Butler University IT department opens its new doors. Photo by Jada Gangazha.
CHARLOTTE HARGROVE | STAFF REPORTER | chargrove@butler.edu
As of late October, Butler’s Information Technology (IT) department officially opened its new location on the third floor of Irwin Library. The department was previously located in the basement of the library after being relocated from the Holcomb building due to the addition of Butler’s new nursing program.
The IT department remained in the library basement for around a year, while awaiting the end of construction on their new offices on the third floor of the building.
Joe Ader, assistant chief information officer of the IT department, spoke about the challenges in moving the IT department around campus.
“It’s been a couple of years since [the process] started,” Ader said. “They warned us when the nursing program was defined that they needed the space for it.”
Dean of Libraries Josh Petrusa spoke on the library’s perspective regarding the move, specifically making certain that no students were losing preferred study spaces.
“We were tracking the usage of the third-floor space [and] it seemed to get busier later in the semester and around finals week,” Petrusa said. “As a result of losing that study space, we did add two new study rooms on the first floor, and we will [soon] have one that’s coming back on the [basement] level.”
Petrusa also explained the importance of the IT department for the university and how it will continue to grow along with evolving technology.
“Technology support is a thing that the university will obviously keep needing,” Petrusa said. “How libraries support the university has changed and developed over the years, and we are using the space in this building differently than we used it when I got here 15 years ago. I think how [we continue to] evolve with the space will be interesting.”
First-year P1 pharmacy major Peyton Kalka emphasized that the new centralized location might make IT easier for students to access.
“Having the IT department in the library has been very useful since a lot of people study there,” Kalka said.
Due to the smaller space they were given, some of the staff of the IT department will switch to a hybrid working environment and some staff do not have set desks.
“I think the biggest challenge for us was we were moving into a smaller space,” Ader said. “How do we take 60-plus staff and move them into a space that is [significantly] smaller? We redid some of the way we [work], [implemented] a practice called hoteling.”
The IT department is open Monday through Wednesday and Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., Thursday from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and is closed on weekends. During these off hours, information commons students at the desk are equipped to help with small tech problems and printing issues.
“[It] is very helpful so that [are] people besides [IT] in the library who know how to work the printers and everything,’” Kalka said.
The IT department help desk is now officially located on the third floor of Irwin Library and will remain there and be open to all students during the school week.
