This blog details the three-year journey to renovate Hale Library after the May 22, 2018, fire.
This blog has allowed us to share our journey of recovery with the K-State and library communities both near and far. We will never forget the generosity and outpouring of support as we worked to rebuild and create a next-generation library.
The fire was one year ago: May 22, 2018. In the last 12 months, we’ve undertaken a recovery and restoration project of massive proportions.
The new building is beginning to take shape. While insurance is expected to cover like-for-like replacement costs, enhancements for Hale Library will require private donor support.
Today our K-State Libraries Student Ambassadors share why a next-generation Hale Library is an important investment for tomorrow’s Wildcats.
K-State librarians are devoted to helping students and researchers.
Funds from #HelpforHale will equip the new building and its Innovation Lab with technology that will take their work to the next level. Our people will be there to help them every step of the way.
I love not only the beautiful library but also how welcoming and helpful the librarians are. — Jehu Mette, graduate student, economics
Insurance will cover like-for-like replacement costs, but it will require private donor support to take Hale Library from good to great. #HelpforHale funds will create better study spaces, group study rooms and provide more white boards.
Also important for students: more outlets. When Hale Library was dedicated in 1997, our users weren’t carrying laptops, cell phones and other electronics at all times. With #HelpforHale funds, we will be able to increase the number of electronic outlets exponentially.
I love that the new Hale Library will focus on what K-State students and staff want most. — Cassie Wefald, freshman, history
It’s hard to imagine a K-State experience without Hale Library, but students like Kali Poenitske went through their entire freshman year without setting foot inside the building.
A contribution to #HelpforHale will allow us create the new Hale Library that Kali and generations of future students deserve!
I have heard from older students about how much they loved Hale Library. I’m excited to experience that! — Kali Poenitske, freshman, elementary education Hale was a place where productivity and inquiry were encouraged. I want to experience that again. — Zoe Nicolet, senior, history, philosophy, and gender, women and sexuality studies
The new Hale Library will feature welcoming environments for every student on campus, from quieter quiet spaces to improved graduate student study rooms.
Not only that, but with #HelpforHale funds, we’ll be able to extend our hours and provide a first floor that’s open 24 hours a day.
Hale is my home on campus: I’m there at all hours of the day. — Muhammad Khan, junior, biologyI usually spent at least 10 hours a week in Hale, and most of my friends did, too. — Yasameen Albasri, junior, life sciences
As we bring Hale Library back, we have a window of opportunity to make the heart of campus stronger. Renovations are moving ahead at a furious pace. A contribution to #HelpforHale now will allow us to incorporate the extra features our campus community so richly deserves.
Hale Library was where I first felt like I really fit in on campus. I’m excited to see it come back to life. — Alex Wulfkuhle, senior, family and consumer science education
What a difference a year makes! One year ago, finals week was in full swing on the K-State campus, and Hale Library was packed. This year, construction crews started tearing down drop ceilings on Hale’s second floor and framing out new walls on the first floor.
Here’s a visual tour of the latest progress. We’re hoping for an A+!
At left, Mike Haddock, Kim Bugbee, and Carolyn Hodgson prepare to hand out snacks to studious K-Staters during spring finals week 2018. At right, a pile of metal drop ceiling grid sits in the spot where they stood a year earlier. Zach Kuntz, Willie and Adam Carr (’19) staff the Library Help Desk, finals week spring 2016.Hale Library Help Desk, finals week spring 2019.
Here are a few more views of Hale Library’s main floor that will be familiar to our regular visitors.
The entrance to Hale Library’s main floor is filled with construction debris. More debris fills the east end of the main floor. The space was previously filled with computer carrels and comfortable seating.
Meanwhile, on first floor, they’ve moved past the demolition phase and have begun framing out the walls for the new Dave & Ellie Everitt Learning Commons, opening fall 2019.
In these photos, the yellow pointer on the embedded map indicates where the photographer, Associate Dean Mike Haddock, was standing and which direction he was facing.
The future welcoming entrance to the Dave and Ellie Everitt Learning Commons is located just inside Hale Library’s southeast doors.
Another view of the entrance with the exterior doors visible at left. A construction worker on an aerial lift installs insulation in one of two future seminar rooms on the south side of Hale Library’s first floor. Crews install ductwork and metal framing in the future Dave & Ellie Everitt Learning Commons. This space will feature multiple reservable study rooms for six to eight students. Another view of the Dave & Ellie Everitt Learning Commons. The glass-walled reservable study rooms will be equipped with technology so students can work on group projects, practice presentations, video conference and more. Walls are going up around a future “partner space,” a spot where campus service providers, from tutoring to financial advising, can meet with students in a convenient setting that’s open 24-hours-a-day. Construction workers operating a mini-excavator are visible through the metal framing of the future Innovation Lab.In the former Einstein Bros., a trench for new outflow pipes sits covered with plywood. The improvements were needed in order to bring Hale Library’s future cafe space up-to-code.
We hope everyone involved in spring finals week 2019 finishes strong. We look forward to seeing you in Hale Library’s Dave & Ellie Everitt Learning Commons for finals week next fall.
And congratulations graduates! Please come see us for a tour when you return to campus for a visit!
While students are buckling down in study spots across campus, we’re feeling nostalgic. If you ever wanted to capture the spirit of Hale Library pre-fire, you couldn’t find a better time than a Sunday or Monday during finals week.
Every table was packed, and every white board was crammed with notes and diagrams. The building itself seemed to hum with the sound of K-Staters prepping for exams or finishing papers.
This week we look back on some of the end-of-semester moments in which — it felt to us — Hale Library lived its fullest life.
Granted, there are K-Staters who used the building all year long, day in, day out, who claimed that finals week was for amateurs. We loved it, though, because during finals week the hard work and the camaraderie were writ large. It was on display at every table, on every floor … and sometimes even on the floor.
When there aren’t any tables, the floor works just fine. May 8, 2016.
Unexpected special guests would stop by. Sometimes it was Willie Wildcat, or at the end of the fall semester, it might be a brass band playing holiday carols. Prof. Kelly Welch from Family Studies used to show up with dozens of pizzas that she distributed to surprised and grateful students.
Willie fills in at Library Help. May 9, 2016.
Local businesses Einstein Bros. Bagels, Jimmy Johns, Mr. Goodcents, Bluestem and Varsity Donuts regularly donated food. The lines stretched the length of the second floor as students took a break for snacks, caffeine and words of encouragement from our library employee volunteers.
Last May, the KSU Foundation donated goodie bags that we distributed across Hale Library’s five floors.
A studious Wildcat poses with her KSU Foundation goodie bag. May 8, 2018. A student shows off a note of encouragement. May 8, 2018.
All of this is to say that we are keenly aware that it’s finals week once more, and we’re sad that we’re not all in Hale together.
And behind the scenes, we’ll be planning for a glorious return to Hale Library in fall 2019 when the Dave & Ellie Everitt Learning Commons opens on the first floor.
We’re looking forward to it so much. And we’ll be sure it’s equipped with so many white boards, group study spaces and all of the outlets students need for their laptops and phones — you won’t believe how many outlets!
Until then, good luck on finals, Wildcats! Everyone at K-State Libraries is cheering for you!
It isn’t often you get to make a fresh start, but this week my fellow K-State Libraries employees and I cast off the old in a Marie Kondo ritual of sorts.
After the fire, everything salvageable in our sodden and soot-stained offices was boxed up and moved into storage. We were all assigned new offices in one of ten different buildings across campus and—each according to our unique circumstances and job changes—began navigating a post-fire existence.
We all reacted and adapted in our own ways.
The same held true this week as we took turns visiting a storage facility near the Manhattan Regional Airport to sift through the boxes from our Hale Library offices that have been packed away for almost a year.
At left, Kay Rieder, a restoration specialist with Belfor Property Restoration, meets with K-State Libraries employees Robin Brown, Kendra Spahr, Jesica Sellers and Sara Kearns in the staging area where they opened their boxes. April 29, 2019.
Staff members had to decide which work-related possessions they wanted to have cleaned and which items weren’t worth saving.
Some employees found the process liberating. “Man, I should have gotten rid of that paper a long time ago,” academic services librarian Sara K. Kearns said, after offloading arm loads of files destined for the shredder.
Others—especially those who have worked in Hale Library for decades—felt a renewed sense of loss.
Most librarians I spoke with said that they had already retrieved the possessions that were most important to them when we were allowed in the building for the first time on May 30, 2018.
Just a week after the fire, we signed in with security, donned hardhats and solemnly filed through the dark, hot library carrying our flashlights. While we navigated puddles, sagging ceiling tiles and random debris, I was in disbelief at the amount of damage we found around every corner.
K-State Libraries faculty and staff members prepare to enter Hale Library to retrieve personal belongings. May 30, 2018.
In my third floor office cubicle, I grabbed framed photos, artwork, and a two-drawer wooden card catalog that sat on my desk. At the last minute, I stacked a potted plant on top of my armload.
Those few belongings went home with me. The plant—now thriving—sits on my refrigerator, where it gets a lot more sun than it ever did in 313 Hale Library.
Office cubicles in the information technology area on second floor were especially hard-hit with water damage. June 11, 2018.
Some offices were in much worse condition than mine, and those library employees salvaged very little.
“It was pretty surreal visiting the office for the first time after the fire,” librarian Melia Fritch said. “The most disturbing thing was going into to our office and feeling like FEMA had been through since there were these orange spray-painted words like ‘demo’ all over the walls. That was weird.”
Memories of that first post-fire visit came into focus this week as I watched my coworkers open their boxes.
Kearns recovered dozens of books that will be treated in the ozone chamber to eliminate the smell of smoke before she reclaims them. After making quick work of her paper files, she opened several long, flat packages wrapped in cardboard.
Two of them turned out to be prints she bought in Japan while visiting her brother.
