Talk:University of Massachusetts Amherst/Archive 1

Library

I've seen quite a few references that the W.E.B. Dubois library is the tallest library in the world. Can anyone confirm or deny this? Anthony DiPierro 20:50, 15 Jan 2004 (UTC)

The W.E.B. DuBois Library is the tallest academic library in the world. There are taller libraries, but they are not owned by educational institutions.

As a student at UMass I can confirm this. Interesting facts: the library is sinking, bit by bit, because of its weight and the land that it was built upon. Also, every other floor of the library is sort of useless -- they cannot be used for books because the architects did not factor in the weight of the books when the library was built (the library started to slowly collapse under its own weight -- bricks began to pop out of the building; there is now a metal fence keeping students away from the side of the library in case any more bricks fall). See [1] and [2]. Matthew McVickar 11:18, Mar 1, 2004 (UTC)

Seems as though this myth has been sufficiently repudiated below, but as anyone who has actually visited this library will tell you, regardless of their enrollment at UMass, there is no such absense of books every other floor. In fact there are books on every floor except those that are used for offices and computer labs.--Ian 05:56, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I'm a former student from there myself, and I can confirm that it's a tall library. I'm just surprised there isn't another library out there taller than 28 stories. In any case, your second story is an urban legend. [3] Anthony DiPierro 13:43, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I've been told that a university in Texas built one bigger, so now we are only the tallest BRICK library in the world. (heard from one of the tour guides) ~Adam Marquis

According to [Emporis], the library is the tallest in the United States. It does not indicate what the tallest library in the world is, but a list of the top 50 tallest education buildings can be found [here]. The library at UMass is ranked 21st. --Eraboin 07:09, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

In my experience, "library sinking from the weight of the books" is a common urban legend at Universities. I am currently at UMass, and formerly was at Alfred University and I have heard the same story at both schools. The Alfred version was that the library was sliding down the side of the hill and had to be anchored by 3-foot wide steel cables to the cafeteria higher up the hill than it. The UMass version I heard also included that the bricks were popping out from the sides of the building due to deformation of the building from the weight of the books. Both cases cited an architect whom overlooked the weight of the books when designing it. While they both make nice stories, the large number of coindicent "facts" makes me doubt both. Do you have a good source to confirm that this is what's REALLY happening to the DuBois Library? --zandperl 23:58, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Got more info here [4]. Apparently it's a common urban/campus legend. Sorry to burst your bubble! However, we could still include it on the UMass page, just say that it's a popular story. --zandperl 15:09, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Heh, I already gave that reference. See my comment above :). Anthony DiPierro 15:54, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I'm a current ugrad POLSCI major at UMass, have been for five years, and I can confirm that the W.E.B. Du Bois Library is not sinking. The Library has problems, however. Apparently, during the 1970s, when the Library was built, a corrupt contractor failed to take proper building practices into account. As such, the Library has a brick spallation problem. If you closely observe the external structure of the Library, you will see a big line of concrete every three floors. This concrete reinforcement was supposed to be at least 2' in width; however, the contractor at the time decided to skimp on reinforcement, and each 3rd floor reinforcement is approximately 1' 6" in width. This has resulted in the unfortunate brick spallation problem. The weight of the books (without the reinforcements) causes bricks to occasionally fall out of the brick lattice that is the external structure of the library. As a result, a fence, at least 12' away from the face of the library, has been constructed to prevent persons from entering an area where they can be exposed to spallated brick(s) or brick fragment(s). A partial result of the corrupt contractor and subsequent scandal was the creation of the Ward Commission, which reviewed the process of building construction and contracting within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1979.

This comment is quite clearly nonsensical. Glad you've chosen political science as your major. You should fit right in :). - Anthony

Regardless of the controversy over falling bricks or lack thereof, there is indeed a fence a significant distance from the side of the building, which keeps people (who do not jump over it -- it's low) away from the building. Also, the entryway is covered. --neurophyre 5:47, 26 July 2004 (UTC)

Yes, the presence of the fence does suggest that being next to the library could be dangerous. They don't have fences around Lederle or the Southwest highrises, so it's probably not bureaucratic nonsense. I've heard both stories many times, about the library sinking or the bricks falling out, and I've always doubted them. But there has to be some reason for the fence, right? They even made a big deal about it when they replaced the ugly chain-link fence with an ugly black guardrail. And the answer is...

Spalling chips [5], pieces of brick that break off of the library and fall to the ground, are the culprit. They're not whole bricks, but it's true that pieces of the library have broken off and fallen to the ground.

The library bricks became an issue during my stay at UMass, 1977-1981. Originally, there were no barriers around the tower. Pieces of the concrete tower's brick facade began to fall, creating a dangerous situation. The initial remedy was to close the main entrance, erect a temporary fence around the tower, place bales of hay within the fence to lessen the chance that a large portion of the facade would go through the ceiling of the basement level, and open a temporary entrance through the basement level. Eventually the main entrance was reopened with a previously non-existant covered entranceway that included a heavily reinforced roof.

