The Mt. Hood Community College library (LRC) will be remodeled this summer as part of a multiphase effort to “beautify” the campus.

According to Gary Murph, chief financial officer, the college has already issued a request for proposals from contractors.

“This Friday they’re invited in to come look at the site – what we call a walkthrough – and talk to us so they can get a sense of the scope of the project, look at the construction documents and, if they’re interested in the project, prepare a bid and submit it to us,” said Murph. He said the college is looking to award a contract at the next board meeting.

Though the original plans were to remodel on a larger scale, Murph said the college ran out of money “and we had to reduce the scope to the first floor.”

“We don’t have the money to do everything that we would like to do, but we’re trying to maximize the little bit of money that we do [have],” said Murph.

The college’s architect, according to Murph, estimates that the library remodel will cost more than $500,000.

“We’re looking to have the contractor start the project – actually being on site and starting it – right after the July 4 holiday,” said Murph, adding that the college hopes to have the remodeling completed “no later than mid-September.”

“It’s not a new building,” said Jan Marie Fortier, director of the library, reflecting on “dreams” the college had of a full-scale remodeling, ambitions that were shot down with voters’ refusal to support a new bond for MHCC.

“Basically, the space is the space. We’re changing more of the access to [the library] and the look of it more than anything,” said Murph. “We’ll improve paint and carpeting. I mean, the carpeting that’s there – you know, that old orange-colored stuff – I don’t know how long it’s been there.”

Fortier said, “It’ll feel like a big living room – comfortable and inviting,” said Fortier. “I think the architect and interior designer see it as a kind of forest theme – greens and
burgundies.”

“[We’re] doing some enhancements to the circulation desk,” said Murph, “to change the flow of the library, kind of creating a living room atmosphere in the middle part to make it more accommodating to students.”

Fortier said a new fixture is going to be added above the redesigned circulation desk.
“This is a design feature that I think has a lot of pizzazz that lightens up the feeling of the room. It’s sort of this glass material of yellow and orange – it’s going to add some design and look to the room.”

Staff areas in the library will also see improvements, said Murph. “[There will] be some minor work in the staff area to accommodate the staff working environment.”

“There are two areas in the library that are really going to be nicer for faculty – media services and the Teaching and Learning Cooperative,” said Fortier, adding that there will be access to the TLC from the spine.

Murph said technological improvements are pretty much on the way. “We already have the labs there,” said Murph, “We have wireless going on now, and we’ll be expanding that a little bit.”

Fortier said there’s also a question of whether the library should ditch the multisided desks, known as carrels, and use “more wired tables.”

Fortier said the library will be doing “seismic retrofitting” of the stacks.

Fortier said the library will be closed during the week of June 13 while the library staff moves to the Town and Gown room. “We’re supposed to be back in the new dig on Sept. 16, before school starts.”

“They’re going to barrier the books off so construction won’t get in our way and we won’t get in their way, and the staff will still have access,” said Fortier.

Fortier said student–runners will be sent to retrieve books during the library remodeling while the staff and basic operations are moved to the town and gown room.

Murph said the library will still be operational during the summer, though only on a limited basis. “Jan Marie Fortier and her staff are looking at how they can serve the students and still provide those services in the summer,” said Murph.

“Summer is the best time to do the project,” said Murph. “To close down a library during an active academic year would just be too great of a burden on students. You’re going to have less impact.”

“We’re hoping that there won’t be that much difference. We just couldn’t tolerate the idea that the library would close during the summer – you can’t pay tuition [and not have a library],” said Fortier.

“I think we’re getting a new library position,” Fortier said, “it’s one of the positions that’s being advertised right now – it was just released – and that person will be in charge of broadening our teaching of library information literacy” to students.

As to classroom remodeling, Murph said a committee is meeting to work out the kinks.
“About a year and a half ago, the school issued some bonds – part of the bonds were used to do the Bruning Center, some of the bonds were used to supplement the Ash Mountain remodel, us doing the library, and the other intent for those monies was to do the classroom remodel,” said Murph.

“It’s about half-a-million for the library and a million for the classrooms…which isn’t a lot of money. So right now, we’re just trying to figure out how much that will buy.”
“The idea behind of the classroom remodel is furtherance of us integrating technology into instruction – in other words, creating more rooms that have multimedia capability. That’s the plan.”

“Right now we’re looking at what equipment will go into rooms. One of the things we’re trying to consider now is whether we’ll have a stationary podium or a mobile podium. And that will depend on the faculty, because faculty have different ways they like to teach. Some don’t like to be confined to a stationary podium.”

“As we look at bringing more technology into the classroom now, you’re exposing yourself to much more loss and theft.”

But with all the remodeling to the library, and the as-of-yet unknown execution of remodeling to classrooms, Murph said there is a large demand for “other facility uses that are both instructional and support that we have to weigh also on.”

Murph said, hypothetically, “If it takes $75,000 to do a classroom, we divide [75,000] into a million and we do x–number of classrooms.” He said the college will “focus on doing particular classrooms.”

“It’s trying to find that balance,” Murph said, between remodeling one space over another.
“We have remodeling costs to consider, we have equipment costs and furniture. We have the labor costs, material costs, like paint and carpeting. We don’t know how much of what we’re going to do,” Murph said of the classroom remodeling.

“We’re working with a furniture contractor,” said Murph, “The idea being is we’re going to bring the samples out to campus” and give instructors a chance to submit their input regarding what furniture the college should buy. “If the preference is to get a chair that costs $150 versus one that costs $100, then that’s going to define how many of those chairs we can buy – or how much of anything else you can do.”

“What you’re doing is building pieces of information, and then at some point you put all that information together and say, ‘okay, this is what we want to do, and what we want to do is going to costs so much because of how we want to do it, and that’s either going to match or not match the money we have to do it.”

But Murph added that the classroom issues the committee is considering don’t take into account other areas of the college where some feel the attention is also warranted.
Of the furniture sample showcase, Murph said there is not set date. “We want to do it before the faculty get out of here” for summer, “sometime before June 10.”

Murph said the college is committed to the remodels and that they “understand the importance of it,” explaining that it’s “important for aesthetics, for facilitating learning and teaching for the students and the instructors, and meeting changing space needs.”
But Murph acknowledged one bad thing in all this. “We don’t have nearly enough money to do all the things we need to do.”

“We haven’t put a time line on that, because we got all this stuff that happened and we feel that these classroom remodels can be implemented over time. We don’t feel that kind of pressure – [but] we do feel that kind of pressure on the library. But for classrooms, we want to try to get as many done in the summer as we can, cause it works better that way – it doesn’t necessarily have to have that absolute deadline because the impact can be different. You can go into a classroom, strip it out, paint it and carpet it in a weekend. We haven’t set a deadline to have all the work done. We’ll do that as we find it appropriate to do.”

“I think what’s being planned is going to put the school in a good place for many years,” said Fortier.

“I think people have to realize that aesthetics support the learning environment,” said Murph.