The $30 million renovation of Penrose Library is going to start after school ends in June and library services will be moved to the second floor of Driscoll North for the next academic year.
According to minutes from the Library Liaison’s Advisory Group (LLAG), one of the potential hazards in the 1970s structure, is the flaking of asbestos.
In an announcement sent last Wednesday, Nancy Allen, dean and director of Penrose, said the plans call for “dramatic improvement” to meet the needs of students and faculty.
The remodeling of Penrose, will change both the exterior and interior to bring the structure in line with the look of other buildings on campus and also meet the growing demands of electronic media and study spaces, for more socializing and collaboration.
While the library is closed, the technology help desk, and writing, research and math centers will move to the Driscoll Ballroom and Gallery located in Driscoll North. Students will still be able to check out books and receive them same-day, although the library’s collection will be off-campus.
The temporary library in the Driscoll Gallery and Ballroom includes preliminary plans to place the resource centers around the perimeters, while the center space will be for student study, according to John Nichols, director of the Driscoll Student Center.
While Driscoll is the temporary library, the Driscoll Gallery and ballroom will no longer be able to accommodate DU and third-party events, such as career fairs, luncheons, speakers and Undergraduate Student Government meetings.
“We are working with groups that are annual types of events in the ballroom and gallery, helping them with other spaces, but it’s still in preliminary stages,” Nichols said.
“We haven’t had discussions yet to say, ‘This is what’s coming,’ and how we’d like to be able to cooperate. Part of it will be that they have to rethink how they do things and the process, especially events that have been there for years.”
The meeting rooms behind Jazzman’s that are currently used on a regular basis by DUPB, Greek Life and other student organizations, will still be available.
Whether nearby Jazzman’s Café or Sidelines Pub will expand their food service hours are still in discussion.
Nichols expects that Driscoll Underground also will be used more heavily for student study and gatherings such as weekly USG meetings.
During Penrose renovations, the building will be emptied in order to improve the exterior, restructure the interior and replace infrastructure including mechanical, electrical and plumbing, such as the boiler and chiller.
There also will be improved lighting with internal glass surfaces and more natural light.
All faculty and staff whose offices are housed in Penrose will be temporarily relocated to Aspen Hall and other locations. Penrose’s collection of books will be moved off campus, but books can be requested and delivered during the construction period with only one to two hours of wait.
The new library will include more appropriate spaces for student study, practice groups and faculty research, compared to the original design from the ‘70s, when library spaces were designed more for individual study, rather than group collaboration, which set a new trend.
In the revised space, the more active collections will be house in the lover level, while low-use collections will be moved to an off-campus annex.
Records indicate that 40 percent of the 25,000 of the books purchased by Penrose each year are never checked out or re-shelved, while 80 percent are used fewer than four times.
The interior, which will be entirely reconsidered, will focus on “technology-intensive learning,” as well as planned space for quiet study suites for graduate and undergraduates in their majors, dozens of group study and presentation practice rooms with media technology.
