September 18, 2018 Building Update

A Quick Guide to Building Changes, Navigation, and Other Information

Some of this is likely a repeat of various points heard here and there but I wanted to send out a general FYI about building navigation and need to knows considering some of the quick changes that are happening with opening to the public and for those staff and faculty that might just pop in and out occasionally.

Cleaning
ABM is doing extra touchpoint cleanings in the building - focus is on public spaces but they are also doing extra cleaning for staff. Handles, bathrooms, tables in java, etc are cleaned every couple of hours. In addition to this there are sanitation stations located in both staff and public spaces.

Bathrooms

Java restroom is open to those without reservations in library space. The main floor restrooms are currently gender neutral while the java ones are gender specific. Currently floors 1,3,5 where there are single user restrooms are inaccessible and we want to make sure that everyone feels safe and welcome in our building.

Tents

On the front porch are set to go up sometime this week. The current intent is that these open spaces provide a location for students to gather in small groups if needed. There will be two – a smaller one that can fit one group, and a larger tent that could fit up to three or four small groups. Library furniture will be moved out at the beginning of the day and back in at the end.

Quarantine Spaces

West Classroom on Main Floor
(contact Steve Weber or Matthew Schuck for details about quarantine procedures)
Is being used for quarantine purposes by LEAD and is not available for use.

Willamette East and West
(contact Laura Ramos for details about quarantine procedures)
Is being used as a large quarantine space by RAS.

Stairways

The main avenue fire doors are closed at the end of the avenues. This is to discourage students or others using library spaces from going to areas other than the main floor. On the main floor doors there is also signage saying Emergency Exit Only and Staff Only. If there are issues going forward with restricting the space we have the ability to put contact alarms on the doors but are trying to avoid this if unnecessary.

Occupancy Monitor

We have repurposed the entryway kiosk temporarily to display live occupancy numbers inside the main entrance.

Elevators

The avenue elevators are being shut down. The loading dock elevator is staff use only and should be the primary elevator used for moving between floors – the core elevators are being used by RAS to page items and move carts throughout the building. Still a limit of two persons at a time in any elevator.

Back dock

There is a new electronic lock on the way to install on the door from the Learning Commons to the loading dock area.

The new card swipe clock in next to the elevator is courtesy of LEAD generosity and makes clocking in and out of the building convenient. There is a sanitation station right next to it.

Staff Breaks and Lunches

The staff lounge is available but I want to emphasize that with public use restricted to the main floor – the staff have full range to sit in the rotundas or any other library space to eat and relax and not feel crowded. 

HVAC Status
The major repair was completed to one of two relays on Valley’s AHUs. The second relay was preemptively slated to be replaced at the end of last week with them doing some fine tuning early  this week.
The ASHRAE HVAC standards for COVID are in place at the Valley Library including: increased outdoor air ventilation and air movement which means we’ve disabled demand-controlled ventilation and have increased outdoor air to 100% rather than based on occupancy as it was in the past. Effectively there is more air volume movement pushing through the building overall. With filters specifically they have adapted the HVAC filtration to MERV-13 or the highest level achievable. In addition to this the entire building system is flushed at the end of every day.

It is all of this along with the other ways we are mitigating risk that make the building safer – reducing density of people, wearing masks, reduced talking, physical distancing, touch point cleaning, barriers etc. with the intent of minimizing any Covid particles introduced to the environment combined with the HVAC. Though they help, we can’t rely just on the filters. In shared spaces it is all of the other practices that make a big difference. I do want to add here that folks are welcome to bring in their own personal air purifiers for their spaces- that can add another layer of mitigation!