A focus group met Thursday evening to discuss ideas for the renovation of the lower levels of the Sciences Library.
The Department of Facilities Management, considering a renovation of the bottom three floors of the SciLi, invited students to give input on the project. Several undergraduate and graduate students convened at the SciLi to share their ideas for the future of the library. Student library employees and Facilities Management Planner Susan Price facilitated the meeting, which drew eight students, some of whom are library employees.
Facilities Management is in the initial stages of planning renovations to the 33-year-old library, Price told those who gathered in a basement conference room. One of the biggest needs is for more study spaces, she said.
Price asked if keeping some study spaces in the SciLi open for 24 hours would be a good idea after one student suggested that the library needed longer hours.
While some students said that longer hours would not affect them, others thought it would be a good idea to keep the library open later.
"It'd be nice to have a library open until 4 (a.m.)," a student said.
Several students suggested that the SciLi add small private classroom spaces with whiteboards for about 10 students.
"It's a lot easier to work in a study room," one student said. "It's hard to find an open cluster for a lot of people to study."
Ryan Roth, Class of 2005 representative on the Undergraduate Council of Students and student liaison to the Corporation, said whiteboards in private study rooms would be a helpful study aid. Roth is a library employee; he works in the special collection at the John Hay Library.
"For students in the sciences, it allows them to get more information out visually on the board," he said. "I've been a TA for math classes, and it really helps to organize information. You're used to working with information presented to you on a board all the time."
Another idea that came up during the meeting was for a café at the library. Students liked the idea of a place at the SciLi to meet and to get coffee and food, especially if the library were to be open 24 hours.
"If you have a 24-hour place and nothing on Thayer Street is open, you want a place to get food," Roth said.
Price said after the meeting that one idea she liked was adding a variety of different spaces within the library. For example, one student said that he would like an "absolutely quiet" room in the SciLi that would be similar to the one in the Rockefeller Library, as well as lounges where students can relax.
"It'd be nice to have some rooms with some distraction going on," David Gomel '06 said, "like having TVs with CNN rolling with no sound on." Gomel works at the Help Desk at the SciLi.
Other ideas that students suggested during the meeting included opening the library earlier on Sunday mornings, adding more Ethernet ports or wireless Internet to the upper levels of library, having staff at the reference desk late at night and adding warmer colors to the library.
Students also suggested adding more fax machines and printer centers around the campus.
Facilities Management will consider the students' input and present a project plan to the Corporation later this year.
Michael McCormick, director of planning of Facilities Management, said Thursday afternoon that he started thinking about renovations to the SciLi two or three years ago. At that time, Brown had created new storage space for its libraries by buying an old building in southwest Providence. The University hired a design firm to study how Brown could effectively use the space freed by moving books into storage, McCormick said.
"That's when we started to think about new space for what they call library commons, a place where people can go study and meet with each other and to go and have food."
McCormick said the project is in the preliminary stages and there are no concrete plans for the renovations as of yet.
"There's a billion options of what we can do," he said. "We can redo the landscape and change the entrances. We can do a lot of things with computers and access to computers and with food and circulation. We're at that early stage, and we're still trying to figure everything out. We're trying to make sure that no stone is unturned."
McCormick also said that the project would be funded by donors, and it is possible that other Brown libraries will undergo renovations in the near future.
Price and McCormick both said the renovations would improve campus life.
"I think it's necessary," Price said. "We have space on our campus that could use renovation. I think it's a good thing."
"We're all really excited about this project, and we're hopeful that we can pull something together that will have a big impact on campus life," Price added.
