Library employees recently discovered that Astrolabe 1999, the sculpture that hangs on the left side of the lobby area, had come loose from some of its moorings. Thomas Schulte, the Jefferson City-based artist who created the piece, and members of the university's Physical Facilites department removed the artwork completely and then reattached it safely to the wall.
Astrolabe 1999 was commissioned to mark the occasion of the library's renovation. The astrolabe was perfected by the Arabs in the 9th century and was used for measuring the position of celestial bodies, surveying, and navigating at sea. Schulte's work celebrates this technical heritage and the interrelationship between the artistic and the technical.
