YOU CAN ORDER A BOOK from a computer lab anywhere on campus and in the time it takes you to stroll over to the Merrill-Cazier Library, your order may have arrived at the front desk, courtesy of the automated storage and retrieval system that efficiently goes about its business in its five-story elevator shaft.

The first of its kind in Utah, the Barn, as the giant robot with a forklift for arms is affectionately called, spares patrons the hike up several flights of stairs and hunt through the book stacks. And the compact storage units in the Barn have created more space for study areas and computer labs.

USU's new library is wireless throughout, and the moment you enter the soaring atrium just inside the entryway, the clattering of keyboards announces how thoroughly the digital age has penetrated libraries today. Instead of flipping through the card catalog, students sit at computer terminals searching for information stored within the library and on the Internet. At the nearby reference station, multi-media specialists stand by to help with the quest.

The technology may be getting much of the press, but there is more to USU's recently dedicated library than that.

During the April 14, 2006, ceremony, President Stan Albrecht called the library "the intellectual and social epicenter of campus, a blend of tradition and technology, where students can engage with ideas and each other."

He said, "It is a place of life and light and excitement, of interactivity and solitude, where books and knowledge are revered, and readers and writers are welcome - whatever the medium, an ancient scroll or papyrus, a bit, byte or blog."

The new library merges two libraries into one not only physically, by housing all library functions under one roof, but in name by continuing to honor two former USU administrators, 12th president Stanford O. Cazier and the late political science professor and academic vice president Milton R. Merrill. more