Kearns smiles as she shows us art she hadn’t expected to recover. April 29, 2019.
“These were on the wall that water absolutely poured down when it drained from third floor to our offices on the second floor,” she said. “I can’t believe they aren’t covered in mold. They’re grimy and they need to be cleaned, but they’re totally fine.”
Senior graphic designer Tara Marintzer approached the process wondering if she’d have similar surprises. “It’s a mystery. I have no idea what I’ll find or whether there’s anything even worth saving.”
Kearns and Kendra Spahr sift through boxes of paperwork. “There’s something in here called a ‘facsimile,'” Spahr joked. April 29, 2018.
“After the fire, my new plan was to be more digital,” Marintzer added. “No more paper files.”
In all, nearly 1,000 boxes of office contents were packed out of Hale Library. The recovery crews that boxed up employee belongings didn’t always know what belonged to whom, so there has been some confusion along the way.
Kearns opened up one box marked with her name and said, “I have no idea who anyone is in these photos. This isn’t mine.”
A coworker glanced over and recognized that the images were of Kristin Hersh, lead singer of Throwing Muses, so then we knew that the box must belong to librarian Thomas Bell, who writes about the history of rock and roll. Gradually, the boxes that remain will make their way back to their rightful owners.
For employees who had a lot to sort through, decision fatigue set in.
Jason Bengtson, head of information technology services, sorts through a box while Sellers waits to check it off of the inventory list. May 1, 2019.
“I had 80 boxes to open,” Kathryn Talbot, preservation coordinator, said. “By the end, I was throwing things out a lot faster.”
As I write this, I haven’t had my turn yet to open the boxes. I don’t know what I’ll find, but I can’t think of anything that I miss.
It’s a good reminder of the most important things about the fire, though: There were no lives lost. There weren’t any injuries. Everyone came out safe.
Most things can be replaced, or—in the case of Hale Library’s interior—rebuilt so they’re even better than they were before.
When it’s time for the K-State Libraries employees to move back into our offices a few years from now, we’ll be traveling a little bit lighter. A lot of us will be working more digitally, less physically.
And, in a place of honor, my future Hale Library space will feature a healthy spider plant survivor.
Darchelle Martin and Sarah McGreer Hoyt walk out of the storage facility each carrying a single box of things they wanted to keep. May 1, 2019.
Postscript: I went through my boxes a few days after I initially wrote this post. It felt good to offload “stuff” and think instead about the ways in which working at K-State Libraries still sparks joy.
The Dave & Ellie Everitt Learning Commons opens in fall 2019. We’re so excited, we’ve done everything we can short of scaling Anderson Hall to shout it from the rooftop spire. This week we talked to the Hutton Construction superintendents in charge of making it happen.
Mike Watkins and Curt Miller, Hutton Construction superintendents, on Hale Library’s first floor. April 23, 2019.
Mike Watkins has been in construction for 17 years, including a stints working for a general contractor and as an iron worker. This isn’t his first time on the K-State campus: He worked on the Justin Hall renovation and addition in 2011.
Watkins speaks to the Illuminating Engineering Society about the Hale Library renovation project. The group took a tour of the building this week. April 23, 2019.
Curt Miller has been working in the construction field a bit longer.
“I started parking cars when I was 16 for $1.60 an hour,” Miller said. “Then I got a job working on a bridge deck wielding a 90 pound jackhammer. That paid $3.20 an hour.”
One day while he was on the job, Miller said he saw the man on the job site sitting in a pickup and told his coworkers, “I want that guy’s job.”
Miller says the historical preservation elements of the Hale Library project appeal to him. At one time, he owned a contracting business specializing in historic renovations. April 23, 2019.
He was superintendent on a small project by the time he was 21.
Both say that most of the jobs they work on are new construction and remodels; they don’t often work on buildings after a disaster. Because of the fire, the Hale Library project has required them to deal with a lot more remediation than they normally would. They’re used to dealing with asbestos, but in Hale Library they’ve had to remediate old lead paint, plus smoke and soot contaminants, too.
Of course, not all jobs are this large, either. In order to manage work throughout the 400,000-plus square feet, they have a third short-term superintendent, plus five foremen who report directly to them. Additionally, there are approximately seven or eight sub-contractors and as many as 100 workers in Hale Library on any given day.
A construction worker uses a remote-controlled mini excavator with a jackhammer attachment to tear out concrete on the first floor. April 23, 2019.
“It’s a big job,” Miller said. “But I think we have a pretty good team dynamic.”
They say that the penthouse that covers the new roof-top HVAC units has been the biggest challenge so far.
“We had to build a roof over the old roof to protect the library’s fourth floor from the weather,” Watkins said. “Then we removed the old roof and installed the floor. In a normal job, you’d start from the ground up.”
While Hale Library’s users might not find the mechanical room an exciting part of the renovation, the process of watching it come together has been fascinating.
The timeline to get the first floor done by fall 2019 is also challenging.
A typical remodel would have more time built into the front-end for the design process. With the Hale Library renovation, the schedule is compressed, and plans are evolving constantly. It requires the superintendents and their teams to remain flexible and patient.
Watkins also said it will be critical to get the “smarts and parts” in time in order to get them installed and meet the deadline.
“Those are the things like technology—and there’s going to be a lot of it on the first floor—or door handles and other fixtures that don’t get manufactured until the order is placed,” he said.
What are some of the things coming up that Watkins and Miller say we should be looking forward to?
A worker jackhammers out damaged tile in the first floor sunflower entryway. April 15, 2019.
They’re almost done with the first floor demolition, and then the framing will get underway.
They’re also working hard to get the rooftop air handlers online by May 1. Once they’re in the penthouse and functioning, they’ll help keep Farrell Library cool this summer. It will also help with air flow through the oldest parts of the building where they are working to lower the humidity and dry out the plaster.
While we were visiting with Watkins and Miller, we ran into K-State Student Ambassadors Tel Wittmer and Maddy Mash taking their own Hale Library tour, and we asked them what they thought.
Maddy Mash and Tel Wittmer on the roof of Hale Library withe the spire of Anderson Hall in the background. April 23, 2019.
“I think students are going to love all of the different types of study spaces,” Mash said. “And it will be great to have more natural light. That’s really exciting, too.”
Mash and Wittmer will be traveling across Kansas this year to talk about everything K-State, and now they’re prepared to answer questions about Hale Library.
If our readers have any questions for us or for Hutton Construction superintendents Mike Watson and Curt Miller, leave them in the comments!
Today’s Hale Library is cavernous, dimly lit, dusty and loud. Showers of sparks fly as work crews weld new pipes in place. A jackhammer clanks and stutters as they remove damaged entryway tiles.
Tomorrow’s Hale Library? It will be welcoming, well-lit and comfortable.
Having a hard time picturing it? Maybe this will help:
Right now on the first floor, workers on aerial lifts install new pipes and duct work. Metal studs cover the limestone facade of the 1955 stacks addition.
But when the Dave & Ellie Everitt Learning Commons opens on Hale Library’s first floor in fall 2019, this wall will be partially covered by white board surfaces, offering plenty of room for students to study and collaborate.
Sections of the limestone will remain uncovered, though. It’s one of the many ways the renovated Hale Library will deliver new, needed amenities for students while honoring the building’s long history.
We can picture it already–the return of the marathon white board study sesh:
Students take a break from studying for their Human Body final, December 2017.
And students will be able to access those white boards at all hours of the day because–drumroll please!–the Dave and Ellie Everitt Learning Commons will be open 24/7.
We’ll be able to close the first floor off from the rest of the building so that students can have the study space they need when they need it–even if that’s at 3:00 a.m.
Damaged sections of drywall have been removed from the old white board study area on second floor, and it’s ready for a revamp. April 15, 2019.
When the second floor opens in spring 2020, it will feature a similar white board wall.
The first and second floors of the 1927 building, Historic Farrell Library, will open during one of the last phases. When they do open, though, the amazing natural light and plaster work will take center stage.
Previously, few Wildcats ventured into these rooms as they were densely packed with collections and office cubicles.
In the renovation, they’ll be transformed into public gathering spots. The second floor (shown above) will feature current periodicals and plenty of comfortable seating.
The second floor of Historic Farrell Library has been cleaned out and is ready for its rebirth as our campus’s new living room. Previously, it was home to staff cubicles. April 15, 2019. Wood salvaged from Historic Farrell Library sits on the first floor of the 1927 building. It will be reused throughout the renovated Hale Library. April 15, 2019.
Directly below that living room space, the first floor of the 1927 building will include the same comfortable seating plus juvenile literature and curriculum materials, some of our highest use collections.
And for those of you wondering about food and drink options, rest assured that the Dave & Ellie Everitt Learning Commons will include an exciting new dining venue.
Named in honor of the Hale Family, the new café area will feature a warm, welcoming seating area with wood details salvaged from Historic Farrell Library. Visitors will be able to choose from a variety of settings in which to enjoy a meal or a cup of coffee, including comfortable lounge chairs situated around a large two-sided fireplace, a feature frequently requested by students.
We look forward to sharing more photos as these spaces come to life. If you have questions about the planned space, ask them in the comments section.
And if you’d like to help make the future of Hale Library a reality, visit our Help for Hale webpage or contact Chris Spooner, KSU Foundation Associate Vice President of Development Programs, at 785-775-2130 or chriss@ksufoundation.org.
We’ve got a big-picture update on the future of Hale Library, including a sneak peek of the Dave and Ellie Everitt Learning Commons, opening fall 2019. You’ll also find dramatic renderings of the Innovation Center and working designs for new study spaces, meeting rooms and more.
Want the latest news about insurance reimbursements? In our Q&A with Dean Lori Goetsch, she shares all there is to know about insurance and the cost of renovating Hale Library.
