The Walter Royal Davis Library is the central library for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, it is the primary resource for all students, and was completed in February of 1984. Around this time, the Wilson Library was closed for renovations. This led to a transition for thousands of students who relied every day on the vast wealth of information that, at the present time, was only available through a library. These changes brought upon difficulties for the university employees, the students and faculty requiring library resources, and student relations, specifically between undergraduate and graduate students. These issues would ultimately be resolved and shape the future of the Davis Library, which is still a major part of the
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Moving over fifty miles of shelf space from one library to another was made even more difficult by the necessity to keep the books available to students throughout the week of the move. The student’s need for books required the logistics of requesting books to be carefully monitored, so that the location of each book was known at all times and could be quickly retrieved. Due to the extreme level of difficulty of the move, the entire effort was described in detail to the Daily Tar Heel. Alford knew that the move would be a huge inconvenience to students and faculty but hoped the pains could be reduced by keeping the school well informed. The entire move was scheduled to start on January 12th and last a total of eight weeks. Halfway through the move on Friday, February 3rd, the Wilson library would close. Davis Library was scheduled to reopen on February 7th, meaning that students and faculty were to be without a library for an entire weekend. This was announced several weeks ahead of time to allow accommodations to be made for the interruption in normal library hours. Additionally, each portion of the move was described to students through …show more content…
The number of people using the library were counted for in the Wilson Library during its last week of operation, totaling 20,681 students, counted as the number of students that left the library. In Davis Library’s first week, a 41,966 students were counted leaving the library, more than doubling the number of students. This problem was further pressed in the weeks approaching exams. University Librarian, James F. Govan, said that the staff had received a drastic increase in the number of noise complaints given to them since the opening of Davis library. Most students were cited as attributing this increase in noise for a couple of reasons. The first, and more obvious reason in the increase in the number of students using the library. A sophomore student, Suzanne Wright, was quoted in the Daily Tar Heel saying, “Davis is so much more open and brighter than Wilson. Most people I know prefer studying in Davis because it’s not as depressing as Wilson.” Several other students that were interviewed agreed with her. This leads to the second problem with noise, which was that the library as a whole was much more open allowing noise to be easily carried throughout the library. For this reason, the library officials attempted to have more employees walk around more to carefully monitor sound levels. Govan told the Daily Tar Heel that this task was very difficult as the library was understaffed. Budget cuts from the
Moving over fifty miles of shelf space from one library to another was made even more difficult by the necessity to keep the books available to students throughout the week of the move. The student’s need for books required the logistics of requesting books to be carefully monitored, so that the location of each book was known at all times and could be quickly retrieved. Due to the extreme level of difficulty of the move, the entire effort was described in detail to the Daily Tar Heel. Alford knew that the move would be a huge inconvenience to students and faculty but hoped the pains could be reduced by keeping the school well informed. The entire move was scheduled to start on January 12th and last a total of eight weeks. Halfway through the move on Friday, February 3rd, the Wilson library would close. Davis Library was scheduled to reopen on February 7th, meaning that students and faculty were to be without a library for an entire weekend. This was announced several weeks ahead of time to allow accommodations to be made for the interruption in normal library hours. Additionally, each portion of the move was described to students through …show more content…
The number of people using the library were counted for in the Wilson Library during its last week of operation, totaling 20,681 students, counted as the number of students that left the library. In Davis Library’s first week, a 41,966 students were counted leaving the library, more than doubling the number of students. This problem was further pressed in the weeks approaching exams. University Librarian, James F. Govan, said that the staff had received a drastic increase in the number of noise complaints given to them since the opening of Davis library. Most students were cited as attributing this increase in noise for a couple of reasons. The first, and more obvious reason in the increase in the number of students using the library. A sophomore student, Suzanne Wright, was quoted in the Daily Tar Heel saying, “Davis is so much more open and brighter than Wilson. Most people I know prefer studying in Davis because it’s not as depressing as Wilson.” Several other students that were interviewed agreed with her. This leads to the second problem with noise, which was that the library as a whole was much more open allowing noise to be easily carried throughout the library. For this reason, the library officials attempted to have more employees walk around more to carefully monitor sound levels. Govan told the Daily Tar Heel that this task was very difficult as the library was understaffed. Budget cuts from the