Mount Allison’s 5-year plan to renovate the RP Bell includes a temporary library and future athletic space
Senior administrators with Mount Allison University have announced plans for a five year, $85 million project that will begin construction this summer, and has been in the works since 2018.
The school will be breaking ground this summer on Landsdowne Street behind the Athletic Centre to build a 40,000 square foot building to temporarily house the university’s library for three years, while the octagonal Ralph Pickard Bell library undergoes a major renovation.
The plan is to have the new building ready in two years, by the summer of 2026, and then move library services onto Landsdowne until 2029, when the renewed Ralph Pickard Bell library is slated to reopen. After serving as a temporary library for three years, the new building will be outfitted as a multipurpose athletic facility for the school.
Mount A’s interim president Robert MacKinnon, vice president of finance Robert Inglis, dean of libraries Rachel Rubin, and director of facilities management Kris Kierstead presented the plan in two presentations to the university community on Wednesday afternoon and evening.
Hear Rachel Rubin and Kris Kierstead talk about the project after their presentation on Wednesday:
The total project will cost about $85 million, says Inglis, with provincial and federal governments chipping in $36 million, and donations making up most of the rest.… Continue
Years of planning and a salmon dinner lead to major public funding commitment to future of Ralph Pickard Bell library
The Ralph Pickard Bell library just took a giant step closer to a renewal project that has been in the works for years. On Tuesday afternoon, dignitaries, media, and members of the Mount Allison community gathered for a joint announcement from the provincial and federal governments of a combined $36 million in funding to help make the renovation a reality.
MP for Beauséjour and federal minister of infrastructure Dominic Leblanc announced $26 million towards the project coming from the green infrastructure stream of the Canada-New Brunswick bilateral infrastructure agreement. “There were a number of hundreds of millions of dollars that had not been allocated in the existing Canada-New Brunswick agreement,” said Leblanc after the announcement on Tuesday. “This is one example of the decisions that we made with the government of New Brunswick to access that funding, to do important infrastructure projects around the province.”
Leblanc says the project fits under the green infrastructure stream since the renovations will make the Ralph Pickard Bell Library “world-leading in terms of its environmental footprint.”
Two of New Brunswick’s provincial ministers also attended Tuesday. Minister of Health and Mount Allision alumnus Bruce Fitch was there, along with Post-Secondary Education minister Trevor Holder, who announced New Brunswick’s contribution to the project.
“I’m incredibly proud to announce today a $10 million commitment from the provincial government to support the programming needs here at Mount Allison University,” said Holder, to applause from those gathered.… Continue
Bean there, done that: hidden beans get found and then filed away at Ralph Pickard Bell
Back in early November, while library worker June Hicks was busy organizing the stacks in the aquaculture section of the Ralph Pickard Bell library, she happened on something unusual: an enormous can of beans.
“It’s not unusual for students to leave stuff around,” says Hicks. “But this is kind of unusual, a big can of beans.”
CHMA couldn’t resist dropping by the Ralph Pickard Bell Library back in November to hear the story of the giant can of beans:
Hicks says she was doing routine work in the agriculture and aquaculture section over the course of a few days, and one day happened upon the giant can, “on the bottom shelf, just as cozy as it can be.”
“I was just working away,” says Hicks, “when I got down off my stepstool one time, there were these beans staring at me, just like that. And I thought, what is this?”
Hicks didn’t just happen upon any old can of beans. This was a 2.84 litre (100 ounce) monster can of beans. “I don’t know who’d want to carry it around because it’s so heavy,” says Hicks.
Not surprisingly, none of Hicks co-workers were able to guess what she found before she revealed the hefty can on her library cart.… Continue