“I never realized how complicated it would be to negotiate an insurance settlement of this magnitude,” Dean Goetsch said. “Hale Library is so large, and it was packed with furniture and technology. The insurance adjustors and all of the various parties have been working for months to estimate the costs.”
And when will all of this happen? The building will reopen in phases, with the Dave & Ellie Everitt Learning Commons opening up first, in fall 2019.
Old meets new in a renovated first floor café space named for the Hale Family. Additional naming opportunities exist throughout the renovated building.
Of course, Hale Library won’t live its best new life without our friends and supporters. If you like what you see in the magazine preview, visit Help for Hale to join in our effort to create a next-generation library.
What about the books? Thanks to hundreds of workers who put in thousands of hours, more than 1.5 million collection items were packed out in less than 17 weeks. Until Hale Library is renovated, the entire collection will be stored in multiple air-conditioned warehouses across the region.
We estimate that all 1.5 million items could be clean by July 2019. Even better news: We anticipate that more than 99 percent of the materials will be saved.
Read more about the process of cleaning and storing more than 147,700 boxes of materials!
Melia Fritch and Cindy Logan: professors, office mates, collaborators.
Even without the building, K-State’s librarians are working hard to elevate research on the K-State campus.
Visit the magazine to read about two librarians who have forged a unique partnership with K-State’s athletic training program. Melia Fritch and Cindy Logan don’t just help students complete assignments, they equip them to excel in their chosen professions.
For K-Staters of a certain age, the big campus fire isn’t Hale Library but rather Nichols Gymnasium. Did you know that after a major conflagration 50 years ago, the limestone skeleton of Nichols Gym stood unrestored for almost two decades before it became Nichols Hall? Learn more from the latest installment of K-State Keepsakes in—where else?!—our magazine!
Be the first to learn about great stories like these! Don’t miss an issue of K-State Libraries Magazine. Click here to receive a copy in your mailbox.
The walls came tumbling down on Hale Library’s first floor last week! We have even more great shots of the demolition and the dramatic progress going on behind that purple construction fence.
A light in the old vending machine alcove shines through a newly created opening in that space’s north wall. The wall at left featuring a large bank of windows blocked off the sunflower entryway from the rest of the first floor. Associate Dean Mike Haddock did his best Wreck-It Ralph impersonation on the wall that separated the sunflower entrance from the rest of the first floor. Associate Dean Sheila Yeh takes a whack at the wall. Construction workers lower a large section of drywall and metal framing to the ground after creating an opening between the sunflower entrance doors and the rest of the first floor. A construction worker throws a section of metal framing on a pile of debris. They are recycling all of the materials that they can.Two construction workers wheel out a window pane that allowed visitors at the sunflower entrance to look into the first floor but prevented them from walking into the space. As of this week, the entire wall is gone and the sunflower entrance opens directly into the first floor. This will be the main entryway for the Dave & Ellie Everitt Learning Commons, which will open fall 2019. A view of the sunflower entrance from inside the first floor. Note that the alcove where the vending machines were has also been removed.
A construction worker uses a remote-controlled mini excavator to pull down duct work in front of the first floor elevators.
The entire first floor has been opened up, and the walls that separated Einstein Bros. Bagels from the rest of the space are gone. A new cafe area named for the Hale Family will be constructed closer to the Learning Commons entrance. When crews removed drywall from a wall behind the first floor librarian offices, they discovered a mural of Hale Library painted on the concrete block.
As the space opens up, we can more clearly envision what the Dave & Ellie Everitt Learning Commons will look like. Stay tuned! Next week we’ll share drawings from the architects at PGAV so you, too, can get a glimpse of Hale Library’s first floor in its fall 2019 state!
Demolition and construction are in full swing in Hale Library!
When we visited on Monday, March 26, more than 60 workers swarmed through the building.
On the first floor, they were stripping out drywall and tearing down walls in preparation for the creation of the Dave & Ellie Everitt Learning Commons, opening Fall 2019.
One feature of the Learning Commons? Improved access! If you’ve visited Hale Library, you know it has two exterior entrances: One at the end of a long ramp that originates at the southwest corner and one at the opposite end of the building near Mid-Campus Drive. The latter is called the sunflower entrance because of the wrought-iron sunflower sculpture above its doors.
Previously, when a visitor used the sunflower entrance, they came inside and encountered a wall of windows that blocked their access to the first floor. Instead, they had to climb the stairs or take an elevator to the second floor in order to enter through the main gates. Another trip down the stairs or the elevator was required to get back down to the first floor.
Unsurprisingly, this configuration baffled Hale Library’s visitors and first-time users (and frankly, even K-Staters who have been around for awhile).
Associate Dean Mike Haddock takes a swing at the wall that separated the sunflower entrance from the first floor.
But no more! This week, the wall came down. When Hale Library’s first floor reopens in fall 2019, visitors will walk through the sunflower entrance directly into the Dave & Ellie Everitt Learning Commons on Hale Library’s first floor.
That’s one small step for Associate Dean Haddock, one giant leap for future visitors to the Dave & Ellie Everitt Learning Commons! Haddock enters the first floor through the opening created during demolition.
Progress!
Meanwhile, on the third floor, workers are installing new duct work in the Great Room ceiling.
The new duct work will improve ventilation and heating and cooling throughout the oldest parts of the building. Workers wrap insulation around new duct work in the Great Room. A crew removes debris in the attic space immediately south of the Great Room, just above the Academic Learning Center.
Outside, on the north side of the building, scaffolding is going up in preparation for an imminent roofing project.
A crane is parked nearby on the south edge of the quad. It is maneuvering steel beams from the roof into a space above the fourth floor Academic Learning Center where the fire started.
The north side of Historic Farrell Library (the 1927 section of the Hale Library building). The crane extends over Historic Farrell Library’s roof and moves the beams through a gap in the penthouse wall, which is below and to the right of the crane’s lifting hook.
Since the crane operator on the ground can’t see over the building, the workers rely on communication via wireless radio to complete every step of the process.
A worker on Hale Library’s roof guides a steel beam into the penthouse and onto a winch system in the ceiling that moves the beam into place. Two steelworkers position the beam. Most of the walls are black from years of roofing tar, but in this photo, the wall behind the worker in the florescent yellow shirt was also blackened by the fire. Associate Deans Sheila Yeh and Mike Haddock look on.
From the outside, Hale Library appears quiet and empty. On the inside, it’s a different scene entirely. We look forward to bringing you more construction updates in the coming weeks.
Two workers clean debris from the attic space adjacent to the Great Room.
Award season continues! If they created an all-team Big 12 librarian category, these would be our contenders: They’ve all been nominated for the Brice G. Hobrock Distinguished Faculty Award.
The Hobrock Award was established by the Friends of K-State Libraries to honor Dean Emeritus Hobrock upon his retirement in 2004. Annually, the award recognizes outstanding librarianship and superior accomplishments among the K-State Libraries faculty.
Nominees are evaluated based on their professional activities during the last two years. One recipient is honored with a plaque of recognition and an award of $1,000.
Jo Crawford was nominated for her dedication to securing the best possible journal prices in the face of increasingly difficult economic conditions.
Collection development librarians oversee purchases and subscriptions, deaccession underused materials and make other strategic decisions regarding how the Libraries spends their acquisitions dollars.
Jo, who currently focuses on science materials, has worked in this challenging field since 2011. The Libraries currently spend about $5 million each year on subscriptions to electronic databases and journals. However, publishers have been raising their prices for years.
Jo’s nominator noted that she has been a dedicated employee, working long hours in Hale Library to find the best prices possible in order to get the materials our researchers need, even in the face of inexorable subscription increases.
Casey Hoeve, associate professor, was nominated for outstanding scholarship and leadership.
Like other K-State faculty members, our librarians conduct research, write journal articles and books, and present and lead committees for professional associations in their field of study.
Casey’s nominator said, “Casey has worked very hard … as co-chair of the Libraries, Archives, & Museums area for the Popular Culture Association … . He attends area chairs meetings, chairs all panels (often 8-10 panels per conference) … reviews paper proposals and handles a multitude of questions that come to the area chairs prior to a conference. Additionally, he has presented at the conference and his papers are exceptional.”
And finally, they noted the excellent work Casey has done as a collection development librarian for the arts and humanities in a challenging economic environment: “[H]e has worked diligently over the past two years to work with academic departments as K-State Libraries has continued to cancel serials due to ongoing budget constraints.”
Char Simser, professor, was nominated for professional excellence and patient mentorship.
Char, coordinator of electronic publishing, works hand-in-hand with the editors who create their online scholarly journals through K-State Libraries’ online open access publisher, New Prairie Press. There is a significant amount of setup work associated with creating a new journal, and Char has helped dozens of organizations navigate that process.
In the fall of 2017, the National Academic Advising Association (NACADA) sought to publish a new journal, NACADA REVIEW, with New Prairie Press. Char’s nominator from NACADA said, “Char has been with us every step of the way.”
“Char’s expertise is invaluable as our editors … [prepare] for the inaugural issue. For Char, no question is too ‘dumb.’ Her explanations are straight forward, her patience boundless, her advice golden. In short, this journal would not exist without Char’s expertise. … [she] is truly an excellent resource and colleague for K-State faculty, and takes the mission of the open access community to heart.”
Ellen Urton, associate professor, was nominated for outstanding contributions in support of faculty teaching.
Not all students come to K-State prepared to conduct college-level research. Academic librarians address that challenge by teaching research skills in classrooms across campus. In fact, K-State’s librarians often collaborate with other faculty members and become co-teachers or research partners.
Ellen Urton is a devoted teaching partner. She has long supported the Landscape Architecture and Regional and Community Planning (LARCP) program through hands-on instruction. However, according to her nominator, “she eclipsed all of her past efforts through her recent collaboration on LAR101 ‘Introduction to Landscape Architecture.’”
