The Undergraduate Library will cease to exist by next fall, and will be replaced by a new multi-department information center, said Fred Heath, vice provost and director of University Libraries.
Heath said the move will take place between May 15 and Sept. 1, and the new facility will be open for the Fall 2005 semester.
All 16,000 books currently housed in the Flawn Academic Center's library will be redistributed to other library facilities on campus. The media collection will mostly remain in place, but the compact disc collection may be consolidated with the collection in the Fine Arts Library, Heath said.
"We are getting the books out, in order ... to build a 24/7 learning space with more room for students and more technology," Heath said.
The Center for Instructional Technologies and the School of Information will move into the building as part of the program. Information Technology Services, the Division of Instructional Innovation and Assessment and the Undergraduate Writing Center will all remain in the building.
Stewardship of the building will be handed over to ITS, according to Johnson.
Vice President of ITS Daniel Updegrove could not be reached for comment.
Heath said that the current library staff's employment is secure.
"We still haven't recovered from [the budget cuts] two years ago," he said. "We are thinly staffed so there are spaces that match almost perfectly person to person for the people that will be relocated. There will be no layoffs, no demotions or reductions in assignments."
But some staff members feel that many questions are being left unanswered.
"We still don't know what the time period is before we will exit the library," said one staffer, who asked not to be named. "What's going to keep us motivated between now and then?"
There will be no interruption of services during the transformation, Heath said.
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