ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries


M arch 1 9 9 7  /  1 47

UC-Ir v in e ’s M a in  L ib ra r y  re o p e n s
Some said it couldn’t be done, others said 

it shouldn’t be done, but we did it and it is 
done! On Thursday, January 2, a retrofitted 
and renovated Main Library at the University 
o f California, Irvine (UCI), reopened after 
having been totally closed for three months 
and open only for limited stack access for an 
additional three months.

The dangers o f living in earthquake coun­
try hit home two years 
ago when UCI’s Main 
L ib ra ry  w as ra ted  
seism ica lly  p oor. A 
lo n g -p la n n e d  and 
much needed renova­
tion o f the library’s 
two main public ser­
vice floors was put on 
hold while librarians, 
architects, and engi­
neers began the task 
o f determ ining how 
b est to upgrade the 
building. The decision 
was to undertake both The C urrent Periodicals and Newspapers 

Room at UC-Irvine’s renovated library.a retrofit and a. reno­
vation. The retrofit necessitated the unprec­
edented step o f closing the Main Library, a 
busy facility serving the research and teach­
ing needs o f the arts, humanities, social sci­
ences, and management programs, to all staff 
and users for three full months. Staff devised 
creative ways to maintain key library services 
without physical access to the library, includ­
ing operating a fully functioning Reference

and Government Information Desk in the Sci­
ence Library, relocating other important pub­
lic service functions and portions o f the col­
lection, and providing expedited interlibrary 
loan service, including subsized commercial 
document delivery, for patrons requesting ma­
terials shut away in the Main Library. On Sep­
tem ber 30, with the retrofit portion o f the 
project complete, a Fall Temporary Entrance 

(aka MLFTE) opened 
to allow access to col­
lection stacks on the 
basement, third, and 
fourth lev els, w hile 
co n stru ctio n  co n tin ­
u ed  o n  th e  o th e r 
floors.

In January the new 
Main Library opened 
to cheers o f acclaim 
and sighs of relief from 
staff and users. Con­
struction co st about 
$3.1 million, and the 
total project cost was 
approximately $5 mil­

lion. With a 28-station technology enhanced 
classroom, a student communications room 
for e-mail access, a new Multimedia Resources 
Center, and custom-designed exhibit gallery 
to display special library collections, UCľs 
Main Library is poised to meet the informa­
tion needs o f the campus and surrounding 
com m u n ities.— E llen  B roidy, U niversity o f  
C a liforn ia, Irv in e ■

the UnCover database, which typically coin­
cides with the arrival of the paper copy at local 
libraries and newsstands. The service also alerts 
users to the latest articles published on their 
topics of interest. Through the partnership b e ­
tween UnCover and AcBC these capabilities 
were extended to books at no additional cost 
to subscribers. AcBC will provide UnCover with 
bibliographic citation information for 600 new 
titles handled in its approval plan each week. 
The approval plan reviews more than 36,000 
titles from more than 1,200 publishers each year 
and automatically ships appropriate titles to par­
ticipating libraries within 10 days of publica­

tion. UnCover will then match these titles against 
the search strategies that Reveal users have 
stored for new article alerting and e-mail no­
tices for new book titles matching those search 
strategies will be sent to users. Reveal subscrib­
ers can order the book by sending reply e-mail; 
UnCover will forward the order to AcBC for 
fulfillment.

E-m a il n o w  a v a ila b le  on In foTrac 
S e a r c h B a n k
Information Access Company (IAC) has added 
e-mail retrieval and delivery to its InfoTrac 
SearchBank Web interface.