Ellen collaborated with an LARCP professor and graduate student to develop a course from scratch: “Ellen’s vast expertise of resources, learning models and concrete teaching methods complimented her creativity for course structure and content development,” her nominator said. “Once the semester began, Ellen helped students directly by providing feedback on their work … . I can state with absolute certainty that [their] was significantly enriched by Ellen’s diligent contributions.”
The winners will be announced at the All-Staff Recognition Ceremony on Wednesday, March 27. Congratulations to the nominees!
Sometimes, you have to strip away the old before you can build the new. That’s our theme this week, as we bring you dramatic photos of the latest demolition and construction in Hale Library.
To help give you a sense of the site of our first photos, the jagged red spot above marks the location of the fire.
Today, if you enter Historic Farrell Library’s third floor and stand on the false floor built on top of the scaffolding that fills the Great Room, like Associate Dean Mike Haddock did recently, you can see that spot.
The Great Room murals are covered by the plywood boxes with peaked roofs, which you see in the photo above. The attic space where the fire burned is directly above and behind them.
Up close, you can see that the debris has been cleared away. Through the holes in the attic floor you look down into the Academic Learning Center (ALC) where the student athletes met for study tables. ALC staff members were the ones who first smelled the smoke, even before the fire alarms went off.
While the charred walls are a clear mark of the destruction, this also serves to illustrate that the actual fire was contained to one location. The vast majority of the damage was from smoke and water.
But enough destruction for today’s post.
How about some demolition? In Hale Library as we knew it, there were a lot of stairwells–many of them in tucked-away corners of the building that weren’t highly trafficked. They took up prime real estate, so in our renovation, we’re reclaiming the stairway highlighted in purple above.
Before we can renovate, though, it has to be demolished. It might not look very innovative right now, but workers have jack-hammered away concrete to clear away space for the Innovation Center on Hale Library’s first and second floors.
After the concrete was hauled out, crews used blowtorches to disassemble the frames of the metal staircases.
Here you can see that the demolition has cleared out the stairs between third and fourth floor. As of today, that entire stairwell has been emptied. Progress!
In the Innovation Center, users will generate virtual reality experiences through 360-degree video or 3-D animation. They will create artificial intelligence, edit audio and video and learn to use state-of-the-art technology that is not readily available elsewhere on campus.
So, Associate Dean Mike Haddock (who takes 97% of the amazing photos we bring you) is back. The map below shows the northwest corner of the first floor. Mike, as represented by the small purple man, is standing in Historic Farrell Library’s Room 117, and the rectangles highlighted in pink represent shafts (called “chases,” in construction parlance) that extend
through the building from the first floor up to the fourth.
This is what Mike sees when he turns and faces east-north-east toward Willard Hall and Mid-Campus Drive.
If he turns to face south, he sees a wall of Room 117 opposite the large bank of windows looks like this:
For most of us, the exciting part of construction comes when you get to look at the shiny, clean end product. We’re not there yet, but there’s really important work going on now so that the new Hale Library’s infrastructure can support all of those shiny, clean new spaces, like the previously mentioned Innovation Center.
Case in point regarding infrastructure: The steel beam over the doorway in the photo above is new reinforcement.
If we were to walk through that doorway, you’d find the chases that are highlighted in pink on the floor plan above. On second, third and fourth floors, guardrails have been built around those chases for safety, since they’re essentially like an open elevator shaft.
Over the last month, workers have been installing ductwork wrapped in insulation into those chases. The ductwork runs through the building from top to bottom.
This is just some of the construction work on Hale Library’s infrastructure. With improvements like these in place, the building will have improved air quality and more efficient heating and cooling.
Progress is happening. It’s not shiny and clean, but it’s important work that will take us one step forward to our new Hale Library.
As always, if you have questions about the process, please comment on the blog post or contact us at libcomm@ksu.edu!
To all of our student and faculty readers, happy spring break! We won’t be posting next week, but we’ll be back on March 19.
The K-State Libraries employee award ceremony on March 27, 2019, will be especially meaningful. We don’t often come together to recognize our peers’ hard work, both pre- and post-fire, since we’re spread out over a dozen different campus locations.
The Dean’s Award is one of three employee awards that will be presented that afternoon. It’s given annually to a non-tenure track professional who has been with the Libraries for at least two years.
Here are this year’s nominees, as described by their nominators:
Alice Anderson, instructional designer
Alice can resolve any and all technical questions about LibGuides, RefWorks and Canvas. Her depth of knowledge is amazing.
Alice’s work on LibGuides makes it easier for us to keep them up-to-date and functioning smoothly. She responds to questions quickly and follows up in person to resolve any related issues. In addition, her initiative to add default LibGuides links to Canvas class sites is awesome. Her efforts make library resources much easier to find for students who may not take the initiative to proactively seek our help.
A year ago, patrons were having a very difficult time with RefWorks citation records from a specific source. She dug into the problem and realized the metadata practices of the creator weren’t interfacing well with RefWorks. As a result, we were able to advise students and instructors in that field to be aware of the problem and follow up accordingly.
Allyssa Bruce, library help student supervisor
Allyssa oversees the hiring, training, scheduling, and evaluations for 12 student workers who collectively cover 77 hours of desk time per week. Her communication skills and her exceptional training program have been instrumental in the success of our services. Last summer Allyssa worked to launch a Peer Research Consultant program to provide K-State students with access to one-on-one research help that funnels into the more advanced assistance offered by our Academic Services Librarians. Her work with the PRCs has transformed the ability and aspirations of the four students who became consultants.
In addition, Allyssa is an outstanding writer, teacher, researcher, and leader. Her professionalism and high expectations for service quality have been instrumental to our ability to provide outstanding help to patrons throughout several migrations of our main service desk and changes in our staffing model.
Kathy Coleman, coordinator of interlibrary services
Kathy has been coordinator since spring 2018. She worked hard to plan the unit’s move to a new office inside of hale library. A few short weeks after the move was complete, the fire changed everything. Kathy worked many late nights and on weekends to ensure that patrons would still be able to obtain the articles and books that were essential to their publications, teaching and grants.
While managing constant changes in the aftermath of the fire, Kathy saw opportunity to improve the user experience. She modified request forms to provide users with control over which items would be delivered to which locations. She and her team worked hard to keep up with demand; at the same time, she introduced enhancements such as a pilot project that delivered physical loans to department offices. Kathy’s expertise, kindness, and strong work ethic are a major part of K-State Libraries’ success.
Renée Gates, IT coordinator
After the fire, Renée worked tirelessly to keep everyone’s computer access up and running, which in turn allowed everyone to continue the critical tasks related to restoring library services. Imaging 125 machines in less than a day to get new computers up and running is a monumental task for any group… The amount of organization that it took to do that job within that timeframe is beyond most things I have ever witnessed.
In addition, two full-time employees left at the same time this summer. Renée pushed forward with a group of student workers and prepared LIST for more change and the onboarding of two new full-time employees. When her new employees arrived, everything was ready for them. In short, Renée is the glue for the Library Information and Support for Technology (LIST) unit and invaluable to the Libraries as a whole.
Tara Marintzer, senior graphic designer
Tara is incredibly organized and productive. She’s also a reliable, patient coworker. She consistently produces creative, beautiful, effective designs.
Sometimes projects shift and Tara has to scrap something she’s worked hard on and start from scratch, but she never misses a beat. She goes back to the drawing board and comes up with something even more amazing than her initial design.
For example, the summer magazine was ready to go to press in late May. In fact, it would have been sent to the printer the week the fire happened. An entire completed issue had to be put on hold so we could create a new version that covered the fire and its aftermath. Tara was unfazed, and her output for the special issue about the Hale Library fire was a case study in great storytelling through design.
Sarah McGreer Hoyt, writer/editor
Sarah is one of the hardest working, productive employees I know. She juggles multiple duties and produces more content than most people probably realize. Additionally, she is an extremely talented writer and storyteller. Sarah’s story about the fire in the last issue of the Libraries Magazine is a prime example of her talent.
After the fire, Sarah took on the responsibility of managing and creating the content for the Hale Library blog. The blog has been key in our ability to communicate in a timely manner, and it was a lot of work, especially in the first few months. She was posting two stories a week in an environment where accuracy was vital, but information could change by the hour. As other work has returned to “normal” Sarah has continued producing the blog while managing her already full workload.
Kathryn Talbot, preservation coordinator
Kathryn’s leadership and dedication after the fire made the difference between setting us on a path to a successful recovery or not. Her years of unsung work on the Libraries’ Collection Disaster Plan paid incredible dividends. Having the plan and the various relationships in place meant the Libraries were able to move quickly to address the perils Hale’s collections were in as the air conditioning, electricity, telecommunications and other basic building services failed.
More than one party outside of the Libraries commented how well we were coping. Much of the credit should go to Kathryn. While the scale of our disaster was (and still is) daunting, her plan made it less so and gave the impression we had everything figured out.
Kathryn’s follow-through was vital given the level of detail involved in packing out and mapping the removal of over 1.5 million items from Hale Library.
On Feb. 13, 2019, architects from PGAV joined K-State Libraries all-staff meeting to discuss next steps for the Hale Library renovation.
IT coordinator Renee Gates, architects Pat Duff and Jennifer Goeke and Dean Lori Goetsch confer following the February all-staff meeting.
The key take-away: Construction on most of the first floor has been scheduled. Meanwhile, designs for floors two through five are under development.
So in relation to the graphic above, we are at the end of Stage 3 when it comes to the first floor, and between Stages 1 and 2 for the other floors of the building.
Mike Schaadt of PGAV architects gives Libraries employees an update at the February meeting.
Who are the architects in charge of this process? PGAV is based in Prairie Village, Kan., and they’ve worked on the design of more than 25 libraries, archives and special collections facilities in the last several decades.
