Program approval for phase one of a two-phase remodeling project designed to vastly reconfigure and improve functioning of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Golda Meir Library was granted recently by the State Building Commission.

Still in its early planning stages, phase one of the remodeling project will work with the existing space of the library’s West Wing to create more room for student group study and enhanced reference and circulation services.

In trying to accommodate growing demands for space, the biggest obstacle the remodeling project faces is budget-related, said interim library director Ewa Barczyk.

While she is pleased that these plans have been approved after having been deferred in the past, Barczyk said that this phase of the remodeling addresses only the initial plans for bringing the library up to date to meet the changing needs of UWM students in the information age.

“There is a lot more that we need, but this is a start,” Barczyk said.

Funding for phase one of the project, estimated at $4.9 million, was approved by the Board of Regents in March with a gifts/grants component, which means the library will have to raise a specified portion of the money to fund part of the total cost. The amount the library will need to raise is estimated at $1.4 million.

The campus will be launching a campaign to the public in January to help the library fund this portion of the remodeling cost. The rest of the funding will be in the form of general purpose revenue, money allocated from the state budget.

Assistant Director of Libraries Vanaja Menon said she was concerned with the issue of funding.

“Although this is only a fraction of what we had initially hoped for, we are excited about the possibility of remodeling some of the very outdated prime service areas on the first floor of the West Wing,” Menon said.

She added that phase one of the remodeling does not address the long-term issue of the space crunch, since the library is not gaining any additional space.

Students can expect the most noticeable change to occur on the first floor of the West Wing. The plan incorporates an “Information Commons” concept, a design pioneered about a decade ago at the University of Southern California’s library. The concept involves integrating research, reference and study facilities into a common area that would create more of a student-centered library, Menon said.

Some of the ideas for these changes drew from research done by the Library Task Force, focus groups with students and surveys that measure satisfaction with library services and collections.

A serious problem with the current library seating capacity and study nook locations is that such arrangements do not reflect the needs of the largely commuter student population, planners said. Findings of the focus groups indicated that students would like more comfortable, flexible and private study locations, especially for group study.

Funding permitting, several new computer workstations will be introduced into the first floor reference area, enabling academic assignments and research to occur in one location in the West Wing.

The Information Commons also will allow space for collaborative student research and increased student-librarian interaction for reference help.

Library officials and planners are excited about the enhancement to the central circulation area, which has remained unchanged for the past 30 years. The purpose served by this change is twofold.

First, library user services will be enhanced by reconfiguration of space that will consolidate interlibrary loan services and circulation into one area.

Second, Reference Services, which currently lacks facilities and space, will be improved and expanded into the space freed up by the circulation consolidation. This change is designed to serve library users more efficiently by centralizing service needs into an area of “… one-stop shopping,” Menon said.

Other changes include a reconfiguration of the first floor to accommodate wireless instruction rooms, which will make learning laboratories less cluttered and more flexible to allow instructors to vary their teaching setups between lecture, discussion or seminar style, depending on the specific needs of each class.

Plans also include shifting of the compact shelving currently located on the second and third floors of the West Wing to free up more space, and the replacement of existing study area furniture in the basement and on the first and second floors with new student group study furnishings to improve the comfort of the study environment and to further promote collaborative learning.

The State Building Commission had previously recommended that the project be deferred, but the approval earlier this month now means that an architect can be hired to draw up design plans.

Approval and pre-design stages of the remodeling project are moving along, said Claude Schuttey, UWM’s director of Campus Facilities Planning.

The next step, selection of an architect and engineer, which was originally slated for March 2006, is expected to happen by January or February 2006. Design reports will then be brought before the State Building Commission for review. Once contractors have bid on the project, construction is expected to start in the late summer or early fall of 2007 with an anticipated completion date of February 2008.

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