Last Tile ceremony marked library's full recovery

trevor.kenney — Wed, 05 Feb 2014 19:26:44 +0000

A long journey of restoration finally came to a conclusion for the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Library on December 19, 2013.

The ceremonial 'Last Tile' is placed as the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ Library celebrates the completion of recent restoration work on Level 9.

More than six months since the June 5, 2013 flood event that saw the library among the facilities damaged by a broken water main, and after countless hours of restoration work, Level 9 in the library was reopened with a number of significant improvements included in the restoration.

A “Last Tile” ceremony was held to mark the symbolic completion of the restoration work and honour the efforts of all those who assisted with the project.

“With the force and volume (approximately 11,000 litres) of water that infiltrated the building interior, this incident has been nicknamed the U of L Tsunami," says Anne Baxter, director, Risk and Safety Services. “The incident was immediately reported to the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ's insurer, CURIE, who promptly appointed restoration contractors to respond to the damages and who continue to work closely with the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ in resolving this matter.”

The misfortune of that June day was seized upon by the library as an opportunity to reconfigure the spaces on Level 9. A modified layout of the stacks now provides room for collections to grow and additional quiet study spaces for patrons.

“This took a tremendous team effort, from ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ staff to consultants to suppliers to contractors, in order to be ready for start of the Fall semester," says Brad Robinson, associate executive director, Project Management Office. "The collective expertise of the team solved numerous complex and unique problems associated with damaged building systems caused by the flood waters. In addition, many people adjusted personal and work schedules in order to assist and keep restoration efforts moving forward, allowing us to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week."

There was no small amount of effort in realizing the completion of this work. Library administration carefully coordinated with Facilities, which directed the activities of the various contractors and staff performing the restoration work.

“That the Library is observably back to its pre-flood state is a testament to the hard work and dedication of many Library, Facilities, Caretaking, IT, Security and Risk and Safety Services staff members, as well as our many contractors, including RGB Construction, Belfor Property Restoration and Onside Restoration," says Dr. Christopher Nicol, ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ Librarian. "Although we were not at our best cosmetically in the library, we were able to offer all major services throughout the facility on the first day of the Fall 2013 semester. This took a huge amount of physical work, not to mention the logistical challenge of relocating close to 200,000 volumes from the library collection - twice.”

Without coordination, goodwill, and hard work by all parties, the library would not have been restored as quickly as it was.

With the placement of that last carpet tile, the library looks forward to the days ahead and hopes to see its patrons once again utilizing the space to its full capacity.

CCBN renovation creates enhanced research area

trevor.kenney — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 22:42:32 +0000

The Canadian Centre for Behavioural Neuroscience (CCBN) has undergone some major renovations in the past few months to improve the space where world-renowned research is being conducted.

The former in situ lab at the CCBN was quickly outgrowing the needs of the expanding Polaris Brain Dynamics Research Group at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge. But thanks to funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation, a new, larger lab and animal facility – an addition of 224-square metres – has been built to better suit researchers' needs.

The new lab is a modern space with the capacity to operate multiple workstations simultaneously. Previously, researchers would have to travel from room to room to gather supplies or use a particular piece of equipment, while changing lab coats and other protective gear between rooms.

Research technician Aubrey Demchuk prepares an experiment in the CCBN's new in situ lab that offers much more space than the previous lab.

Research technicians Valérie Lapointe and Aubrey Demchuk, who help to manage the lab and assist undergraduate and graduate students, post-doctoral fellows and principal investigators with their research, say the extra space has greatly improved their working conditions.

"The room where we were doing the experiments before was very tiny. We could only work with a few people at a time, and we'd kind of walk on one another," says Lapointe, who was part of the planning and design process for the new in situ lab. "It's nice that it is bigger and that everything is here in one room."

"We're really lucky to have as much space as we have now," says Demchuk.

Dr. Bruce McNaughton, Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research (AHFMR) Polaris Research Chair, says many projects were put on hold until the new lab could be built.

"We now have an outstanding neural imaging facility for both live animal imaging and quantitative microscopy. As well as an integrated center for neuroscience data analysis, with workstations connected to our parallel supercomputing facility," he says. "These new facilities will enable a big increase in lab productivity and the output of high quality basic and preclinical neuroscience."

When it came to building the lab, most of the work was in the details, says project manager Brad Robinson.

"You can see, the counters are just full of lab equipment, so I had to do elevation views of each wall and know where each piece of equipment was going, where the plug was going, where the data plug was going, where the light switches were going, where the thermostats were going and so on. I had to know where everything needed to be logistically to create a well-organized, functioning lab," he says.

The rodent research facility at CCBN also received an overhaul. It now features 45 animal experiment/research rooms, six surgery suites, a quarantine room, seven animal housing rooms, an MRI room, an MPE (multiphoton electron) microscope room and an optical imaging room equipped with specialized LED surgical lights and Nederman gas extractor arms that can be placed almost anywhere near a surgery table to exhaust vapours.

Making renovations to the CCBN's animal facility wasn't without its challenges. Construction work can severely impact research. Simply drilling a hole into the drywall contaminates a room. The preparation and planning to shut down an area of the facility can take longer than the actual construction work, but if the proper precautions are not taken, the entire animal facility could be contaminated and thousands of hours of research work would be lost.

"Shutting down parts of the building to tie the new infrastructure into the existing infrastructure was a real team effort," says Robinson.

This story first appeared in the September 2012 issue of the Legend. For a look at the full issue in a flipbook format, follow this link.

UNews - Brad Robinson

Last Tile ceremony marked library's full recovery

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