In their work on Hale Library, PGAV has helped establish this timeline for target reopening dates:
Portions of first floor: Fall 2019
Second and fifth floor: Spring 2020
Third and fourth floors: Fall 2020
Historic Farrell Library, all floors: Late 2020/early 2021
Note that Farrell Library, the 1927 portion of the building that includes the Great Room, will open last: The plaster walls are still wet, and plaster dries very slowly. The process can’t be rushed if the integrity of the material is going to remain intact. The historic conservation of the Great Room murals and the woodwork is also very complicated.
But rest assured that the new Hale Library will incorporate the things that K-State students ask for most. We’ve spent nine months in concert with PGAV and the university community to develop spaces that fill a wide variety of needs.
Here are just a few of those desires as expressed by K-State students:
For years, noise complaints have been one of the top issues reported to the Hale Library Help Desk. Third floor was the quiet floor, but because of the way sound traveled through the building, it was never truly quiet.
Now we have the opportunity to rezone Hale Library’s noise levels: In the renovated building, first and second floors will be the most active and bustling. Third floor will be quiet, with some talking allowed, while fourth floor will be the place to go for really intense quiet. That means students like Nick might want to try a big table on third floor for an optimal study experience.
One of Hale Library’s amenities that students say they miss most since the fire is the white boards. They were always in high demand—which also meant we had to replace them frequently.
In the new building, students like Erin will have plenty of white board options to choose from. In fact, Hale Library will have entire walls covered in white boards, including long stretches on first and second floor. Those walls will be punctuated by strips of limestone that offer a glimpse of the 1955 addition’s exterior that was covered in subsequent expansions.
Hale Library spaces were repurposed multiple times over the years. In the most recent iteration, the first and second floors of Historic Farrell Library housed collections and office cubicles. That meant that the larger K-State community rarely had the opportunity to appreciate the gorgeous natural light and architectural details in those spaces.
In the renovated 1927 building, the first and second floors will be converted into public gathering spots featuring some of our high-use collections like juvenile literature. They will also be outfitted with plenty of soft seating and tables so students like Carlie can study in a room flooded with natural light.
Another retrofit: When the 1997 Hale Library renovation occurred, no one could have predicted how high the demand for outlets would be 30 years later: Today’s students want to charge their laptops and phones while studying. Since the entire building has to be rewired, we will be able to increase the number of outlets in Hale Library exponentially!
First-year students like Jacob haven’t ever experienced Hale Library. When it reopens, one of the major new improvements will be the reservable rooms that will accommodate groups of all sizes.
In fact, the first floor, which reopens in fall 2019, will feature at least a dozen of these spaces, and more will be spread throughout the building. Students will finally have a private spot equipped with video technology to practice presentations, conduct interviews and meet with study groups.
These are just a few of the types of improvements we’ve been planning with PGAV, and we look forward to featuring progress on construction of these spaces in the coming months.
Every spring, three K-State Libraries awards honor individuals who have made outstanding contributions to our organization. Since so many folks went above and beyond the call of duty following the fire, the employee awards ceremony this spring will be especially meaningful.
We’re excited to honor a few of our outstanding employees.
The recipient of these awards—one each for a faculty member, a professional staff member, and an university support staff member—has their name added to a plaque and is presented with $1,000.
The University Support Staff of the Year award, which has been presented since 1983, is generously sponsored by the Friends of the K-State Libraries. We are proud to introduce our three nominees for the University Support Staff of the Year. All three of them experienced big changes in their jobs after the fire, and all three remain resilient, patient and hard-working.
Jesica Sellers, Utility Worker, Building Services
Jesica Sellers works in building services. When we were located in Hale Library, her work included addressing building maintenance issues, setting up rooms for events and meetings and coordinating mail delivery.
Without Hale, Jesica’s job has changed a lot, and tasks like mail delivery have become more complicated. For example, she works with half a dozen students and their shifting schedules to make sure the Libraries’ staff receives mail in ten different buildings spread across the K-State campus.
Her nominator said, “Jes listens to others’ ideas and problems and tries to find solutions that work for everyone. When it came to figuring out the new mail delivery schedule, she was patient and made sure we understood the limitations the Libraries were facing due to the fire, but she also listened to what we needed. Jes consistently performs her job efficiently and well.”
Raymond Deiser, Library Associate, Metadata, Preservation and Digital Initiatives
The process of keeping track of millions of items in a library collection falls to the folks who manage the metadata, including copy catalogers like Raymond Deiser. Raymond has several cataloging specializations at K-State Libraries, including government documents and maps. He also helps with music cataloging.
Like all of the other copy catalogers post-fire, Raymond spends at least two days each week at the K-State Libraries Annex, which is located near the Manhattan Regional Airport. As our books and other items that were in the fire are cleaned, as many as possible are being ingested into the Annex so they can be checked out again. First, though, the catalogers have to prepare each item’s catalog record, which is a big job when you’re processing thousands of items.
Raymond is also the unit’s in-house expert on Alma, the cloud-based library services platform we use to manage our collection and the way our users find what they need through our website.
“Raymond’s knowledge is indispensable for all of us,” his nominator said. “He is also very polite, gracious, and kind. Since he joined the library, I’ve been impressed by his work every day.”
Marcia Eaton, Library Assistant III, Interlibrary Loan Services
Marcia Eaton works in interlibrary loan services (ILS), and they have been even more in-demand than usual following the fire. When K-State Libraries doesn’t own the materials our community members need, ILS borrows the materials for them from other libraries around the country.
Since most of our physical collection is boxed up and in storage, it’s unsurprising that the number of borrowing requests has skyrocketed. Marcia’s hard work, diligence, and positive attitude greatly contributed to Interlibrary Services being able to handle the increased demand for loans and articles after the fire.
Marcia began the year as the sole lender in Interlibrary Services. After the fire she switched to working full-time in borrowing.
Her nominator said, “Marcia jumped in with both feet and a great attitude, quickly learning the basics and then taking on other duties. She is an extremely dedicated worker who always strives to provide excellent service to other libraries and to K-State patrons. Marcia leaves no stone unturned in attempting to locate requested materials.”
Congratulations, Jes, Raymond and Marcia!
We look forward to introducing the other award nominees and announcing the winners in the coming weeks.
At our recent all staff meeting, Associate Dean Mike Haddock gave the K-State Libraries team a run-down on the latest happenings inside Hale Library. So, as we’re lining up at the starting line for our massive first floor renovation project this spring, we wanted to give you an idea of where things stand.
Starting on the ground floor: The first floor is finally clean, so the plastic sheeting that divided the space into sections has left the building. Now, first floor looks…. a lot like the other big, empty, clean expanses on second, third and fourth floors.
There’s a little more action on the ground floor of the 1927 portion of Hale Library, where crews are removing sea foam green paint from the plaster work.
Removing the paint will aid in drying the plaster, which is still retaining moisture from the water that poured through Historic Farrell Library during the fire.
This space, Room 117, used to be packed with a lot of shelving, and except for a small group of devotees who flocked to the dozen or so tables that lined the room, few people knew about it. Once it’s renovated, Room 117 will be home to our juvenile literature and curriculum materials collections plus plenty of comfortable seating. More people than ever will be able to enjoy its beautiful architectural details and natural light.
Up in the “Harry Potter Room” on third floor, a lot of carpentry wizardry has gone into building protective boxes around the Great Room murals. This will prevent damage during all of the renovation that has to happen in the space.
Above, you can see protective dark felt fabric stretched across the murals, and on top of that, a layer of plastic.
Once the plywood “rooms” around the murals were complete, they fastened small doors at multiple levels up and down the height of each painting so the workers can climb up and down the scaffolding and check on each mural’s condition on a regular basis.
This photo is of the “dance floor” which is supported by the scaffolding that fills the Great Room. The dance floor gives workers access to the underside of the roof. Recently, a lot of the wood supports criss-crossing the space were removed.
Next, workers reinforced the existing metal roof supports with steel beams. It’s exciting to see improvements like these going in to strengthen the building so it will be here for many more generations of K-Staters.
Now, if you were to jump into the photo above, climb the orange ladder from the dance floor, go up through the attic and exit the little portal to the right, you’d arrive on the roof of Hale Library.
There used to be some massive air handling units out here on the roof, but those were heavily damaged by the fire and removed with a crane last summer. Now, a new penthouse is going up.
Before you think that we’re building something super fancy, we learned that in construction, “penthouse” refers to a shed-like structure built on the roof to house machinery or provide roof access, not “a luxurious dwelling on the top floor.”
Nonetheless, this new home for our HVAC systems will be the nexus for improved heating and cooling across the entire 550,000-square-foot building. Students who have spent time in Hale Library during the heat of summer and cold of winter (and during those hot-cold-hot fluctuations in spring and fall) have heard us say how difficult it was to control temperatures in the massive space. This penthouse and its equipment will make the new Hale Library dramatically more comfortable!
So, from the first floor to the roof, that’s what’s new at Hale Library. Our renovation begins in earnest very soon, and at this point, we still aim to reopen an amazing first floor space in fall 2019.
In the meantime, we leave you with a discovery Haddock made when he was in Hale Library to take these photos.
Nothing like a little dark humor to brighten up a cold winter day.
In the wake of Hale’s fire, our community has been incredibly supportive.
We didn’t expect national exposure like this, though: Hale Library was recently profiled on a new television program. The series, which is called “Rescue Heroes: Global Response Team” (not to be confused with the Canadian children’s show “Rescue Heroes,” which features animated dogs), premiered last month. The second episode gives an overview of the fire, including interviews from rescue and recovery personnel plus students and faculty.
Watch the full show on YouTube! (The portion featuring K-State starts at 11:07).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_K80L-FdIs
The episode features several people who are near and dear to the Libraries talking about the fire, the process of rescuing the books, restoring the building, and Hale Library’s future. Here are just a few of them.
