A worker for Tember Carpet installs carpet in a newly remodeled office in William Allen White Library Tuesday afternoon. GIRI NAM/THE BULLETIN

Some students may remember the extreme temperatures in the William Allen White library – the extremely hot 120ºF decks and the freezing temperatures inside the library.

Don’t be scared away by the library’s temperature any more. A completely new heating and air-conditioning system and a functional electrical system have been installed in the library, said Joyce Davis, dean of university libraries and archives.

“Hopefully, we will be able to maintain a fairly even temperature, so that you are comfortable in the library,” Davis said.

The functioning heating and air-conditioning system will be adjusted automatically, as a reaction to the change of outside temperature.

“It takes a while to get (the heating and air-conditioning system) adjusted correctly,” Davis said. “They are still working on that, but that should go away pretty soon.”

The heating and air-conditioning system has cost approximately $1,291,071 said Dennis Mohling, director of administration and facilities maintenance.

“The funding is the money which had been set aside for improvements on university campuses, from Board of Regents,” said Steve Hanschu, head of information and instructional services.

“Besides,” Davis said, “the remodeling for the administration office and the technical services office have cost around $55,000 so far, with funding coming from the library’s operating budgets.”

In addition, remodeling construction is happening to the administration office and the technical services office of the library. These offices were moved down to the second floor two weeks ago, bringing them much closer to the public.

Many of the archives have been shifted to a new area, to protect them from construction. All of them are going to be back where they belong in a month or two Hanschu said.

This is the library’s first remodeling since it was built in 1951. All the original walls were taken out and replaced by brand new ones.

Inside the office area, there is a new room, which will soon be available for faculty and students.

“It provides us extra space for classes or instructions when the other one is busy,” Hanschu said.

The library construction started last November. Hanschu and his committee, which is made up of Betty Norton, Candy Johnson and Art Gutierrez, and the university architect Bobbi Pearson, contributed to the construction project along with student workers.

“We really depend on our student workers,” Hanschu said. “They worked very hard, moving the materials around, setting up shelves, dismantling, dusting and things like that. They did a super job.”

Lynn Pratt, junior English major, is one of the student workers who was involved in the construction project. She has worked in the library for two years. During the remodeling, Pratt and other student workers had to help move the archives.

“It has been a lot of just running around and moving a lot of stuff,” she said with a laugh. “Right before school started, there was a mad rush to get everything put back before the students came in this semester. It took us about a week, probably less to get everything sort of straightened out. Everyone should come check it out. Just explore the library. There is, you know, a lot of cool stuff here. There’s even more to come.”

Xinyi Chen/The Bulletin

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Jennifer Bowyer, graduate student library science major, watches over the books that are for sale during the ESULA Book Sale Tuesday in the White Library lobby. The fundraiser is used to raise money for ESULA conferences and other activities. Kathi Walker/The Bulletin.

William Allen White Library’s own Empowered Students for University Library and Archives (ESULA) student organization held a book sale earlier this week to raise money for library oriented activities.

“Selling these books helps raise funds for holding activities in the library,” said Jennifer Bowyer, library science graduate student and ESULA president. “Some of these funds go to library game night and other activities that students enjoy here.”

ESULA’s goal is to promote library and archive activities at the William Allen White Library.

“Our big goal is to promote our library and archives here on campus,” Bowyer said. “We’re always looking for more members and this event does help us get our name out there.”

The books that were sold came from donations from private citizens, other universities and William Allen White Library’s storage of books that are no longer in circulation.

“This hasn’t been our best year so far, but we’ve done well,” said Lisa Goodger, senior information resource studies major and ESULA member. “Our best year was when we received a donation of brand new books that were still shrink-wrapped from another university.”

Goodger also said that, in the past, individuals have bought books at the sale that have later turned out to be quite valuable.

ESULA hosts a library game night at least once a month that is partially funded by money that is raised by the book sale.

“We’re trying to raise money for future club promotions,” said Jennie Graves, senior information resource studies major and ESULA member. “We would like to buy some more games for our game nights since most of our games are donated from the community right now.”

Another portion of the funds from this semester’s sale goes towards ESULA’s annual trip to the American Library Association (ALA) and Kansas Library Association (KLA) conferences. This year’s ALA conference is going to be held in Chicago, Ill., and the KLA conference will be held in Wichita, Goodger said.

“These conferences are a very enriching experience,” Goodger said. “Last year, we went to the ALA conference in Anaheim (Calif.) and we learned a lot about how to promote library activity on a small budget. Using internet advertisement and 30 second public relations snippets to get your library activities publicized were discussed at last year’s conference.”

The ALA conference can also help encourage greater interaction between library patrons and information resource employees.

“We hope that everything we learn there can be applied here at ESU,” Goodger said. “They discussed a program that would enable the reference librarian how to show a patron how to find resources faster.”

The total amount of money raised by this semester’s book sale will be totaled up by the end of the week. The next library game night is tonight from 7-10 p.m. in William Allen White Library.

Josh Johnson/The Bulletin

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