Sean King with Hallett Movers packs books into a moving box at the Lupton Library to be moved to the new library building onTuesday, Dec. 9, 2014, on the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga campus in Chattanooga, Tenn. The process of moving books from the old library to the new is expected to take until just before Christmas.WHAT IS NEXT
Dec. 29: “soft opening” Jan. 5, 2015: students return from winter break Jan. 29: Official grand opening from 3-7 p.m. BY THE NUMBERS Lupton Library square footage: 116,349 New library square footage: 184,725 Lupton Library seating: Originally had a seating capacity of 1,100,which decreased to roughly 670 seats because of shelving, technology and new learning spaces. New library seating: For more than 2,100 people and two lecture halls (separate of the main building), which will seat 225 each UTC enrollment in 1974 when Lupton Library opened: 4,574 UTC enrollment now: 11,670 Source: UTC
Students lined up early Friday morning to get into the new library at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
To get into its Starbucks, that is.
During the planning stages for the $48 million building, students clamored to have the Seattle-based chain open a coffeehouse on campus.
“They said specifically, ‘We want a Starbucks,'” UTC spokesman Chuck Cantrell said. “They didn’t say ‘coffeeshop.'”
But that’s not all that’s brewing as the university prepares a “soft” opening of this new marquee spot on campus on Dec. 29 before students return from winter break on Jan. 5.
Officials believe the as-yet-unnamed facility will be one of the best college libraries in the South.
The five-story building sits at a premier location that is closer to downtown and features roughly 40 percent more space than the 1970s-era Lupton Library it replaces.
Starbucks and other bookstore-like touches, such as children’s books and DVDs of just-released movies near the first-floor main entrance, help make this library what a UTC statement described as “a warm, welcoming environment that brings UTC community members together to study, work and relax.”
But technology takes the fore. The building has more than 200 desktop computers, laptops to loan, and a media studio with powerful computers and music- and video-editing software staffed by librarians who know how to use it.
Even the table lamps have data jacks and power outlets so library users can plug in their laptops and charge up their smart phones — using cables the library has to loan, when students forget theirs.
“What you’ll see in the library space is a large technological presence,” library Assistant Head of Collections Katie Gohn said.
When the Lupton Library opened in 1974, “the Internet [as we know it] didn’t exist. Now, the Internet is research,” Cantrell said.
Other reasons why the 40-year-old Lupton Library needed to be replaced, UTC officials say, are that enrollment has almost tripled since then and the library’s collection has grown.
The old library lost seating to make room for computers, books, printers and other materials. So space was made in the new library for group study and collaboration, since more and more of UTC’s classes involve group projects.
The new library also includes environmental features such as cistern storage for stormwater that will irrigate Chamberlain Field, a grassy field that was UTC’s home football stadium from 1908 to 1997 and that the university hopes will get more use as “green space.” UTC expects to get Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) silver certification for the building.
Nods to UTC’s history are made by old stone markers embedded in the new library’s interior walls, including one from Chamberlain Field and a “University of Chattanooga” sign, as UTC was previously known, that stood for decades on McCallie Avenue.
A “grand reading room” on the library’s top floor offers sweeping views of downtown Chattanooga, the Tennessee River and other landmarks.
“It’s probably the most traditional, old-school library space that we have in the [new] library,” Gohn said of the space that has wingback chairs and rules for users to be quiet.
Meanwhile, the bulk of the library’s books will be relegated to the ground floor, where they’ll be kept in “compact shelving,” movable shelves on wheels like those used to store records in a doctor’s office.
“You’re able to get a lot more storage in one space,” Gohn said. Books that take up two floors of the old library will fit into the one floor.
To get at the books when the shelves are bunched together, library users will need to turn what looks like a ship’s wheel on the end of each shelf to make it roll across the concrete floor.
No one can be trapped between the moving shelves — the librarians checked each shelf to make sure, Gohn said — because bumpers at the bottom activate brakes once they hit an obstruction.
The compact shelving makes it harder to aimlessly wander the “stacks,” as bookshelves are called in college libraries. And students may have to wait for others to be done before they can move shelves to reach the books they want. But during the planning process, it was deemed more important to make room for other activities, Cantrell said.
“Most [students] are just sitting at the tables,” Cantrell said. “They’re not really using the stacks.”
A crew from Hallet Movers, a Chicago-area company that specializes in moving library collections, on Tuesday started packing up the old library’s almost 600,000 books and tens of thousands of archives, periodicals, DVDs, CDs, microfilm and other items to move them to the new building — a process that should be complete by Dec. 22, Gohn said.
The new library is at the corner of Vine and Douglas streets, which moves it closer to downtown than Lupton Library. University officials hope the library’s new location will help UTC become more integrated with downtown, Cantrell said.
Bette-Lee Fox, managing editor of Library Journal, said that’s in keeping with a trend as other libraries under construction around the country aim to put themselves at the center of community life.
“Librarians would like to be the hub of what goes on in the community,” Fox said.
The library will stay open until 2 a.m. most of the time, which is later than the old library’s typical midnight closing hour. If 2 a.m. isn’t late enough, students will be able to swipe their identification cards to get into a new study area near the front entrance that will be open for 24 hours, five days a week.
UTC officials are still trying to figure out what to do with the Lupton Library building, Cantrell said. It could be used to hold large classrooms, which are in short supply on campus, he said.
UTC sought about $23 million from the state, which the university’s foundation would supplement with 25 percent matching funds, but the request didn’t make the cut in a recent funding plan issued by the Tennessee Higher Education Commission.
One thing the new UTC library doesn’t have is a name.
However, university officials would consider naming it after a generous donor who steps forward.
The old library is named for Thomas Cartter Lupton and his wife, Margaret Rawlings Lupton. Lupton, the son and only child of Coca-Cola Bottling Company founder John Thomas Lupton, was a philanthropist who launched what’s now the Lyndhurst Foundation.
The old library’s name will change to Lupton Hall.
As for the new library, “there is a naming opportunity right now,” Cantrell said.
Contact staff writer Tim Omarzu at tomarzu@timesfreepress.com or www.facebook.com/tim.omarzu or twitter.com/TimOmarzu or 423-757-6651.