Before the fire, Kathryn Talbot managed digital preservation and the preservation lab that cared for the books. She also supervised all staff that physically moved library materials: They shifted the collections from one part of the library to another, reshelved books returned by patrons and more.
After the fire, Talbot became one of Hale Library’s key players in working with Belfor, the property restoration company, to make sure our collections made it out of the building and into safe storage locations.
Katheryn Talbot, preservation coordinator
“Books are a part of us,” Talbot said. “They have all our ideas, our thoughts, our hopes, our futures embedded in those pages. Missing that would be missing a huge part of ourselves.”
Tiffany Bowers, a senior at K-State, was interviewed for the video
Tiffany Bowers, a senior in anthropology, was also featured in the video. Bowers is planning on going to graduate school for library sciences and is the current president of the K-State Libraries Student Ambassadors.
Her interview included her hopes for a renovated Hale Library: “This is an amazing opportunity to really rethink how… the library could serve students even better.”
Battalion Chief Jason Hudson, who was featured in a previous post, shared experience on the scene of the fire that day. “It was pulling at my heart knowing how bad this was,” he said.
Hudson was an undergraduate student at K-State when Hale was being built in the late ’90s, so witnessing its near destruction held special significance for him.
Rodney Todd, a restoration specialist with Belfor, stands in front of Hale Library
Rodney Todd, a restoration specialist with Belfor, shared facts about the extent of the damage: “There was not one square inch of the library that didn’t have some sort of either soot or water damage from top to bottom.”
Todd also talked about the murals in the Great Room and the process of trying to repair them after water and soot damage. “They’ve got the Great Room, which has murals that we’re saving. That’s one thing that’s really important to the university.”
The books that were damaged in the fire are being taken care of by Kay Rieder, another restoration specialist with Belfor. The approximately 1.5 million books are being stored in several locations throughout the state in storage facilities that have humidity and temperature control.
Kay Rieder, Belfor Restoration Specialist
Kay described the process of dealing with wet books: “When we get wet materials we put it straight in our trailer, which is set at zero degrees. They then go in a freeze-dry chamber and that chamber puts it in a dry state and when the books come out they’re completely dry.”
These people are just a small part of the Hale Library emergency response team. As disheartening as it can be to think of the fire this summer, the knowledge that our books and building are in good hands made the process much easier, and we loved seeing it all captured so beautifully on “Rescue Heroes.”
From the outside, Hale Library looks relatively normal. Sure, there is a fence around it, and there is obviously some sort of construction going on, but the building’s exterior does not mirror the level of destruction inside.
This week we started a new semester, complete with new students wondering why the library is under construction. Even though we have been posting updates, there seems to be a disconnect with students about why Hale Library isn’t open.
In order to get a student’s perspective on what’s happening inside the building, the week before finals I joined a group of K-State Libraries Student Ambassadors on a tour so I could see the damage through their eyes and get their honest opinions.
Gutted office space in Hale.
The inside of the building has been stripped of almost all furniture and carpet, with a few remaining belongings sitting on the second floor. Most of the building is unrecognizable, and extension cords trail along the ceiling for lighting.
“I remember walking around Hale thinking that I knew where we were, and then Dean Lori would say something and I would realize that I had no idea where I was,” said Matthew Millholm, a junior agricultural education major.
The second floor is home to a few tables that survived the fire and random boxes. Wefald said of the second floor, “I was surprised that there was still some stuff left inside on one of the floors, like office chairs, desks, and even Christmas decorations.”
The railings lining the stairs aren’t particularly stable; they shift and make loud and frightening noises.
The combination of the exposed wall and partially destroyed tile on the staircase between the first and second floors was haunting, but we made it. From there, we took the elevator to the third and fourth floors, which was terrifying, but in different ways: There are no lights in the elevator. It was pitch dark.
This really brought home what Dean Lori Goetsch explained to us about the power in the building: Right now, all of the electricity is a low level of “construction power” that is brought into Hale Library from outside. As a result, areas that don’t absolutely have to be lit up (like the elevators) are left dark. It will be a huge job to replace all of the building’s electrical wiring so that it has its own power again.
Two library student ambassadors, Brooke Sullivan and Matthew Milholm, look at students walking below from the room that used to house iTAC.
“The third and fourth floors are completely empty,” Milholm said. “I think that’s where I really realized that the renovation is going to be a lot longer process than what I expected.”
The Great Room has seen better days but is under active construction. We barged in on two workers who looked very surprised to see us. Despite the scaffolding and the construction, the room is still gorgeous.
“It was a little bittersweet going inside the Great Room and walking by my old study spot because it really does look like a completely different building now,” Victoria Sparkman, a senior political science major, said.
Scaffolding and amazing lighting in The Great Room.
After the fire, all the carpet needed to be torn out. As we exited the Great Room, we encountered a portion of the floor that is still alarmingly sticky from carpet glue.
Victoria Sparkman sitting in the lone chair in this part of the third floor.
Even after all of the demolition and repairs, there are still places in the building that look beautiful. This is the woodworking room, boxed in by plastic sheets and dedicated to repairing wooden trim from the Great Room.
Woodworking room on the fourth floor.
The fourth floor was probably the most terrifying of all. The students—and, off the record, some of the adults—thought it would have made an excellent haunted house, with the exposed brick, scattered debris, and office space that has been temporarily transformed into a lair of some kind.
“It was very cool to see the old brick walls that were covered up when Hale was expanded over the years; it was like seeing more of Hale’s history,” Sparkman said.
This haunting room was once part of the Academic Learning Center.This gaping hole shows where the fire began on the roof above the Academic Learning Center on the fourth floor.Stairway to Heaven (or stairs to the relatively undamaged fifth floor).
The fifth floor is surprisingly intact because it was not damaged by the water. Because of this, desks, carpet and other items were left behind. This floor is where special collections were housed, so they escaped intact, although they were moved offsite for storage and will need to be cleaned.
“One of the weirdest things was going to the fifth floor and having it look relatively normal while the rest of the building looked so different,” Wefald said.
Me, touching an Abraham Lincoln bust. Allegedly, if you rub his nose you’ll have good luck.
The final part of the tour took us to the stacks for special collections. There was a fan on somewhere in the room that made the plastic sheeting move. This, paired with the dangling light bulbs at the end of the dark bookshelves, made for a terrifying experience.
Horror movie-esque plastic sheeting that covers any bookshelves left in the library
“After leaving the tour, I realized we are going to have a brand new building,” Milholm said. “I know that the current students will have a library that is fit for them. I won’t be in school when Hale reopens, but I’m still excited about the new library.”
At the end of the tour, we were all excited that we had the opportunity to see the inside of Hale. For the students who will graduate before it reopens, it was lovely to be able to say goodbye to the library that has been their favorite study spot for so long.
It’s coming: Hale Library’s new first floor will open in fall 2019! Other floors will follow in 2020.
On Tuesday, December 4, architects from PGAV held an open forum to share existing plans for the building and to get feedback from the K-State community.
As attendees pored over proposed floor plans, they talked about how they used Hale Library in past semesters and what they’d like to see in its future. They even considered details like noise levels and various furniture styles and configurations.
Thank you to everyone who was willing to share their reactions (and have their photo taken during a stressful dead week!)
Chance Braun, sophomore in construction science
“Last year I usually studied on the second floor when I had time in between classes. It was a great way to knock out a couple things or just relax. I definitely see a lot here that I like.”
Molly Banwart, senior in social science, and Emma Pettay, sophomore in anthropology
“The first floor looks awesome, including the café right in the middle and the event space next to it. The way the noise levels are configured makes sense, how it starts with the loudest on first where the café is and then gets quieter as you go up each floor. Love the rooms with the natural lighting.”
Anna Ellul, freshman, feed science management, and Angela Oliver freshman, interior design
Angela: “I like the open concepts and how they’re looking at different kinds of furniture to get different uses out of the space. Large tables with dividers would help for solo study, but then they also have some good examples of large desks where you could spread out or study with a group.”
Anna: “I look forward to the enclosed study rooms that you can reserve.”
Ashton Strub, senior in apparel textile emphasis on marketing
“I like the reservable group study spaces. I use the ones in the Business building all of the time, but they’re first-come, first-served, so it can be hard to find one that’s open.”
Camree Mills-Gladney, junior in communications
“There were a lot of things I loved about the old Hale Library, so I hope we don’t lose some of its good qualities. But there’s a lot of interesting features on the first floor, and the innovation center looks cool.”
Brien Moylan, junior in construction science, pictured with interior designer Andrea Brundis ’13, PGAV interior designer.
Brien: “I got excited when I saw images of the innovation space. The rendering showed some tools on the wall, so I thought at first that it was going to include a shop, and I’m a construction science major. The architects told me it’s going to be more of a maker space and not a full shop, which makes sense for the building, but I still think it will have cool things in it that I’m looking forward to.”
Over the past several weeks, architects have been making revisions to reflect some of the feedback they’ve received in meetings and in the open forum. We look forward to sharing more renderings, floor plans and timelines in 2019!
Finals week is next week! Since Hale Library is temporarily out of commission, we wanted to highlight some study locations that might make things less stressful during this very stressful time of year.
The full list of hours, dates and locations can be found at the Libraries website, but to give you an inside look, my coworkers and I did a quick tour of a few lesser-known study spaces. The following buildings were not highlighted in our beginning-of-semester post about study spots, which featured a massive picture of my head that still haunts me.
All of these spaces are reserved for quiet study, which is the hardest to come by on campus during finals week.
The Alumni Center was our first stop.
My coworker Rebekah, a senior in public relations and K-State Libraries student employee, shows off the space in the Alumni Center Ballroom on the first floor.
In addition to setting up their massive space with tables and chairs, they have several small meeting rooms (just ask at the front desk about availability). The Alumni Center will also serve free coffee 8-10 a.m. on Monday and Tuesday (while supplies last).
