Jackie Kranski set up an appointment to meet with her teaching assistant at the east entrance of the Marriott Library only to find out it was closed.
“I was supposed to meet my tutor up there, only to be told that the upper floors were all closed off,” said Kranski, a freshman in business. “It pretty much left me in the dust and we had to make new plans.”
Ongoing construction in the library is inconvenient for students, she said.
On Monday, the Marriott Library closed the east entrance for construction.
“I love the library, but even I got lost for about 10 minutes trying to figure out where to get in,” said Megan Gale, a sophomore studying education.
Students who used to study on levels three, four and five have to find other places to study, because the library is only accessible on the first two levels.
“The Union is too distracting to study because you always see someone you know,” Gale said. “So I usually end up studying at home.”
Robert Nelson, a curriculum librarian on the first floor of the library said he has seen an increased flow of traffic in the study areas near the science and engineering collections.
“We’ve found this first floor is actually a lot busier because the upper levels are closed off,” Nelson said. “I don’t mind the extra traffic that comes in here now.”
Many students, however, have not faced difficulties with the changes.
“I always come to this area to study,” said Sanjay Srivastava, a graduate student in robotics, who usually studies on the first floor. “There are more people, but it’s still quiet and I haven’t had any problems.”
Likewise, David Wang, a junior in biology, said the closure of the upper floors haven’t made a difference.
“My favorite place to study was on the third floor, but now that they’ve closed it off, I just have to find another desk or cubby hole to study down here,” Wang said.
Although the upper levels are closed until next fall, the library has opened a new 25,000-square-foot study area on the second floor with more group study rooms, said Ian Godfrey, library facility manager.
“The new area was opened this week and students are taking advantage of the area,” he said. “I walked past the study rooms earlier today and saw that they were all filled up.”
Godfrey said the construction will contain three major changes. There will be an extensive automotive retrieval center to help utilize space, eight new classrooms will be built on the main level and a knowledge commons, which will eventually hold hundreds of new computers and will be the largest computer lab on campus.
In addition, the library has started two new services, Godfrey said. One is a pull-and-hold request, available online. Students can ask for an item and it will be held for 24 hours.
The other is a new document delivery service, which provides electronic delivery of journal articles from the print collections and interlibrary loans for faculty and students.
“We just want the students to know all the collections are still available, and undergraduate students, graduate students and faculty can get resources by walking up to the desk or electronically online,” he said.
Jarad Reddekopp