"One major effect of the move is that I have become distant to the areas I supervise. In Roosevelt we were all packed into a small area. I knew what was going on in each area in almost real time. Even the activities at the Café were better known in that Suzie held meetings with Nick in the Roosevelt Conference room. Now, Alex and I have to rely on MBWA (management by walking around). One of the best investments that the College has made is giving Alex a cell phone. It has become a primary means of keeping in touch with each other." Howard Spivak, Director for Library Systems & Academic IT"Yes it happened--we have moved to Once and Future Library, our permanent home. I have to admit that it was not a pleasure ride." Alex Rudshteyn, Associate Director for Library Systems"The move to the new Library was an event of such far-reaching proportions that it affected virtually every aspect of AIT and its associated programs." Howard Spivak, Director for Library Systems & Academic IT"We learned a bitter lesson from the 1999 move into temporary quarters. The movers cannot be entrusted with any valuable equipment. It was therefore decided that we would handle the move to the new Library internally, using our own staff to disassemble, wrap, transport, and reassemble all equipment and other furnishings which we felt we could not safely entrust to the movers. Quietly, without much fanfare, Alex Rudshteyn orchestrated his small crew, some of whom worked ten-hour days to accomplish a complicated move with no damage to equipment or furnishings in a fraction of the time it took the professional movers to move us into temporary quarters." Howard Spivak, Director for Library Systems & Academic IT
Transferring the Library's equipment to the new building was only the beginning: now Systems faced an environment far from ready for installation. Data and electricity were not yet available at most locations; indeed, the furniture was not even installed in many locations. Bringing the Library up to full potential proved to be a slow, laborious, and expensive undertaking. Alex Rudshteyn was forced to expend Library funds to compensate for the very slow progress contractors made against basic and punch list items. Well into the fall 2002 semester staff continued to install and configure the hundreds of new computers.
The first area activated was the first floor, Information Services. About 48 Internet-capable PCs were installed, along with another twenty catalog-only machines. In short order, visitors to the Library were greeted with the sight of dozens of students busily working on their scholarly activities near the Reference desk.
This chart shows the distribution of equipment throughout the new building:
| Ports | Installed | Reserved | Internet | Word Processing | Catalog | |
| Lower Lever | 138 | 38 | 15 | 23 | 0 | 0 |
| 1st Floor | 299 | 68 | 8 | 32 | 8 | 20 |
| 2nd Floor | 197 | 110 | 2 | 102 | 6 | |
| 3rd Floor | 194 | 6 | 6 | |||
| 4th Floor | 40 |
| Port: | Active connections, including public, staff, & administrative devices |
| Installed: | Public computers, excluding classroom computers |
| Reserved: | PCs reserved for Librarian/reader interaction |
| Internet: | Internet-only PCs (no word processing) |
| Word Processing: | General purpose PCs (Internet plus word processing) |
| Catalog: | Catalog-only look-up terminals |
A central issue in terms of PC capabilities is word processing: some librarians oppose it, arguing that word processing requires too much oversight, has nothing to do with Library work, and so forth. However, the lack of word processing on a machine seriously limits its utility for Blackboard and other distance learning activities. We are carefully monitoring the usage of the Internet-only machines, with an eye to adding word processing software, in the event they are underutilized. (The argument that over 50% of our PCs should be reserved for "research" (that is, no word processing) is valid only so long as most of them are in constant use.) We will also be observing the twenty PCs ringing the reference desk that are devoted to catalog use only. Seldom are more than a few in use at any one time, suggesting that their assigned purpose may need to be broadened.
The third floor contains 110 PCs, including 12 Macs. Two of the PCs are reserved for Music reference functions. Printing has been a very late addition to the area–it arrived in November. This is one of the areas in the new building where students sign up for machines and where we can track PC availability from the Web.