As of today, 240 VCU students, staff, and faculty have joined the Facebook group called "People who get assaulted by the doors at the Cabell Library" where you can read account after account of people's difficulties with the library's front doors. Is 240 complaints enough to bring about action? How many people use these doors each day? One library staffer quoted the figure of 10,000 visits in one recent day through the Cabell turnstiles. Is that accurate? I suggest a heat curtain like department stores use to replace the inner doors--or at least automatic opening doors like Tuckahoe Library in Henrico that require no physical strength to open. The library doors at the most used at VCU so make them the BEST doors at VCU! Don't embarrass the weak armed among us with these doors any longer.
From: an undergraduate student

Pat Flanagan, Associate University Librarian for Public Services, responds....
Thank you for the comments about the Cabell Library entry doors. We are also concerned that this is an issue for VCU library patrons.

The Cabell doors are 30+ years old and this does create challenges to keeping them maintained and operating at optimal levels. However, there is additionally a forced air issue related to the overall design of the vestibule. It creates air vacuums at times which tend to pull the doors shut harder than they would normally close.

We can offer these actions that we have learned are underway by VCU's Facilities Management department: A new operator arm was installed on the handicapped entrance facing Hibbs the first week of October. It should now be operating correctly. The handicapped door facing the Student Commons is slated for replacement with a better model in three to six weeks. In addition, Facilities Management is aware of the issues with the other entry doors and is performing an assessment of them. They will be investigating what solutions might be possible to remedy the problems.

I hope this information helps. This concern was also addressed on October 3, 2007.