how many shovels?

How many golden shovels did it take to break the ground for the $42 million Morris Library expansion project on Friday? Did anyone snap a photo like this one of the record-setting groundbreaking ceremony for the new Student Center? With Governor Rod Blagojevich the guest of honor, you gotta figure more. Presumably the Governor was holding a shovel when he suggested that SIU might want to rename the expansion for State Sen. Gary Forby, since his Forby didn't attend college (judging from his official biography)

You gotta hand it to G-Rod . . . (the shovel, that is) . . . he knows how to lay the rhetoric on thick.

In an interview with Jim Muir, the Governor answered questions about the budget, his "wallflower" attack on Rep. John Bradley, and what a great job he was doing with his Opportunity Returns campaign, including $30 million for SIU to spend on a "50,000-square-foot expansion will be built to the north of the existing main entrance and will hold more computer rooms, Internet connections and a lobby featuring an Internet cafe," . . . the Forby Wing?

Will SIU attempt to subsidize costs by selling the rights to name the room to a corporation or foundation? Or name it after a popular choice . . . or have no name at all? Since Chancellor Walter Wendler said the project "would help the University's mission to be the most student responsive research facility in Illinois," I vote for the late Humanities Librarian, Alan Cohn, the most student-responsive librarian I've ever known, or someone else who gave years of service to Morris Library.