By Daniel Rothberg
A temporary library has been set up in Chalmers East during the construction of the Kutler Center and the modernization of the Mudd Library, Upper School Librarian Shannon Acedo said. Silent Study is housed in a temporary structure in the garden adjacent to the drama lab, Director of Campus Operations JD DeMatté said. A tree in the garden was cut down during Advanced Placement testing to make room for the structure.
“It’s going to be an inconvenience, especially at some times of the year,” Head of School Jeanne Huybrechts said.
The new Kutler Center facility will connect the third floor of Seaver with the library via a bridge. The Kutler Center for Interdisciplinary Studies and Independent Research, which is expected to open in 2012, is named in memory of Brendan Kutler ’10, who died in his sleep last in December of last year.
Because the Chalmers venue is significantly smaller than the library, only 5,000 of the 20,000 library volumes will be brought to Chalmers. Students will not be able to access the remainder of the collection, which will be in storage, Acedo said. However, she believes most books will be accessible through interlibrary loans. The library has partnered with libraries at many other schools, including Brentwood School, Marlborough School Windward School.
“We will be putting more emphasis on e-books and databases and interlibrary loan,” Acedo said.
The librarians, who began packing reference books for the move last week, determined what books to bring to Chalmers by examining how frequently they were checked out and whether the books were used for class projects, such as history papers.
Acedo hopes that the temporary library will also maintain a collection of classic works, whether or not they have circulated.
“We are going to be looking at the shelves with an eye, if there is room, to have a standard core,” Acedo said.
Huybrects said that it is possible that a portion of the third floor of Seaver will also close.
“It is conceivable that for a short period of time, one small end of Seaver may be closed,” Huybrechts said. “But I think that [the construction workers] can probably do almost everything they need to do just by creating a hole in the wall, putting up a board, doing all the rest of the work and taking the barrier back.”
