The Word of Life mural on the Hesburgh library is being removed as the final part of the stadium renovation. The world's largest mosaic image is being replaced with a Sony "JumboTron" screen which will advertise for the bookstore and give important safety information to visiting alumni on football weekends.

During the week, the screen will display the time and temperature.

"We thought, frankly, that the mosaic was getting a bit old," explained Father Malloy. "We wanted the whole nation to know what a first-class Catholic University would look like in the twenty-first century."

The Construction project is expected to take seven years, during which the library will be unavailable to both students and faculty. Plans are being made to move the books into South Dining Hall, where there is "plenty of room," Malloy says.

Every book in Hesburgh's 2 million volume collection will have to be
re-catalogued and stacked in the dining hall. This has caused concern in the library staff, which has experienced a rash of shootings and deaths.


Library Ombudsperson Larry Daniels responded to the shootings with the following public statement:

"Several of the library staff have taken matters into their own hands, trying to stop the move to SDH with gun play. We hope they will realize that nothing is going to stop this move and cease their rash actions, which are not at all in the spirit of this University."

Nevertheless, that has given little comfort to students who more and more, are having their studies interrupted by random gunplay behind the circulation desk. Four students were killed in such an outbreak Friday.

"It's like, you're just studying and then, O my God, wow! People are shooting and someone's dead and you still have to take the test the next day. Shouldn't I get a 4.0 for my trouble, I mean, you know, come on!" gushed Megan O'Rielly of Breen-Phillips Hall.

Ethel May DeLuca, a library security guard, requested that library monitors be allowed to carry automatic weapons for the remainder of the semester.

"That request is being taken very seriously," commented ND director of Security Rex Rakow. "You just can't have people shooting guns off in the library. It ain't Christian."

It ain't indeed.