interlibrary Loan is up and ready for requests if we don’t have what you need.

Have questions? Contact us via Ask a Librarian! And again, if you’re looking for help in person, visit Library Help in the Union, which is located across from Radina’s, or stop by one of the other library locations (Math/Physics Library, Weigel Library of Architecture, Planning & Design or Vet Med Library).

Week Ten Building Update

Posted on by Rebekah Branch

Since our last update, we’ve been hard at work creating a blank canvas on which to build our new Hale Library. Crews have removed a huge variety of items from the building, including entire rooms full of shelving components and a one-ton air conditioning unit.

Inside the building

Most of the books have been removed from the first floor, with the exception of a small portion of Stack A. Once all the books are removed from a space, crews start dismantling shelving units.

Several white metal bookshelves are lined up behind each other, exposing an empty room.
Here, only the shelving framework remains after the shelves were removed. Note the imprint of the books left behind in the soot at the bottom of this photo. July 25, 2018.
White metal bookends and shelves lay in stacks on the ground.
Metal bookends and pieces of shelving units piled on the floor of Room 117, which is the ground floor of the 1927 building. July 25, 2018.  

Crews are removing compact shelving from the third and the fourth floors, too. The majority of bookshelves are unsalvageable due to smoke and water damage.

An empty green room with pallets on the floor and tools scattered on the floor.
Room 117 was tightly packed with movable shelving units. It was an out-of-the-way study space that students valued for its isolation and beautiful natural light. July 25, 2018.

Recently we found mold growing in the wood display cases by the second floor entrance, so they had to be removed. Previously, the display cases featured rotating exhibits that highlighted the Libraries’ services and collections.

A large wooden cabinet display is being deconstructed by workers.
The cabinets next to the entrance have been dismantled. July 31, 2018.

Lead abatement has been completed in Room 212, the second floor of the 1927 building. Before the fire, this space was filled with cubicles that were occupied by iTAC employees. Large swaths of the walls are now bare of paint, which will help the plaster dry more quickly.

Room 212 a few days after the lead abatement. July 31, 2018.

HVAC Removal

Three massive heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) units on the roof that were close to the source of the fire were deemed not salvageable, so they had to be removed.

A large crane extends up past a five store limestone building.
Since the largest of the units was about eight feet tall and eighteen feet long, we brought in a crane to do the job. July 26, 2018.
The metal arm of the crane extends high above the tan, peaked roof of the library as it lifts a large, rectangular piece of the HVAC unit.
The largest unit was cut into three pieces to make it easier to lift off of the roof safely. July 26, 2018.

When the pieces were on the ground, Jeremy Sharp, a K-State facilities program manager, noticed that pieces of the aluminum had melted from the fire. To inflict that kind of damage, the heat would have needed to reach 1100 degrees Fahrenheit.

Two men stand next to a large metal rectangle unit and one man stands inside of the unit that is just as tall as he is.
The units are tall enough that grown men are able to stand inside of them comfortably. July 26, 2018.

Renovation

We are now in the early stages of meeting with PGAV, an architecture firm that is working on both damage assessment and the plans to renovate Hale Library. There is still a long road before we will be able to reopen, but it is an exciting time to start planning for the future.

A group of people sit around a table with blueprint on them.
Lori Goetsch, Dean of Libraries, and other library staffers meet with architects from PGAV, the firm that is helping with the renovation. July 19, 2018.
A group of people sit around a table with blueprints and a blonde woman is extending her arm to a blueprint to point at something.
Library employees share how they used the old Hale Library, what they loved about it and what they would change. July 19, 2018. 

We are still in the initial stages, but this gives us all a glimpse of what’s to come.