I'm actually at the library right now, and two days ago I saw a "history of the library" document somewhere (I thought on the 24th floor) that confirmed that bricks were indeed falling out (and it sure looks like they are). Unfortunately I couldn't find it today (with my camera). 128.119.156.79 20:08, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Picture

On a side note, would anyone be terribly offended if I replaced the campus picture? Or added another one? Rhobite 13:55, Jul 26, 2004 (UTC)

Please do replace it. The picture I uploaded isn't very good. Matthew McVickar 17:11, Aug 1, 2004 (UTC)

Yes, please replace it. On top of not being very good, there is no source or licensing information on it. anthony (see warning) 17:27, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The campus is literally covered in rent-a-fences. I'll still try to get some shots in the next couple days. Rhobite 03:56, Aug 3, 2004 (UTC)

3 months later, but I finally I swapped out the old image with one of mine. Placement improvements are appreciated. Rhobite 00:53, Nov 4, 2004 (UTC)

Five Colleges

The paragraph in this article is very nice, but it repeats what's already in Five Colleges. Would anybody mind if I removed the detail from here and just left a reference ("UMass is one of the...")? (I also added a new Five Colleges template at the bottom of the page.) —Bsktcase 17:20, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I think it's fine to have a few sentences about the Five Colleges. Maybe it shouldn't be in its own section, but I don't mind the current blurb. Good job on the template. Rhobite 22:45, Sep 29, 2004 (UTC)

No hyphen

Moofdaddy renamed this page to University of Massachusetts-Amhest yesterday. Obviously the misspelling of "Amherst" a bit of a problem there. However, I also visited the UMass website and confirmed that they do not use a hyphen, so the whole rename was wrong even if it had been spelled correctly.

Anyhow, I changed it back.

I'll go ahead and create a redirect at University of Massachusetts-Amherst pointing here, to prevent future confusion. —Bsktcase 16:32, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

OWL

I think the latest addition to the OWL paragraph was a little POV, I trimmed it down some. Anyway, it referenced a survey of students and claimed that a majority of them thought OWL was a waste of time. I couldn't find this survey on umass.edu or dailycollegian.com, could someone provide a reference to it please? Rhobite 17:21, Nov 21, 2004 (UTC)

Poll on University Naming Conventions

A new survey has been created to assess consensus with respect to university naming conventions, specifically regarding the usage of terms like "University of Texas" vs. "University of Texas at Austin". The poll addresses this issue both in the specific case of the "University of Maryland" and proposes an amendment to Wikipedia:Naming conventions which could impact a large number of additional pages, including this one. Dragons flight 17:38, Mar 27, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the notification here. I'd like to note that I oppose this blanket policy on university naming. The short name may work for the University of Maryland, but it doesn't work for the University of Massachusetts system. Rhobite 18:26, Mar 27, 2005 (UTC)

Southwest density

I've also heard the rumor that Southwest was the most densely populated area in the United States. Doesn't seem likely, I've seen housing projects with buildings that were closer together than the Southwest towers. I'm removing this rumor unless someone can cite it. Rhobite 19:06, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)

Daytime Photograph

I added a daytime photograph of the UMass skyline to the History section. The old photograph was moved to the Buildings and Layout section, next to a paragraph talking about the library and the old chapel. If anyone objects to the layout changes, feel free to edit, but I think it works well this way. --Eraboin 01:48, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

Recent reorganization

Hi, just noticed you've had a lot of edits recently on the University of Massachusetts Amherst article. I thank you for your interest in our institution, but it concerns me that a lot of information has been deleted in the course of your edits.

Specifically, I don't see the need for this bulimic section cutting business, the article isn't too long, and each time someone merges a section, information is lost. The article actually has less information now than it did a month ago, and that to me is alarming.

Out of curiousity, are you or have you ever been a student at UMass?

Yes, there is normally no place in the article for individual organizations, but Take Back UMass is a bit different than the Cannibis Reform Council and the Chess Club- something anyone who's gone here for more than a semester knows. And there is no such thing as Residential Government, you wouldn't change the name of the US Congress section of the US Goverment article to Parliament just because its shorter.

From what I've seen on the definition for stub, it says, "These entries have categories that need to be developed" , so is it really the most appropriate thing to delete and merge information?

I don't want to make this seem like I'm attacking you, I'm just a little concerned, I look forward to your response,

Thanks

Vvuppala 21:13, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

I copied your message from my talk page, hope you don't mind. Thanks for the note. My goal has not been to remove information, I have mostly been reorganizing things to fit in with Wikipedia style. We label short articles as stubs, but I've never seen a situation where many sections are labeled as stubs. It makes for an ugly article. If people want to add information about Greek life or athletics, please just add the information instead of putting a self-referential notice into the section.

Although Take Back UMass was very visible during last year's SGA racism fiasco, I have barely heard about their activities this year. Maybe they should be mentioned in the article. But they shouldn't have their own section, nor should we copy their mission statement verbatim. There are hundreds of organizations on campus. Obviously they can't all be mentioned here, and any judgment about their relative importance would be POV.

I merged two very short sections about area governments and house councils under the heading "Residential governments". Since I didn't capitalize the heading, I wasn't trying to imply that "Residential government" is an official name. I was just trying to merge two short sections. I removed no information. I renamed the section header anyway after getting your note.

I also removed a piece of text which was opinionated against all-freshman dorms and the Epoch program. Personal opinions don't belong in this article. The only other thing I did was move some external links from the main text into the "external links" section, per the Wikipedia:Manual of style. I also removed some irrelevant links, such as the links to other campuses.

I have been a UMass student for a long time now.. not that my status is at all relevant. Everyone should be able to edit this article without having to submit qualifications. Rhobite 21:49, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for replying so quickly! I understand where you're coming from now. I appreciate your being so detailed in your reply. I agree that the section on Take Back was a bit self-promoting, and all the little sect-stubs were a bit of a nuisance. Look forward to working with you on this article, but right now, RA duty calls, take care,

Vvuppala 22:17, 18 December 2005 (UTC)