What’s happening on the main floor of the Library?

You may have noticed that we are renovating a small portion of the library near the Reference Desk.

This spring, we held design workshops with students to talk about what they needed in the library that was not currently available. Roughly 45 students participated in the conversation and we received some really great suggestions.

We shared the student suggestions with the folks at Ayers/Saint/Gross, a design firm in Baltimore, and they helped us to design a space that would address as many of those ideas as possible. We are planning to have spaces where you can plug in your laptops to a shared screen to collaborate on projects, view videos on large screens together as a group, or work on your laptop in technology-equipped lounge chairs. We’re also planning to update the look and feel of the space with better lighting, brighter colors, and more comfortable furniture. And, most of the furniture will be on wheels, so you will be able to rearrange it to meet your needs.

Here are a few sketches that the Ayers/Saint/Gross folks shared with us.  We may be making some changes as construction gets underway, but these images will give you a general idea of what we’re thinking:

You may be wondering about the café tables pictured on the portico in the images. One of our librarians noticed how great it was to have the temporary tables on the portico during our design sessions and students agreed, so we’re also planning to add café tables in time for the Fall semester!

We’ll be posting photos here on the blog as the space transforms to keep you up-to-date, but feel free to stop in and check out the changes for yourself over the course of the summer!