Students still mourning loss of in-and-out doors at Shields Library

‘We're losing the ancient texts’

Nearly a year after the latest renovations and upgrades to the front entrance of Peter J. Shields Library, upperclassmen and longtime UC Davis community members continue to mourn the loss of the building’s de facto in-and-out doors.

The library, which is best known for holding the cookbook collection of Celebrity Chef Martin Yan, has been in chaos since the installation of new walk-through security scanners led to the mixing of incoming and outgoing foot traffic. Previously, there were two separate banks of scanners; one on the North side for those entering the library and one on the South side for those exiting. The banks lined up with the library’s two main doors, creating a natural flow and circulation for library patrons.

The change has led to collisions and awkward stand-offs between older library patrons who remember and respect the old divided entryway and younger hedonists who refuse to respect tradition.

“I just don’t get what they were trying to do with the entrance,” Sabrina Knauss, a third-year anthropology major, said. “The way things used to be was great. Now, it feels like I’m navigating my way through a meteor field just to check out a copy of ‘Jane Eyre.’”

Others, like Dhiren Kattula, a third-year physics major, said they liked the new sliding doors and the sleek design.

“It’s cleaner,” Kattula said of the entrance. “Bolder. Cooler. That said, before today I hadn't gone to the library in six quarters so it doesn’t especially matter to me.”

Also gone, the large blocky information desk that had awkwardly divided the entryway and which had been reduced to propping up posters about staying quiet (because somehow it’s still necessary to tell people to shut up about their roommate drama in the quiet zone during midterm season).

But it’s not just library visitors who have expressed dissatisfaction with the new order of things. Staffers at the library’s Main Circulation Desk, who have witnessed students react to the renovation over the last few months, are said to be livid over the change.

“It’s absolute chaos out [and in] there,” said one library staffer who spoke to The California Aggie on the condition of anonymity. “This is a sacred place: for students to study and for other students to pretend to study. There was a way to how things worked. We’re losing the ancient texts.”

Publicly, university administrators and library officials announced that the new entrance is an upgrade, assuring students that any remaining confusion should clear up as those unc enough to remember how things used to be graduate and move on.

“Campus is always changing — that’s what makes it so great,” a university spokesperson said. “Sometimes, dealing with change means that you have to awkwardly walk around first-years who don’t understand the old ways and exit from the ‘wrong’ doorway. And when you try to politely move around them, suddenly a smaller, tinier first-year pops out and blocks you so you’re forced to go around them the other way. But by that point another first-year has also appeared and you can’t even make your way through because it’s the 11:50 a.m. to 12:10 p.m. passing period, which everyone knows is the busiest, and then it becomes a whole thing. But yeah, change is good.”

Shields Library’s in-and-out doors join the other now gone campus architectural mainstays destined to be forgotten in the passage of time. They include the Surge II building (upon whose ruins the Teaching and Learning Complex were raised), the true names of SciLec 123 and Chem 194 (now Khaira and Rock Halls, respectively) and the abandoned secret observation deck on top of the water tower.

Written by: Vince Basada — campus@theaggie.org