Library spokesperson Judy Panitch said for one week out of each month, workers will be at the UL sanding, waxing and refinishing all the wood furniture. She said the refurbishing work began this summer.
“There was some work that was done, for example, on the help desk, the reference desk and some of the wall paneling was done over the summer, and now they’re working on the independent pieces of furniture,” Panitch said.
Junior Renuka Koilpillai went to the UL Tuesday and immediately left — not because of the noise of the maintenance work, but because of the smell.
Koilpillai said when she came back to the library Wednesday, the smell was much better.
But senior Lataysha James said the smell was still so strong Wednesday, it was hard for her to breathe.
“It smells like when you’re in chem lab and you’re using the chemicals, and you can’t really breathe in there,” James said. “I was here in between classes and didn’t have anywhere else to go, so it was kind of annoying because you can’t breathe, really.”
Panitch said the smell is turpentine being used as a removing agent. She said they are working with the refurbishing company to make a schedule that will keep students in mind, confining the noisy part of the refurbishment to only two days a week.
“We looked at our typical date counts and we’ve tried to figure out which weeks have the least usage as much as possible. We’re also trying to steer them toward times like fall and spring break for those weeks,” she said.
