U. library: $80M renovation spans 4 years

University of Utah student Rachel Rizzo has gone back to her old space at the library. Her old space, however, is now brand new.

"It's absolutely amazing," she said. "It's much more open and there's so much natural light coming in, which is nothing like the dark cave it used to be in there. And you wouldn't believe what that natural light does for studying."

For a building that was stuck in the 20th century only four years ago, the J. Willard Marriott Library at the U. has now shot so far into the future that officials believe they won't even have to replace the furniture for several decades.

"We tried very carefully to do everything right," said library director Joyce Ogburn. "That includes making an investment in quality, which in this case means high-quality furnishings that have 20- to 40-year-long warranties. People are pretty hard on furniture."

The flashy furnishings that look expensive have been one of the few complaints by students at the university, but Ogburn said there's little else to complain about in the almost-brand-new 516,000-square-foot space.

"Everything has changed," she said. "It's now more designed for people."

The overhaul, which intended to provide a seismic and safety upgrade for the nearly 41-year-old building, began in 2005, when the school received $48 million in funding from the Utah Legislature. Other funding, to the tune of more than $20 million in pledges and donations, and a $3 million check from the federal government, helped to cover the nearly $80 million in much-needed changes.

"They've definitely made an effort to make it more comfortable for students," Rizzo said, adding that for an almost entirely "commuter campus," a central hub for students to study is imperative. "The Union Building works, but for studying, the library is so much better."

Rizzo's old spot was in a corner on the main floor, but it has morphed into a spot in the Grand Reading Room, surrounded by a wall of glass windows, which Ogburn said "looks out across the valley and gives students a quiet space to think and work."

The plethora of open and lighted spaces come in addition to such features as a new Automated Retrieval Center housing four robots that can search over 2 million items, a full-service cafe, new classrooms for instruction and group gatherings, multimedia work stations, state-of-the-art computer labs and stations throughout the library to make searching for books and passages in journals, once searched by hand, easier to find.

But throughout the four-year process, navigating through the sometimes crowded building became difficult.