Posted Saturday, September 16, 2006
 
DOVER — The William C. Jason Library-Learning Center at Delaware State University is riddled with black mold, the result of water that pours into the building during moderate to heavy rainfall.

According to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, black mold may cause stuffy nose, irritated eyes, wheezing or skin irritation. People allergic to mold may experience breathing difficulties, and those with weak immune systems and chronic lung diseases may develop infections.

DSU officials insisted Thursday they do the best they can with a poorly designed structure that has been a problem since it was opened in 1975.

Few students use the library, DSU President Allen L. Sessoms said, and, for that reason, it’s on a far backburner on the school’s capital-improvements list. Attractions such as artificial turf on the football field, a wellness-center/sports arena and a new student center are the top priorities in a 10-year, $300 million campus master plan adopted by the board in January.
 
Typically, the strategy when water pours into the library is to replace tiles and clean up damage to whatever extent is possible, then brace to do the same when the next big shower rolls around.
 
"When we ask the state for capital improvement funds to do things like that," Sessoms said of library improvements, "we just don't get it."
 
In the state's capital improvements budget for the fiscal year that began July 1, DSU is budgeted to get $4.5 million for minor capital improvements and repairs.
 
Claiborne D. Smith, chairman of DSU's board of trustees, agreed, contending that spiffy new athletic and recreational facilities attract students to the campus. Libraries don't, he said, contending that the Internet had outstripped libraries as the primary research tool for college students.
 
"We can't print money," he said. "The library has been that way for 20 years. The state is not stepping up to the plate, and we got lots of other things we need to do."
 
Lee Streetman, president of DSU's Faculty Senate, took issue with Smith's remarks.
 
He said that a study had identified quality of education and DSU's legacy as a historically black institution as the top two generators of new enrollees. He accused the board and the administration of undercutting both by skimping on faculty members and de-emphasizing DSU's traditional role in educating black students.
 
"Libraries should be the centerpiece of every university," Streetman, a professor of sociology and criminal justice who has been at DSU since 1991, said in an interview, noting that he was expressing a personal opinion embraced by other faculty members.
 
"This is embarrassing, and it's also a safety hazard."
 
Philip Sadler, a spokesman for the DSU Alumni Association and a 1962 DSU graduate, agreed.
"I think the situation is that the library has been neglected," Sadler said, stressing that he was not speaking for the alumni association. "It's probably one of the busiest buildings on campus, and I think maintaining the library should be given higher priority."
 
The latest damage came as tropical depression Ernesto moved through Delaware on Sept. 1.
 
Five days later, Streetman took photographs inside the library to buttress complaints that he's been lodging for three years or so. The photos depicted, among other things, walls splotched with black mold, fallen tiles, corroded window frames that allowed water inside the six-story building and, in one case, a burn mark on a door that apparently was caused when water infiltrated a closet containing high-voltage power lines.
 
"The whole building could have burned down," he said.
 
When asked about the leaks last Friday, DSU spokesman Carlos Holmes blamed them on Ernesto, saying the storm had knocked holes in the roof and loosened window frames. He said water had leaked into several group study rooms on the fifth floor of the building, and that, because of mold, "at least one, maybe two" remained out of service.
 
A visit to the library last week found six offices and study rooms on floors 5, 4, and 3 locked and out of service, including Room 501, which featured black splotches on a wall that were visible through a window. Stained, broken tiles littered most of the rooms, and more than 50 handwritten notes posted by library staffers marked spots where leaks or excess water was detected.
 
"Excessive leaking," read many of the notes. "Do not use."
 
The offices and study rooms were at the east end of areas housing general circulation volumes, and there were no signs to warn of potential toxicity. Sessoms said the university "is on top of" the problems at the library, but did not respond directly when asked if air-quality sampling had been performed inside the building.
 
Earlier in the week, DSU's dean of libraries, Vivian Royster, declined to comment on the library's condition, referring questions to Holmes. She signed up Thursday to speak at the board of trustees meeting, but did not respond when the floor was offered.
 
Streetman said Royster offered a proposal a couple of years ago to build a new $72 million library, but Sessoms said that, even as the state signed off on the wellness center/sports complex, the Delaware General Assembly was not likely to buy into it.
 
During Thursday's meeting, trustee Norman Oliver asked about plans for library improvements. The chairman of the development and investments committee, Marvin E. Lawrence, responded that $400,000 had been set aside, but Sessoms essentially dismissed that figure as a drop in the bucket.
 
"That's a multimillion-dollar issue," he said. "It's in the tens of millions of dollars, and we'll just have to deal with it over time."
 
http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060916/NEWS/609160337/1006/NEWS
 
 

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