Returning UMass Dartmouth students are finding themselves with a new place to hit the books this semester inside the Claire T. Carney Library's sleek, modern addition.

DARTMOUTH — Returning UMass Dartmouth students are finding themselves with a new place to hit the books this semester inside the Claire T. Carney Library's sleek, modern addition.

"Transformation really is the word that we have to use," said Catherine A. Fortier-Barnes, assistant dean of library services, as she stood underneath the addition's glass facade. "We've come a long way from a building that was barely functional."

The addition, called the "campus living room" or "Library Connector" by staff, opened Tuesday for the first day of spring semester classes, allowing students to catch a glimpse of the open, colorful and warm space that contractors constructed in what used to be little more than a dark alley stretching from the library itself to the Science and Engineering Building. The addition project was part of a $43 million overhaul of the library.

The opening capped more than four years of planning and two of construction as the entire five-story library and the adjacent wing into the science building were totally renovated from top to bottom, said Jennifer McGrory, of Austin Architects, who took part in designing the Connector alongside Boston-based designLab architects.

The renovations wrapped up on budget but three months behind schedule, according to Michael Hayes, the university's director of facilities planning design and construction.

A large promenade greets students as they walk in through the building's doors. A cafe, two working fireplaces and a large seating area with plenty of electrical outlets for laptops, iPods and other electronics fill the rest of the addition.

"This was all hidden before, because this was a dark space," Fortier-Barnes said, referring to what the space used to look like when it was open to the elements and consisted of concrete benches in the library's shadow.

The addition's basement also will hold 100,000 books that were moved off campus while renovations were under way, she said.

The renovated library also boasts hundreds of new computers, a more colorful look and airy feel. Spaces have been opened up to allow natural light to fill rooms and warm colors have been added to the carpeting and furniture to make the space more inviting, Fortier-Barnes said.

The cafe area in the Connector was packed Tuesday morning with students surrounded by books, papers and laptops underneath massive glass windows that let natural light fill the chamber.

Fortier-Barnes said the addition and renewed library give students a place to go where they can collaborate, socialize and feel they are part of the UMass Dartmouth community.

"The library is now a social space," she said. "They don't need to come here; they want to come here."
http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130123/NEWS/301230334/-1/rss30
www.southcoasttoday.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2016-50
48538
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:I4DPLMLWI6EQLX2SZTHXO2O4PWGN2G5O
<urn:uuid:016a9ea3-efa8-466e-b177-2b594492bc00>
2016-12-03T16:00:04Z
199.83.132.28
sha1:IEZ4A2MK4LPGRE4FZD5XY3VCKTNZN2NX
<urn:uuid:42d5fbee-886d-46d8-bec6-eb65f767a6b6>
http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130123/NEWS/301230334/-1/rss30
length
response
<urn:uuid:06fecf8e-ee84-483b-932d-61192c4ce7d3>
robots: classic
hostname: ip-10-31-129-80.ec2.internal
software: Nutch 1.6 (CC)/CC WarcExport 1.0
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2016-50
operator: CommonCrawl Admin
description: Wide crawl of the web for November 2016
publisher: CommonCrawl
format: WARC File Format 1.0
conformsTo: http://bibnum.bnf.fr/WARC/WARC_ISO_28500_version1_latestdraft.pdf