Merrill will be missed
On Monday, the new and expanded Merrill-Cazier Library is set to open. With the new addition, the completed building will be over double its initial size, resulting in a new 304,000 square-foot facility.
Most college apartments are around 20 square feet if you were looking to make a comparison.
Construction for the $40-million dollar building began in the spring of 2003 and has continued ever since. I remember all of last year passing the construction taking place day after day and just wanting to curse that big crane up in the sky. The sooner that library was built would mean the sooner they would tear down my friend the Merrill Library.
It is in the Merrill that I study, mingle and study some more. I spend more time in that building than likely anywhere else on campus. Who doesn’t enjoy the orange carpet and the occasional wildlife (mice) seen scooting around? It’s a lot less trendy too than the much newer Sci-Tech Library. For some reason, I just feel a lot more at home in the Merrill.
Many frustrating days have been brightened as I pass the large wooden sign at its entrance quoting the proverb, “And with all of thy getting, get understanding.
Maybe all that hard work is worth it in the end.
Granted, not all of my time was spent there studying. We all need a good intermission from time to time. Here’s a suggestion.
In case you’re a little bored in the library, try this. Sneak books with embarrassing titles into people’s backpacks. Try for example a title such as “Raging Hormones” or “The Psychology of Stalking.”
Then, when they walk out of the library the alarm will go off, and the library worker will search through their backpack only to find the tell-all title. It works great with friends, but it’s also a good way to meet new people too. I’ve tried it. Once I stuck a “Menopause” book in a girl’s backpack without her realizing it until the alarm sounded. Now every time we pass each other on
campus, we point at each other and say, “Menopause, huh?
Such good times can be enjoyed in the new library all the same (until campus security busts me and you), but it will lose just a little bit of flavor that’s all.
The Merrill Library has been around a long time-since 1930 to be exact. My grandparents used to study together there as students. My parents did the same. And I have too.
You see this campus has a lot of history. And any time we say goodbye to a piece of that history, we lose a little bit of what makes this university so special.
You don’t see a building like Old Main on every college campus. In fact, Old Main is the oldest academic building still in use in Utah, originally completed in 1902. The Quad was originally used as farmland for the Agricultural College as it was then known. Later it would function as a home field for the college’s football team. The David B. Haight Alumni Center was built as a model of a farmhouse, home to a few dairy cows. Students riding to campus would tie up their horses there while they went to class. Later, the various college presidents would live there.
And of course, at what other university will you see 10,000 fans in unison milking cows as they sing their school fight song to cheer on their team?
I love this school.
And for more than 70 years, the Merrill Library has been an integral part of that tradition. Next semester, we will lose a part of that heritage, as it will be demolished.
And I am going to lose my friend.
Jon Cox is a senior majoring in print journalism. Comments can be sent to jcox@cc.usu.edu