Students walking the stairways of the new Wise Library will notice the orange walls with blue hand railings surrounding them. Natural light will stream in from the windows on both sides of the building. Circles seem to dominate throughout the library.

These aspects are ones they are hoping will help students feel more comfortable in the library, according to Ruth Nellis, coordinator of library construction.

Students will enter through the new main University Avenue entrance into the five-story section. According to Nellis, once a student is inside the library, they will pass through security measures similar to those in the original library. Nellis said levels four and six are primarily stack levels with carrels, or study areas, that have fixed computers on them. Wireless access will be available on all floors, Nellis said.

The new section is 124,000 square-feet of new construction and 85,755 square-feet of renovations, according to a Wise Library information sheet. The overall project cost is $36 million, with funding coming from bond sales.

Nellis said the building is joined by an atrium, with a skylight in the ceiling. The front of Wise Library is being preserved for historical purposes and architectural features. According to Nellis, the old section of the library will still have a historical look, as they plan to keep the long tables and decorate with desk lamps.

According to Nellis, the atrium will be more along the lines of a lounge area for students. Frances O’Brien, Dean of West Virginia University Libraries, said they are hoping to have a beverage/snack cart available in the atrium area. They are still working on whether or not this will be possible, and students would only be able to drink or eat in the atrium area.

“You have to remember that it isn’t that we want to hassle people, it is that food and drink spilled on computers or some of our more expensive rare books can be a problem,” O’Brien said.

Students, from the sixth floor can overlook University Avenue and see as far down as the One Waterfront Place on the Monongahela River, according to Nellis.

“The architects put a lot of the student seating and student work areas along the window space,” Nellis added. She said this utilizes the natural light very well.

Nellis said there would be three elevators in the new section of the building. More stairwells have also been added. The green space in front of the Wise Library is also being preserved as much as possible, and the Scholars Walk would be integrated from its original location, Nellis added.

More group rooms and larger carrels have been added to provide different types of study areas for students. Nellis added there would be a variety of study styles integrated into the building to accommodate students’ needs better.

Technology will also be renewed in Wise Library. According Dennis Newborn, coordinator of library systems and automation, there will be 180 computers available for student use. He said the computers would be dispersed throughout the floors of the new section, so it doesn’t seem like a computer lab. Students, according to Nellis, will also be able to use equipment such as scanning and CD burning without additional charges. The computers have zip drives available to help accommodate the students’ needs, she added.

“The PCs are going to be spread around so it doesn’t look like this great big huge machine shop,” Newborn said.

The new computers, according to Newborn, are all extremely high-powered machines. There will be viewing rooms with previously unavailable technology for Wise Library, such as 42-inch high-definition television plasma monitor screens, wireless keyboards and a wireless mouse. These new innovations, Newborn said, would allow students to work on group projects that involve power points.

Newborn said the White Hall multimedia lab would be replaced with the multimedia rooms in the new section of the library. He added that students, who have Multi-Disciplinary Studies 103, or Library Research, would attend the class in the multimedia room instead of White Hall.

“It’s a quantum leap from anything we’ve ever done before,” Newborn said, in a statement released Nov. 28.

MORGANTOWN — Packing up the contents of a library and moving them to another location is not like moving the contents of your home.

Do your spoons have to be numbered and placed in order? And if you don’t unpack a box or two as long as you own your home, will anyone care?

But when officials at West Virginia University start transferring thousands of books and periodicals to the new campus library next month, you can be sure the movers will possess expertise in moving heavy objects and in keeping them in order.

“This is like throwing the contents of 20 to 50 households all together and having everything end up in the right order,” said project coordinator Ruth Nellis. “If everything gets out of order, it’s a major problem. We’d prefer to be able to find everything.”

Photo: Craig Cunningham

Ironworkers Bob Birurakis, left, and Jim Wright install window frames in a new library set to open at West Virginia University. When construction is completed, students will be able to sit and study by the windows, which offer a panoramic view of the campus and Morgantown.

Photo: Craig Cunningham

A new library at West Virginia University is set to open in time for the spring semester. The five-story, 124,000-square-foot brick building will integrate four branch libraries under one roof. The original Charles C. Wise Jr. Library is set for renovation, and the cost of both projects is $36 million.

University officials are promoting the new building as the library of the future. It is a five-story, 124,000-square-foot building that will integrate four branch libraries under one roof. More importantly, it will meet modern technological needs.

“We’ll have a librarian’s dream of new technology,” said WVU library dean Frances O’Brien. “Students are going to love it.”

The new library is being constructed right next to the old Charles C. Wise Jr. Library, which was built in 1931. A glass-encased atrium with a skylight is all that separates the two libraries. The atrium is symbolic of the transition from the old to the new.

Construction of the new library should be complete next month. Students should be able to use the new facility next semester while the old Wise Library goes through a one-year renovation. The cost of building a new library and renovating the old one is $36 million.

The new library will feature a primary service floor with a circulation desk and reference materials; one floor for periodicals; two floors of stacks that will hold 348,000 books; and a multimedia floor to house government documents, electronic classrooms and rooms for viewing videos or holding teleconferences.

Technology available to library users will include 180 computers, 35 media- equipped workstations and 32 wireless laptops.

The top two floors will feature reading tables with outlets for laptop computers, carrels with desktop computers, group study rooms and lounge seating. The two floors also offer a view of the downtown campus and Morgantown’s waterfront for studying students.

“When you see this view,” O’Brien said, “you might want to take your laptop and sit right there.”

The multimedia floor will include group study rooms with a 42-inch high-definition television screen, keyboard and Internet connections to allow users to participate in e-conferences, view films and prepare presentations.

Internet and cable connections on the floor will allow the library to deliver live video, network news and digitized video archives through its Web site.

“It’s a quantum leap from anything we’ve ever done before,” said Dennis Newborn, WVU’s head of library systems.

It’s a contrast to Wise Library, which was not built for modern technology. Actually, Wise’s stacks were not even built for comfortable browsing. The stacks originally were meant to be closed, so they’re confining, stuffy and hot.

Next semester, though, the university will embark on a renovation project meant to turn Wise back into an architectural beauty.

Wise will be restored as a facility that university officials are calling a “quasi-cultural center.” The old library will have space set aside for the West Virginia and Regional History Collection and WVU’s art collections.

The facility — which will retain its original limestone facade — will also house general book collections, “wired” reading rooms and offices.

“Wise Library is going to be restored to its former glory,” O’Brien said.

“The library system is going to be the best of both worlds.”

Writer Brad McElhinny can be reached at 348-1244.