The KSU Foundation at 1800 Kimball Avenue is offering up their enormous conference room on the main floor. Two perks: It’s right next door to Bluestem Grille, and it’s on the aTa Bus line (Office Park/Grain Campus stop).
Avery, senior in political science and philosophy and KSU Foundation student employee, poses in their enormous conference room. This is one of the few spaces on our list of study spots that has great natural light.
Students looking for space that’s open all night should head to the K-State Student Union. In addition to the usual Union study spots, they’ll have their ballroom set up for studiers; that area will stay open until midnight.
Emma, sophomore in marketing and K-State Libraries student employee, being a good sport for this blog post.
Holtz Hall will be open from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. Sundays through Thursdays, and they offer two dozen study rooms. The Berney Family Welcome Center has twenty-three study rooms that would be great for small groups of two to four; they’re free from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday through Thursday (check at the welcome desk for availability).
“If I really needed total silence, I would hustle to grab one of the small rooms in Holtz Hall or the Berney Family Welcome Center,” Rebekah said. “The other spaces will accommodate a ton of people, so they’ll have more ambient noise. I think the ballrooms would work perfectly well, though, especially if I had my headphones on.”
Nine of the twenty-three small meeting rooms in the Berney Family Welcome Center.
“We highlighted spaces that aren’t usually available for studying because people won’t be as aware of them,” Emma said. “Two of my go-to spots that aren’t on this list are the Business Building (because I spend so much time there anyway) and the tucked-away seating areas in the Rec Center. If you’re someone who really needs to get a stress-relieving workout in, that would be a great spot.”
Again, we have a guide online that outlines dates, hours, and details about these study spaces and many, many more (21 in all)! We hope these will help lessen student stress, even though finals week will remind us all again how much we miss Hale Library.
Maybe it’s the coming holiday season, but we’re feeling reflective. Join us in looking back at our post-fire Hale Library progress via some exciting releases (video, print, and apparel) that you might have missed.
WATCH
We are so excited about this KSU Foundation video that was presented at the Friends of the K-State Libraries gala. It includes some intense live footage that hasn’t been seen widely.
We love the part where Roberta Johnson says, “When we’re done, we’re going to be better. That’s the only way you can look at losing this much. Eighty percent of the building has been destroyed. You can’t not feel devastated by that unless you have the hope that … when you put it back together [it’s] going to be better.”
That’s exactly what keeps us excited about coming to work every day and creating the news you read about Hale Library!
READ
Speaking of reading, if you’d like a more in-depth version of what’s happened in the last six months, we hope you didn’t miss “Unexpected Journey,” in the most recent K-State Libraries Magazine.
When we were planning this issue last spring, we didn’t think we’d feature firefighters on the cover.
An overwhelming amount of work has occurred since May. This is a great place to get a recap, view photos not seen elsewhere and take in some inside points-of-view from our administrators and faculty.
WEAR
Finally, if you’re looking for the perfect gift for someone in your life who loves comfort, K-State and all things purple, consider the Hale Library t-shirt. On campus, it’s available at the Library Help Desk in the K-State Student Union, or you can order it online via the K-State Super Store. Proceeds go to the Help for Hale fund, which will assist with renovation efforts.
In closing, here are a few of our favorite photos of our friends in their Hale tees:
Willie the Wildcat 💜Librarians from USD 383 and the Manhattan Public Library. (They surprised us with this photo, and it still makes us tear up a little.) K-State Libraries student employees, from left to right: Patrick Dittamo, Skyler Gilbert, Hawa Dembele, Carleigh Whitman and Andrew Le.
This month we took some time out for expressions of gratitude. One of the highlights? A very special visit to the Manhattan Fire Department Headquarters.
Left to right: Mike Haddock, A.J. Mueller, Battalion Chief Jason Hudson, Rebekah Branch, Carol Sevin, Brenna Leahy, Jesica Sellers, Robin Brown, Nick Clark, Captain Micah Hydeman, Darchelle Martin, Sarah McGreer Hoyt, and Captain Lou Kaylor. November 16, 2018.
On November 16, a group of K-State Libraries employees met at Station 1 on the corner of Denison and Kimball. We were greeted by Battalion Chief Jason Hudson and his team. Hudson, who was a K-State freshman during Hale Library’s construction, was in charge of the scene on May 22.
Hudson started off echoing what many of us thought on the day the MFD responded to the fire: “We’re there all the time. How could it be that bad?”
A fire engine extends its ladder onto the northwest corner of Historic Farrell Library. May 22, 2018.
“So I get out of my vehicle and I talked to some folks that are outside already, and they’re like, ‘Yeah, there’s some smoke on the fourth floor.’ I was thinking cooking smoke, or something like that.
“I was walking … between Willard and Hale on the north side of the building … and I could smell it. You can’t mistake that smell. I look up and I see just a little wisp come off the roof, and then … I had a driver come up Mid Campus Drive from the south and he said ‘Hey, there’s smoke on this side of the building.’
A firefighter stationed at the southwest corner of Hale Library sprays water onto the rooftop fire. May 22, 2018.
“And I said, ‘Oh. We have a big fire.’ I actually thought the roof was going to come off the building. In fact, I moved trucks back thinking that the roof was going to burn off. That was my first impression of it.
More than 70 firefighters and a dozen emergency vehicles responded to the scene. May 22, 2018.
“I actually ended up going inside with my crews and I couldn’t believe… It was almost like, ‘This building’s taken a kill shot.’ I knew it immediately when there was zero visibility… we were fortunate that everybody made it out of there when they did, because it could have been bad. Had anyone stayed in that building thinking it was nothing they would have been overcome by smoke ….
Firefighter Nate Hollenbeck rests after a shift inside of Hale Library. May 22, 2018.
Hudson also talked about challenges the building presented.
“[T]ypically we don’t like to be on top of fire. We’d rather be under it, pull the ceiling down and then putting water on. [In Hale Library] you can’t! There’s concrete [between the floors]. We spent a lot of time trying to pull ceiling, and we couldn’t do it, so we had to get on top of it and go down.
“[The sprinkler system] saved the building. It did a lot of water damage, but there wouldn’t be a roof on that building … It could have been like Nichols Hall, back in the ’60s when it burned and all that was left was a shell. I mean, it could have done something similar to that.”
Captain Dan Newton tells Sarah McGreer Hoyt about his team’s experience fighting the Hale Library fire. November 16, 2018.
We also spoke with Captain Dan Newton, who is currently with Station 4 by the Manhattan Regional Airport. He started out his career at Station 2, which covers Hale Library. So like Chief Hudson, when Captain Newton heard that there was smoke in the building at Hale, he said his first thought was, “Just another burnt bagel.”
Initially his crew didn’t go … but when they started getting radio traffic that smoke was coming from the eaves, they came to the scene. After an assignment clearing the Great Room, they went to the roof.
At left: Crews access the roof via scaffolding that was erected as part of a roofing project. At right: A firefighter climbs an extension ladder to access the roof at the northwest corner of Historic Farrell Library. May 22, 2018.
“[W]e did multiple revolutions on the roof, which was the best place to be. We spent several revolutions cutting holes, using special nozzles that you can stick in a hole and get water to confined spaces. It was a very tough operation. It’s always a great team-building experience when you have something big like that.
Firefighters cut through wood to access the attic via a small window on the east end of Historic Farrell Library.
“I can just remember my whole entire crew cramping up … and getting to that point where knowing okay, we’ve pushed to our limit here … and you know so we did that multiple times, not just once ….
“It was a really, really hot day. And for me it was good to see my guys kind of step up. I had a very new firefighter getting to see him push through limits he didn’t know he had, and a very young driver that hadn’t been a decision-maker on scene but came up with the idea to use the special nozzle to put out the fire. So getting to see these guys grow and learn right there right in the middle of the scene isn’t something you always get to do.”
MFD firefighters, from left to right: An unidentified firefighter, Nate Hollenbeck, Captain Clint Castor, Kody Songs and Louie Disney.
We don’t always get to hear about the fire from those who experienced it first-hand, so we’d like to extend a huge thank you to Chief Hudson and Captain Newton. Thanks, too, go out to Captain Micah Hydeman and Captain Lou Kaylor, as well as Scott Helberg, Nick Clark, A.J. Mueller, Lawilson Horne and the rest of the crew.
Thanksgiving, November 22, marks six months since the Hale Library fire, so it’s a fitting time to give thanks for the MFD and all of the other emergency personnel who were there that day, including the crews from Fort Riley, Blue Township, Riley County EMS and more.
We’re deeply grateful for these and for all first responders this holiday season, and we’re wishing them health and safety today and always!
***
Photos of the May 22 Hale Library fire courtesy K-State University Photo Services.
On November 2, 2018, more than 200 revelers gathered in the Bill Snyder Family Stadium for “A Night of Illumination.” The gala attendees—Friends of the K-State Libraries, long-time supporters and event sponsors, students and librarians—all held one wish in common: To see a new, renovated Hale Library functioning at the heart of the K-State campus.
Attendees watched video highlights of both the post-fire devastation and the developing vision for the new, renovated Hale Library. In her remarks, Dean Lori Goetsch said, “We have a blank slate … We get to decide what kind of a university library we will create for Kansas State University.”
Clusters of white hydrangea and lavender candles punctuate the table arrangements. Guests enjoy the views afforded by the beautiful West Stadium Center venue.Gala co-chair Whitney Short, Betsy Young and Steve Short pause to smile for the camera. Candles featuring quotations from students reflecting on Hale Library’s importance in their lives decorate the tables. Among the favorites: “All I want for Christmas is for Hale Library to be open next semester.” – JoshLong-time Friends member and former president Mark Knackendoffel kicks off the evening’s events. President Richard Myers listens to the presenters.Dean Lori Goetsch celebrates the opportunity that lies ahead: “We were prepared to renovate Hale Library’s first floor before the fire. Now we can make improvements on the scale of that renovation over and over and over, from first floor to fifth.”Ruth Dyer and Mark Knackendoffel dance to music by Dr. Wayne Goins & the Rhythm & Blues Machine.
