Field Trip #3 - Anderson Library

The adventure to Anderson Library started when we decided to meet on campus and drive as a group (it seemed the most logical as Sonja has no driver's license, and Becky is a bit handicapped). We all quickly learned that it was Graduation on campus and getting there, let alone finding places to park was somewhat of a challenge. But we met up and went on our way to the Library....or so we thought. We got a little lost, but we did see people plowing out TCF Stadium, Dinky town, both sides of the river, the back doors to the caverns, Wilson Library, etc. Basically we took an unexpected tour of the U. But after much searching we made our way over snow drifts to Anderson Library. From there we started the project of building an enclosure. Becky and I worked together on this as she had only the use of one and half hands. It went really well to be honest. We decided to use the heavier card stock as the book we were working on was an older hardcover book. Actually it worked out really well, as bending the heavy card stock was somewhat difficult. But in the end we claimed victory and got a very tight fitting enclosure. After that we went on our tour of the caverns and the building. I couldn't believe how big the caverns were! Especially when Tim said that there was room for 17 of them! It actually really reminded me of the FargoDome (where I worked for 6 years) which also has that poured concrete base to it that the caverns had. I did find it somewhat surprising that the humidity was so high in the caverns. I guess I had not thought about how the river and groundwater in that area would increase the humidity. I suppose that environmental control systems really become important when you go to less common environments such as 90 ft. under the surface. I thought the library was really interesting, I especially liked the displays, you can tell that people put a lot of effort into creating and displaying the objects. I found it funny that a lot of the reading rooms had been converted into other areas, generally storage for a specific collection. It gave the impression that space was becoming a problem, which made sense when Tim explained that down in the caverns they out-grew their space in 10 years. Overall I really liked the tour, even with the whole getting lost thing that started it!