Due to a massive electrical outage, Parks Library closed at 5 p.m. Monday for security reasons.

David Gregory, associate director of public services for the university library, said the decision to close down the library was made by library officials and the Department of Public Safety after power went out because of a cable failure.

“Our main concern is the safety and security of users,” Gregory said.

The size of the building and lighting after the sun went down were the main concerns, he said.

“Very large parts of the building have no natural light,” he said. “There are scattered areas of complete darkness.”

Those areas include the tiers and the bathrooms, he said.

Parks Library is really four buildings in one, Gregory said. The outage affected all parts of the library except the 1983 addition.

The outage occurred overnight and was discovered by staff at 7:15 a.m. Monday, he said.

Kathy Parsons, head of stacks and service desk for university library, learned the power was out when she arrived at 7:15 a.m.

Parsons said staff and the university have been informed of the problem. Notices are posted on the library doors, the library Web site and the University Web site.

The library also made announcements over the public address system at 2 p.m., 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. to alert people in the library, Gregory said. There was also an announcement at 4:45 p.m. and one final announcement at 5 p.m.

“We assume people will exit in an orderly fashion,” Gregory said prior to the closing.

Parsons said power has gone out at Parks Library before, but it hasn’t happened in a while.

“It’s one of those things that doesn’t happen very often,” Parsons said. “Fortunately, they’re not a very common occurrence.”

Randy Larabee, chief engineer of electrical distribution for Facilities Planning and Management, said a cable failure caused the power to go out.

“We had a failure of a cable that provides power to a large part of the building,” Larabee said. “In order to do any repairs, we have to turn power off to an entire part of the building.”

The cable causing the problem also caused the power to go off in February 2002, Larabee said. The building does not need all the cables to operate, he said.

“Typically a repair like that shouldn’t be a problem,” he said.

Facilities will do a temporary repair on the cable and will fully correct the problem in the near future after hours or other times when people will not be using the library.

“We’ll find it and do full repairs to make sure it gets back to its normal system,” he said.

Larabee said the temporary repairs will be made so “everything is running before we go home [Monday].”

Parsons said the library will reopen at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday.

“We will be open tomorrow at regular time,” she said. “We’re operating as if they’re going to get everything done tonight.”

Gregory said Tuesday plans for if the power is still out has not been determined.

“We’ll deal with that tomorrow,” he said.