Digging in for a new library

COSTA MESA ? There were four notable pieces of headwear at Orange Coast College on Tuesday morning. Three of them were hardhats, worn by members of the OCC community who posed for photographers while wielding shovels of dirt.

The fourth was a fancy blue and yellow hat, complete with a floral design and accompanied by a formal dress and eyeliner. Campus librarian Debbie Webb had waited half a decade for OCC to break ground on its new library facility, and she dressed up for the occasion.

“I’ve been living for this day for years,” said Webb, OCC’s librarian for 23 years, who has spent the last five working in a makeshift building pieced together out of trailers.

In September 2000, OCC closed its Norman E. Watson Library due to seismic concerns ? and soon found that funds to repair it were lacking. When voters passed the $370-million Measure C bond in 2002, however, the campus got a monetary boost. On Tuesday, the campus officially broke ground on its new Learning Resource Center, a two-story, 88,000-square-foot structure that will house the college’s library and other facilities.

Funds from Measure C will pay for slightly more than $12 million of the construction, with state capital outlay funds making up the additional $21 million. The center is expected to open in spring 2008.

“We’ve been through fits and stops and starts, and it’s nice to have it rolling finally,” said Coast Community College District trustee Mary Hornbuckle, who attended the ceremony.

To kick off work on the new structure, three individuals ? OCC President Bob Dees, charter faculty member Giles Brown, and Claudia Jackson, wife of former library dean Donald Ackley ? put on hardhats and dug shovels into the ground. Brown’s wife, the late Beth Cosner Brown, was OCC’s first librarian when the campus opened in the late 1940s.

In a short speech to the crowd, Dees noted that the upcoming building will be the fifth site for OCC’s library since the campus’ inception. The college first stored its books in a former Army barracks, then in the current counseling building, and most recently in the Watson Library and the trailers.

“It’s finally going to come home to this spot ? at least for a while,” Dees joked.

In addition to the library, the Learning Resource Center will house computer labs, a lecture hall, an archive storage area, faculty and staff offices and study rooms. Having a state-of-the-art facility, Webb said, would be comfortable as well as convenient.

“Before, students were sitting on the floor,” she said. “We took tables from the old library and put them in the trailers wherever we could. We’re looking forward to having quiet rooms where students can debate and study what they want.”KENT TREPTOW / DAILY PILOTOrange Coast College charter faculty member Giles Brown, left, smiles Tuesday at the ground breaking for the college’s library. dpt.15-occ-kt-BPhotoInfoPK1OUMA720060315iw56qtknKENT TREPTOW / DAILY PILOT(LA)Orange Coast College charter faculty member Giles Brown, left, smiles Tuesday at the ground breaking for the college’s library.