Faculty have started moving out of the 624 S. Michigan Ave. building ahead of a possible sale later this year.
The 14-story building is set to close in the next year. The library will relocate, according to Dennis McGuire, assistant director of the library. But the new location has not yet been identified.
“We’re not losing the library,” McGuire said. “The people, the collections, the functions, we’ll move to a new space and still serve all the populations, the students, faculty and staff, that we do now, hopefully in a better way.”
Most of the faculty in the building are with the former Humanities, History and Social Sciences department, which is now part of the School of Communication and Culture. The administrative offices for that school are in the 33 E. Ida B. Wells building, which is where the former HHSS offices will be relocated.
McGuire told the Chronicle in an interview that he doesn’t know any kind of timetable regarding the relocation of the library.
The Chronicle previously reported on the potential sale of 624 S. Michigan in March 2024 when former President Kwang-Wu Kim proposed to sell the building as part of his sweeping recommendations to the Board of Trustees to address the financial deficit.
Interim President and CEO Jerry Tarrer confirmed at the All College Retreat in mid-August that the building would be sold.
“I understand the need for the building’s sale, but I’m quite disappointed to leave a 26-year home that I love,” said Ann Gunkel, associate professor in the School of Communication and Culture who has worked in the 624 building since she came to Columbia in 1998. “It has also been glorious for students to look out on the shoreline expanse from Navy Pier to the Museum Campus with Buckingham Fountain in our view as we discussed ideas and projects.”
In addition to 624 S. Michigan, the college is also selling the former presidential residence in the Gold Coast neighborhood. Tarrer said at the retreat that the residence would likely go on the market this fall.
Stephanie Frank, an associate professor in the School of Communication and Culture, said how the news shared during the retreat was “presented to us as a ‘you already know this’ situation.”
Frank has been teaching at Columbia for 13 years, and very rarely outside of 624 S. Michigan until this semester. All four of Frank’s courses for the Fall 2024 semester are located in 33 E. Ida B. Wells, while her office is still located at 624 S. Michigan Avenue.
“It’s logistically very difficult to teach in a different building than where your office is,” Frank said. “For instance, that’s where I can use the printer, that’s where I have access to a refrigerator… I have 10 minutes between classes. There’s no way I’m getting there and getting back in 10 minutes.”
Gunkel said in an email to the Chronicle that she “will really feel uprooted” when she moves to a new building and will miss the 624 building “immensely.”
In addition to classrooms, faculty offices and the library, the building is also home to Columbia’s bookstore and the honors lounge.
The college has not yet disclosed any plans for the relocation of the bookstore.
McGuire said that he has attended meetings with the provost’s office and facilities discussing the services and functions that the library will take with it following the move.
Over the summer, McGuire took over for Jo Cates, the former director who laid herself off when the library laid off five people as a portion of the budget cuts meant to minimize a $38 million deficit. The deficit has since been reduced to $17 million. The Chronicle previously reported that Kim Hale, former acquisitions librarian who started at the library in 1989, was laid off by the college on May 30.
McGuire, who has worked in the building for 23 years, told the Chronicle that he first heard of the library possibly relocating in the spring semester due to the building’s “underperformance.”
“I’ve been told that the college does want to divest from this building, the library, because it takes up such a big part of it and will be the last tenant in the building.”
Though 624 S. Michigan Ave. has been home to some Columbia staff and faculty for over three decades, McGuire said that “the building is still problematic.”
The library, which was originally located at 600 S. Michigan Ave, moved in 1990. McGuire said that a lot the electricity has not been upgraded since the move and doesn’t function as well as it should.
“It is emotional in some ways,” McGuire said. “I’ve worked in this building for 23 years now. It’s been my work home for a long time, and a lot of my colleagues as well.”
“There is an attachment, but there’s also a realization that the college is going to do right by us and move us into a better space that we will probably like as much and probably a lot more than we like this space,” McGuire said. “Change is always hard.”
Sophomore animation major Yaphet Negussie said that he has seen the library as a good space to study during his time at Columbia. “They have a lot of good resources, the people are helpful, it’s a good space.”
Negussie said that moving the library “makes sense” given the financial challenges the college is facing.
“I’m not really sure what else they would do to help make up for the loss,” Negussie said.
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