by Scott Albright
Daily Lobo
Teresa Neely, director of Zimmerman Library, said she has been eager to reopen the east wing of the library since the fire in April.
"We're very, very happy to open up this much larger space," she said.
Fran Wilkinson, dean of University Libraries, cut the yellow caution tape blocking the east wing Tuesday.
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Neely said faculty and staff had to share offices for the last year and were grateful for the reopening.
Wilkinson said because of student input, the area has been improved.
"They told us they wanted this, and we gave it to them," she said. "They said they wanted more computers, and they got it."
She said 5,600 square feet of public space were added, 40 more computers were installed, 10 more group study areas were built, and the number of laptops available for loan doubled.
The basement area should reopen sometime during the fall semester, Wilkinson said.
Student Hannah Morrow said it's good to have the reference section open again, because it's important for learning how to do research.
The fire was a mixed blessing, she said.
"Something good came out of all this," she said. "Even though it was a bad thing, obviously it turned out to be good."
Nancy Dennis, assistant dean of University Libraries, said 30,000 volumes of reference material were lost in the fire, including books on ethnic studies, Latin-American studies, Native-American studies and Southwest history.
"Because that is a special area of collection for us, we might have been the single holder of a publication," she said. "We anticipate that there will be some collections that are not replaceable."
Wilkinson said many of the damaged materials were sent to Texas for repair. She said they could not be returned until space was available.
Student Avril Julander said the University will benefit from the reopening.
"UNM is a major research institution," she said. "It's difficult when you don't have a reference section to excel in your classes or as an institution."
Dennis said materials are being added to the section. She said a new fire alarm and sprinkler system were also installed.
"There are some new publications that didn't exist," she said. "We're also replacing several of our collections in electronic format that we didn't have before."
Neely said the reference section is still a necessary part of the library, despite the increase of
electronic media.
"Everything is not on the Web. Everything is not available electronically," she said. "There are a lot of valuable and critical resources still being produced and made available in print."