Tiffany Bowers, Chair of the K-State Libraries Student Ambassadors; Andrew Kohls, Friends member; Sara Kearns, librarian and student ambassadors adviser; and Taylee Helms, student ambassador. Bowers delivered an impassioned testimonial about the out-sized role Hale Library played during her K-State career.
Thank you to everyone who planned, sponsored and attended “A Night of Illumination.” After a dark season in our history, it felt good to celebrate with light, music and our K-State friends.
Now, as we end the recovery phrase, we look forward to sharing our vision for Hale Library.
“We were really fortunate that our research materials escaped serious damage,” Cliff Hight, university archivist, said. “The collection has been moved offsite for cleaning and storage until we’re ready to move back into Hale Library.”
But in early October, the department opened a reading room in 116 Bluemont Hall. The space features a small fraction of their collection, including a limited amount of frequently used archival materials plus research tables, a scanner and a microfilm reader.
Materials include photos, yearbooks, news clippings and more that cover K-State’s history.
“We realized within a week or so after the fire that in order to continue providing at least one aspect of our services we would need to have access to some of the collection,” Hight said. “We determined that it made the most sense to offer core materials related to university history. After that, we were in a holding pattern until they could move those items out of Hale Library and clean them so they were free of soot and smoke odors.”
Items available for public use include subject clipping files, photo collection files, yearbooks, catalogs, recent budget books, campus directories, Manhattan directories and commencement programs.
“We’re looking forward to seeing students, faculty and the community engage with our collections again, even if it is on a much smaller scale,” Hight said.
Patrick Dittamo, special collections employee and graduate student in musicology, searches through subject clipping files in the new reading room.
Visitors can also request to view the St. John’s Bible. If you can’t make it to the reading room but would like to bring the St. John’s Bible to your community, our outreach program remains active. The Libraries’ trained docents regularly bring this work of art to organizations throughout the Kansas region.
The St. John’s Bible is the first completely handwritten and illuminated Bible commissioned by a Benedictine Abbey since the invention of the printing press. K-State Libraries was gifted a Heritage Edition of The Saint John’s Bible, which is a fine art reproduction of the original.
Additionally, a selection of digitized materials from the department’s primary collecting areas is available online.
So what kinds of things can you find in the reading room? And who might need them?
Let’s say you are a history or journalism student researching the arc of the civil rights movement on the K-State campus. The reading room staff can pull subject clipping files related to your topic. You’d find articles about events, people and conflicts as reported in regional, local and campus publications dating back over many decades. They can also pull files of related photographs, many of which have never been published or digitized.
Of course, professional journalists, professors from K-State and further afield and members of the community can also access these resources.
Special collections student employees Alex Wulfkuhle and Jarrod Kuckleman examine an array of materials related to the 1968 Nichols Gym fire.
How can I contact the reading room?
If you have questions about the holdings, policies or more, call 785-532-7456, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday or email libsc@ksu.edu.
What types of materials are boxed up and stored offsite?
Well, for starters, the Morse Department is home to more than 38,000 cookbooks and manuscripts that date back as far as 1487.
It might seem arbitrary for a library to have so much focusing on a single subject.
“Libraries that have a special collections department often narrow their focus and collect most heavily in a few specific subject areas,” Lori Goetsch, Dean of Libraries, said. “That means they can develop a collection with depth and breadth to truly serve researchers in that field. At K-State, we’ve developed a great reputation for our cookery collection. People come from all over the country to access everything from 19th century hand-written manuscripts of recipes to regional cookbooks covering different American cuisine.”
A recent addition to the cookery collection, this untitled two-volume set of Austrian manuscript cookbooks dates from about 1790. It was handwritten in German by an anonymous chef who packed nearly 400 pages with recipes of all kinds.
Two other collection highlights include topics related to Kansas history and the consumer movement.
The Consumer Movement Archives (CMA) was established in 1987 through the initiative of Richard L.D. Morse, a prominent leader in the consumer movement and a Kansas State University professor. Broadly defined, the consumer movement consists of individuals and organizations that advocate for the rights and welfare of consumers, especially when those rights are violated by corporations and governments.
This is just a small sampling of the materials included in the department. We look forward to bringing them back to Hale Library once they have a new, improved space.
Where do the materials come from?
The university’s librarians regularly buy and receive donated materials to grow the collection. Funds come from a range of sources, including private gifts and grants from organizations such as the National Endowment for the Humanities.
It’s done! Thanks to hundreds of workers putting in thousands of hours, more than 1.5 million collection items have been packed out of Hale Library. The herculean effort was completed on September 20, a little less than 17 weeks after the fire.
Maybe you work with objects in quantities of 1.5 million on a regular basis and can easily wrap your head around how big this project was. But if that’s not the case, we’ve crafted some comparisons to help everyone visualize the scope of the situation.
If the average storage box filled with books weighs 15 pounds and a large blue whale weighs 300,000 pounds, then 147,400 boxes would weigh more than 1,105.5 tons, which is the equivalent of more than 7 blue whales.
If each item measures 10 inches long and there are 5,280 feet in a mile, then all of Hale Library’s 1.5 million collection items laid end-to-end would stretch from Manhattan to Tulsa, Okla.
If a storage box measures 12 inches and Mt. Everest is 29,035 feet high, then 147,400 boxes stacked on top of each other would stretch higher than 5 Mt. Everests.
The Backstory
So how did this massive pack-out all start? The first things to leave Hale Library after the May 22 fire were the wet materials in Room 117.
In addition to the items in Room 117, the books behind the Library Help Desk on the second floor were soaked, too. As water caused them to expand and press against each other, the wet volumes began to arc off of the shelves. After the wet books were packed out, their outlines were starkly visible in the soot that coated the white metal shelves. May 31, 2018.
Those 4,000 boxes of wet books were shipped in refrigerated trucks to a Belfor preservation lab in Ft. Worth, Tex. The materials were freeze-dried, cleaned and treated with ozone. More than ninety percent were deemed salvageable.
After the wet books were safely out of the building, volumes from second, third and fourth floors were packed up.
The last items to leave Hale Library came out of the Richard L. D. & Marjorie Morse Department of Special Collections on the fifth floor.
Belfor workers pack special collections materials out of the Morse Department of Special Collections’ Stack H. August 31, 2018.A crew member packs volumes from the cookery collection, which is one of the top research collections of its kind in the United States. It contains thousands of cookbooks and related volumes that date from 1487 to the present. August 31, 2018.
So from beginning to end, the pack-out started in late May on the hot, humid first floor, and it ended in late September in a chilly, air-conditioned Stack H, just above Hale Library’s fourth floor.
Kathryn Talbot, K-State Libraries’ preservation coordinator, at work in the stacks. July 5, 2018.
Does that give you a better idea of how big this project was? No?
Here’s another story problem: If 15 books fit in each box, and 40 boxes were stacked on one pallet, and 24 pallets were packed onto every truckload that left Hale Library, then the 1.5 million items required 104 semi trucks.
A semi truck backs a load of boxes into the Libraries’ cave space at Underground Vaults & Storage in Kansas City, Mo. August 13, 2018.
Until Hale Library is renovated, all of the books—approximately 147,400 boxes of them—will be stored in four different air-conditioned warehouses across the region. Because of the soot damage, books will be individually cleaned, re-boxed and stored until they can be returned to campus.
In the Kansas City caves. August 22, 2018. Until then, old friends, be well! (And, yes, I’m talking to the books. We really love our collection.)
It is a huge relief to have the entire collection safely out of the building and know that it will come home to a new, improved Hale Library.
Thank you to everyone who worked on this project. We hope you can take a few days off to catch your breath: You deserve a break before you start planning how we’ll move it all back!
Original infographics created by Katherine Kistler, K-State Libraries graphic design student employee.
The last several months have been some of the darkest times in K-State Libraries’ history. Now, more than 100 days since the Hale Library fire, we’re at a turning point. On Friday, November 2, 2018, the Friends of the K-State Libraries will mark this moment by presenting A Night of Illumination.
This marks the twenty-eighth annual Friends event. Except for a few celebrations that were held off-site during Hale Library’s construction in the ’90s, they’ve always been held in Hale Library.
In 2017, the theme was “Hale of a Time,” and guests traveled to various food and entertainment stations throughout the building.
This year, we’ll gather in beautiful West Stadium Center, Bill Snyder Family Stadium. We hope some of our blog readers can join us to make a toast to resilience, new possibilities and boundless aspiration.
Our celebration in West Stadium Center won’t be the first time we’ve collaborated with K-State Athletics on a gala: In 2014 we teamed up to raise funds for improvements to a classroom used by Academic Learning Center, the athletic tutoring space in Hale Library.
Guests will enjoy cocktails and hors d’oeuvres followed by dinner, dessert and a performance by Dr. Wayne Goins & the Rhythm & Blues Machine. We’ll also be able to share a glimpse of the vision for the new Hale Library from PGAV architects.
Dr. Wayne Goins always delivers music that makes a party feel special. The 2016 theme was “Constructing the Future,” and the event raised funds for the first floor renovation. Once again, the food at this year’s gala will be impressive and plentiful.
Dress is cocktail suggested but not required. Tickets are $100 and can be purchased online or via phone at 785-532-7417 by Friday, October 19.
Proceeds leveraged by the event will go toward Help for Hale, a fund devoted to making Hale Library the light on campus that it has been for two decades.
Attendees to this year’s gala will help raise the funds we need to return the Great Room and Hale Library to its full glory.
Questions? Contact Darchelle Martin at 785-532-7442 or martin05@k-state.edu.
