Why didn’t we wait? We wouldn’t have been any worse off. We’re really not better off now. In fact, we’re probably worse off now. Possibly, in the end, the ribbon cutting ceremony will be held sooner than it would have if we had waited, but it’s late already. Did anyone consider if it would have been better to just suck it up and wait a little longer, that as bad as it is, it just might have been better?

I was looking forward to Booth Library opening Jan. 7, and it was one construction project I believed could actually be finished on time. After the delay was announced, I figured I’d have to wait until next fall, maybe after spring break at the earliest, to go to a real university library because there was no way books could be moved during the semester. I was a little disappointed when the delay was announced, but I’m more upset now.

Moving the books from the spread out library locations to the real Booth Library during the semester has to be the worst idea I’ve heard of.

Books moved to Booth Library are available through a paging system and can be retrieved within three hours. Students are used to this method since we’ve had to do it before to get books that weren’t at McAfee.

However, the difference is before requesting books was more of a convenient service, so we didn’t have to walk to another location. Also, for the most part, with the old system, students could still browse the majority of the books in the library.

Over the weekend, a friend and I decided to be good students and head to the library to start research on a paper. Neither of us knew for sure what we wanted to do our papers on, but we had a sheet telling us what sections of books to look at to get ideas. After heading to the basement of McAfee where the stacks are, or were, we found all the books with call numbers A through G had been moved.

Now what were we to do?

If we had specific call numbers for the books we wanted, we could request them, and they would be retrieved within three hours, which isn’t so bad. However, we didn’t have specific call numbers because we just wanted to browse through the sections. We could look online, a method I’ve used many times to find books and articles, but that’s not the same either.

Interim President Lou Hencken said the No. 1 goal is to inconvenience people the least amount as possible. He said faculty and students will suffer minimal inconvenience.

Maybe we just have different definitions of minimal inconvenience.

I’m OK with minimal inconvenience. Having a university library in four locations with the main branch being an old gymnasium is minimal inconvenience. Not being able to search all books is a little inconvenient. Not being able to browse through the majority of the books is more than minimal inconvenience.

Hencken said when the library opens, it will be 80 to 90 percent complete. We’ve waited this long. We might as well wait until it’s 100 percent complete before opening and lessen the inconvenience of students right now.

It’s a pain we have to wait a little longer for the fences around the library to disappear, but why, since we are late as it is, did we have to move the books and increase the students’ inconvenience?