Students and Faculty Return to See New Carpeting on Bracken Library’s First Floor

Students and faculty returning to the Ball State campus this fall discovered a few changes to one of their favorite destinations, Bracken Library. The most obvious was the newly completed replacement of the carpet on Bracken’s first floor and on the steps of its well-known spiral staircase.

Bracken’s new carpet is a welcome aesthetic improvement, chosen to match the permanent features of the building such as the concrete walls, brick, and oak. No matter what colors may adorn Bracken’s walls in the future, the woven carpet will match its surroundings, and its pattern will likely disguise wear from traffic patterns and will lessen any noticeable soiling.

Georgia Direct Carpet, Inc., Richmond, Indiana, installed the carpet, which was manufactured by Karastan Commercial Carpets, Inc. Part of the process of installing over 4,500 square yards of new carpet also included taking up the old carpet, some sections of which were over fifteen years old. Following removal, the old carpet was recycled or sent to a clean burn facility.

Installing carpet is a huge job that required a lot of planning, organization, and teamwork. Libraries’ personnel from various units within the Libraries were involved, including Book Stacks Management, Access Services, Support Services, and Information Services, along with team members from University Facilities and Dixie DeWitt from the Dean of Libraries’ Office. Tasks included moving several dozen ranges of books and periodicals from one end of the first floor to the other and then back. One book stack might take as many as eight people to push along using a range mover that was used to lift the stacks. Moving also involved the physical removal of thousands of boxes of microform, moving cabinets, and then the replacing the cabinets and replacing of all of the microform.

Another Libraries’ unit that was involved was Library Information Technology Services since they had to disconnect and reconnect over 150 public computer stations, nine printers and print release stations, and four scanners. There were hundreds of cables, cords, and plugs involved in moving the workstations. To minimize disruption to students and faculty, temporary computer access was added to stations on other floors, along with temporary scanning stations and moving of computer tables. After the new carpeting was in place, everything had to be set up again. As Kirk M. VanOoteghem, Lead Microcomputer/Systems/Network Analyst at the University Libraries, noted, “Taking machines out was the easy part. Putting them back together was much more time consuming because of having to measure out the proper cable lengths for network and power, having to tie up cables and lock down equipment, and getting the right machines back into the right locations.”

Along the way, Kirk and his team replaced all computers on Bracken’s first floor east and reimaged computers on first floor west. Added to that, they set up temporary office space in study rooms for several employees to work while their spaces and work areas were being carpeted, as well as a temporary circulation desk with mobile equipment while the main circulation counter area was being re-carpeted.

To keep everyone updated on the progress of the carpeting project, Reference Librarian Sean Walton made regular entries to the Libraries’ Facebook page . If you are on Facebook and want to be a fan of the University Libraries, just search Facebook for “Ball State University Libraries.” Photos can be found here.