As Cerro Coso winds down its 50th anniversary celebrations, we decided to take a look back at Cerro Coso's IWV library over the years.
Did you know that the library used to cover half of the third floor of the main building? This space is now home to the president's office, human resources, the public information office, and several meeting rooms, including the community room. In the center of the library was a circular staircase surrounded by glass windows where you could see all the way down to the student center on the first floor!
In 1988, the Cerro Coso library temporarily moved its entire collection into trailers while the main building underwent renovations and asbestos removal. These renovations also resulted in some nice furniture and circulation desk upgrades when it moved back in!
In 1997, the library got its first set of computers for general student and public use. In 1999, the library switched over from a paper-based card catalog to an online catalog. This required putting barcodes on every book and making sure it was listed correctly online! The library staff was very happy to be able to scan books into a system instead of recording everything by hand!
In 2004, the library and the learning assistance center moved to a brand new Learning Resource Center building. While the library department originally took up the entire first floor of the new LRC, it now shares some of this space with the IT department.
In July 2019, the Ridgecrest earthquakes displaced the library to a classroom in the East Wing. While the reserve textbooks were brought over on book carts, the circulating library collections remained inaccessible.
Fortunately, the library had built up a large online collection of eBooks and databases, so that students were still able to access resources! This was especially useful since, even though the LRC building repairs were finished by April 2020, the library (along with the rest of the college) had already gone fully remote in March 2020 due to the pandemic. The library finally reopened its doors in July 2021, and has continued to welcome students in ever since.
It's been an eventful 50 years for the Cerro Coso library. We look forward to seeing what the next 50 years will bring - and beyond!
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