Library opens today Library and Learning Crossroads building unveiled a er two years

“The natural lighting is fantastic,” Paggi said. “Being in California, that is the perfect situation.”

There are also 24 bathrooms in the LLC compared to the six in the previous library, eight study rooms that can be reserved online 24 hours in advance, working Wi-Fi and book stacks that are all on one floor.

The wait is over for the opening of the Library and Learning Crossroads building (LLC), which will be available for student use today, Wednesday, April 10.

The 89,000-square-foot complex was awarded its $40 million bond on Jan. 15, 2010 and took just over two years to complete. According to BuildLACCD, the Los Angeles Community College District’s sustainable building program.

“It is huge,” said Paul Paggi, Library Department chair. “I think it’s really inviting.”

Though it is opening, the computer lab in the new library will not be available for use due to a bug in the system, so printing and open access computers will be available in the old library until it is fixed, according to Anna Davies, vice president of Academic Affairs.

The move to the building took a 15-man crew 10 days to complete.

“I came in every day at spring break and worked full on,” Paggi said.

There is a staircase with 26 steps and an elevator open for students to use to enter the building.

The LLC features 120 open access computers, 20 reference computers, a classroom for library workshops, 325 study desks including carrels with outlets and additional soft seating, according to Paggi.

“[There’s] at least an extra 100 seats for people if they just want to open a book and read quietly,” Paggi said.

The LLC also has larger windows and skylights to bring natural lighting into the building.

“Instead of caged books, our books have been freed,” Paggi said. “Students who have graduated from here and kept in touch have told me ‘I didn’t know we had books,’ and now there’s no way they can miss it.”

The 85,000 print books will be held in 3,500 shelves.

Additionally, librarians are currently in the process of making a new website with a modern look and user-friendly design to benefit students and staff, which has been postponed to debut over the weekend, according to Paggi.

“That was going to blast already but we found out they had to be down for 24 hours, so we said we’re going to wait for that and it’ll be up this weekend,” Paggi said. “We didn’t want to affect the students’ research in the middle of the week.”

The current library site, which has not been updated in years, will be revamped completely and will have more content in audio, video, and slide show format which will benefit students of various learning styles, according to Pierce College Librarian, Marisa Diehl.

“Our existing site could be improved in many ways with the opening of the new library,” said Diehl. “Shouldn’t our great new library have a truly great website?”

Librarians Lauren Valdes and Marisa Diehl have been working on the website during their free time from their usual librarian duties along with the department chair who has access to editing the site as well.

The new website will feature many improved library guides that will link to resources such as books, databases, and electronic books that will be useful to specific subject matters that the college offers including specific assignments for those classes, according to Valdes.

“Librarians try to make things easy, straight forward, and not confusing for students,” said Valdes. “That’s our attempt.”

Coming in June, many features intended for the open will be installed, such as a color copier, the capability to print from your laptop over WiFi, and a system called Go Print, which is a system where students deposit money into an online account to pay for printing fees.

“I hoped for that to happen, but we don’t have it for opening. I don’t want to delay the opening because we don’t have [those systems],” Paggi said.

Though the second floor is opening, there will be no ribbon-cutting ceremony, according to Paggi.

“That will happen probably in the Fall, some time,” Paggi said. “They didn’t want to have a ribbon cutting ceremony for just the upstairs, they wanted it for both [floors].”

The first floor is to contain the Center for Academic Success, Distance Education and Service Learning, the Faculty Staff Resource Center, and an open computing lab, according to a previous article by the Roundup news.

“It’s being programmed for occupancy over the summer at this point,” said Ed Cadena, project deputy director of the Swinerton Management Team.

Though the LLC has yet to open, it has already experienced its first bout of vandalism.

“They’ve already etched the glass on the door,” Paggi said “I’m hoping students will appreciate this. Not many colleges have a place like this.”