User Space

Space at Jefferson Lab is at a high premium. Users find it harder and harder to reserve (semi-)permanent office space, and during high-occupancy periods (e.g., summer and around PAC and conference meetings), some users may not have found a suitable place to sit at all. Additional strain will come from new JLab hires (who need a place to sit) and from planned renovations, e.g. of the Test Lab (which contains some office space). There is a plan to add a wing ("D-Wing") to CEBAF Center (probably 5 years in the future), and some space relief may eventually come from the new TEDF building. Some equipment storage will occur off-site, at least temporarily; new trailers near endstation D are also a possibility. However, all of this is uncertain at this time. Facilities Management is working with the User Liaison office and UGBoD to come up with a more sustainable model for allocating space in the future - see the "Long Term Plan" item below. As always, please send your ideas, comments, and concerns to any member of UGBoD or visit Ongoing Polls.

In the medium term future, the upstairs of the Counting House will be upgraded in time for the start of the 12 GeV program. Additional information about the planned layout can be found here: CountingHouse2ndFloor. Please send us your comments about the space needs and desirable features of this upgrade.

Short term, there are plans to use space in the ARC library to install about 36 "work stations" that can be reserved by users for limited amounts of time (e.g., for a stay of one or a few week(s) during the summer). Here is a possible layout: File:ARC Library Workstations.pdf. The reservations will likely use a new "hotelling" software. [The same software might be used to assign space in the new 2nd floor of the counting house and perhaps additional work stations, as needed.] Perhaps some of these work stations could be left "open" (without reservations) for short time (1 day) usage by users who come for short, unannounced visits on a "first come, first served" basis.

---

New Developments:

• March 2011: JLab will likely have to convert a few more user cubicles on the 3rd floor of the F-Wing (CEBAF Center) to use as staff offices within the next few weeks. The affected users will hopefully be informed ahead of time. Please let your UGBoD directors know if you have any concerns or feedback about this.

• March 2011: Facilities management has requested that unused items such as old equipment, file cabinets, books and documents which are presently stored in user office space in the F-Wing be removed if they are no longer needed. An official announcement will be sent out shortly; users will have about 90 days to reclaim their possessions and ask that they remain in their present locations. All items to be removed will be tagged and, if no response to the contrary is received, will be scheduled for disposal after this year's Annual User Group Meeting. Again, please contact us (see above) if you have any objections or suggestions.

Long Term Plan

Facilities management and the User Liaison office (in consultation with the UGBoD) is developing a plan how to handle space assignments for users in a more equitable and rational fashion in the future. Hopefully, we will continue to retain a large number of user "seats" in the F-wing (right now, there are 172 seats). We will set up a new poll once we get a clearer picture of what this plan is going to look like; some ideas that have been discussed are listed below. Of course, you are welcome to contact us anytime with your feedback.

1. Institutions with existing MOUs stipulating office space at JLab will continue to have "permanent" space allocated. Probably, the amount of space will be adjusted to reflect the average "presence" (number of people likely to be present over longer time periods) of each institution.
2. Institutions with long-term commitments to specific experiments should get office space assigned for a fixed but finite time (sufficient to complete the experiment in question).
3. Individual graduate students and postdocs that are not accounted for under the first 2 categories would be assigned individual seats within larger areas (like the existing large cubicles in the F-wing) for the duration of their theses or other projects IF they are predominantly stationed at JLab (more than half of a given year).
4. All other, shorter-term visitors will probably be assigned space using the hotelling reservation mentioned above for the actual duration of each stay. There should be some way to store items that are needed during repeated visits and perhaps have computers owned by the users connected to the network in some safe location (but not necessarily near a "permanent" desk space). Depending on the needs of the individual users, phones and/or computers may also be available for time-limited rental.
5. A few seats should be kept open without reservation on a "first come, first served" basis for people who come for short, unannounced visits.

Again: NONE of this is officially decided - your suggestions to improve on these ideas are very much welcome.