Aurora University (Phillips) Library - part 2

So I was wrong yesterday when I wrote I didn't know if they had a reference collection still -- here is the photo I took of part of the reference collection at Aurora University. I'm always glad to see Oxford English Dictionaries, and it's good to see some academic libraries still carry Contemporary Literary Criticism.

But I was still shocked -- shocked -- to see that the second floor of the library, which had once housed rows upon rows of wondrous books, was now mostly bare. I couldn't take photographic evidence of this because it was now all study area, and well-used study area. But all those books, I was told later, were just donated away.

This saddened me almost as much -- this space in the stairwell is where the bulletin board used to be where I put up my monthly displays, including the yearbook photos display that I mentioned last time. Now nothing remains here, not even a discolored spot where the board used to hang.

But I felt a little better when I spotted this in the stairwell. I used to use this pencil sharpener! It was so good to see it still there, apparently as useful as ever.

And at the bottom of the stairs is what used to be the AV Department, but I'm told that area is now just a staff lounge. Maybe that change was a good one, as AV equipment used to get wrecked by flooding all the time in that basement.

As shocked and horrified as I was that the library had been turned into one giant, near-bookless study area, at least the adult and young adult workers were all very nice to me. When I explained I was an alum and former worker there, they produced photographs from 1994 to show me. It was a great idea, taking photos of the staff for each academic year and archiving them for alumni to come back and see -- unfortunately, the practice apparently started in the Fall of 1994 and I left in the Spring of 1994. At least I got to see the old staff again, and one fellow student I remembered who stayed there past when I left.