The smell of smoke interrupted students’ late-night studies at Torreyson Library on Nov. 1, but UCA and fire officials could not find its cause.

Library Director Rodney Lippard said the library was evacuated for “about one hour.”

“Fortunately, there wasn’t an actual fire but rather a problem with a server in one of the technical closets. The IT department was able to fix the server, resolving the issue,” he said.

Skylar Brooks, a senior psychology major, said, “I was at the library with some friends doing homework. We were in the very back so it took longer for the smell to reach us.

“It smelled like something was burning, like someone had burned their hair flat ironing it. As soon as my friends and I went outside, we just decided to leave and not wait for it to clear up because there were like three fire trucks outside and it was already about 10:30.”

Brooks said while the alarms didn’t go off, “the workers came down each aisle and told us we had to leave because there was a burning smell they didn’t know where was coming from.”

Another student, senior linguistics major Eden Sharp said, “I honestly had no idea what was going on until I had finished studying for the night.

“I remember smelling what smelled like burnt popcorn or something a few minutes before I finished up, but thought nothing of it. I listen to music when I study with really good noise-canceling headphones, so I didn’t hear anything,” Sharp said.

“Then, I noticed a bunch of people walking out. It was the same time I wanted to head out and I asked them why everyone is leaving, and they told me they were told to leave, and then as we exited, I saw the fire truck parked outside the library,” she said.

Associate Vice President of Facilities Kevin Carter said Nov. 2, “A burning odor was detected so UCAPD notified the Conway Fire Department who came and investigated. They were unable to find anything. Physical Plant staff spent several hours inspecting the building this morning and were not able to locate the source of the smell.”

According to the Conway Fire Department’s report, firefighters entered the building and worked with UCAPD to track down the smell.

“UCAPD and maintenance agreed to do a walkthrough of the building every hour overnight and continue to look for the source. We turned the building back over [to] them and returned all units,” the report states.

Lippard said, “We are grateful to the library employees for their swift action, to the students for evacuating calmly and quickly, to the public service of the fire and police departments for a rapid response, and to the IT department for correcting the issue as soon as it was realized.”