GUEST COULMN: Don’t close the door on knowledge
USU has such a nice campus. Ask any student what they like about our school and you’ll probably hear how much they love the character of the college grounds. We love the Fieldhouse, we make pilgrimages to the Spectrum, we brag about the Performance Hall and we hold activities on the Quad. We miss the old Merrill Library, but we are impressed with the spacious new Merrill Cazier Library. It is definitely one of the principal locations on campus, perhaps second only to the Taggart Student Center. So does it seem strange to anyone else that the only entrance to this integral part of campus is on the other side of the building from the main concentration of student activity? Why not have an entrance on the west side of the building as well?
Our current, substantial library entrance is quite impressive. People are greeted by sharp engineering and modern design as they go through the 9-foot tall glass doors. Dozens of people can flow in and out at the same time without any trouble. Now, I think this is very nice to have, and it definitely has its value, but couldn’t we have a standard, simplified, alternate entrance on the other side of the building? To me, a door is a door, and if it gets me directly where I want to go, then I deem it to be a high-quality door. Who really cares how fancy the entrance to the building is when they are just happy to be out of the freezing cold or are rushing to get to class? Elegance is wasted without efficiency.
I took some time in between classes and gave myself a tour of the Merrill Cazier Library. It really is huge! As I showed myself around, I came across a stairwell in the west part of the building, back by the bathrooms. It is very utilitarian, just five plain old flights of stairs and a practical door on the ground floor. As I thought, “Nice, this door goes out right towards my next class!” I was deterred by a warning etched on the glass: “Emergency Exit Only. Alarm Will Sound When Opened.” I noticed other doors on the north and south sides of the building as well. The best positioned emergency door is facing west on the very southwestern most corner of the building. What a shame to have these exits that are good enough for emergencies, but not for everyday use as well.
All I want is for someone to unlock that corner door. I’d use it 90 percent of the time I went to the library. In talking to members of the staff at the library, though, any new entrance would need to include a security gate like those at the existing entrance. These gates have sensors that count the number of people that go in and out and also can detect when library materials marked with “tattle tape” pass through them. A new gate costs about $20,000. Besides that cost, an attendant would need to be stationed at the back door during open hours.
“So who is going to pay for that?” some have asked. In talking to other students, I’m confident that a $2 raise in tuition wouldn’t be objectionable if we knew we’d get a west library entrance. Those two dollars come to $31,078 when you add them together for all the full-time students enrolled in 2006. During regular school semesters the library is open for 100 hours a week. Thirty-two weeks in the fall and spring semesters, plus shortened summer semester hours and minus holidays gives a total of about 4400 hours. At a standard campus job wage of $6 an hour, that’s $26,400 a year. That leaves $4,678 each semester to pay off the gate and building costs (if any) and to maintain the entrance. I know I’d get my two bucks of use out of that back door.
Of course, there are some students who don’t mind the walk. Then there are some who don’t ever go to the library. And a big portion of students are frustrated at the prospects of paying more to modify a brand new building. In remodeling the SciTech Library into the Merrill Cazier library, the original, south-facing entrance was closed off. Many students are still flabbergasted by that engineering decision. But let’s not dwell on the past. Rather, let’s open doors to the future.
It’s true that the library isn’t used by the entire student body. But what university service is? One student angrily said they should take the money out of the Aggie Shuttle Bus budget because he doesn’t use it anyway. Certainly there are things we pay for that we never use, but they make up the total package which makes USU appealing. Of the many people I questioned about a new entrance to the library, the vast majority responded very positively. Why don’t we use a bit of money to do something that will benefit so many?
A back door to the library seems like a trivial thing, but I’ve heard many people comment on the inconvenience of the present entrance to the library. It would be an easy change to make and our campus would be even better.
Ben Cannon is a guest columnist at The Utah Statesman. Comments can be sent to benpc@cc.usu.edu.