What’s changed at the Libraries over the summer?

Whoa—things look different in D. H. Hill Jr.! We have been busy all summer making changes and improvements. And we’d love to hear your thoughts about them.

We’ve installed new carpet in the Learning Commons, the Print/Copy/Scan room, the Digital Media Labs, the Graduate Commons, and the Special Collections Reading Room. The purple looks terrific, doesn’t it?

The Learning Commons also has colorful new task chairs, new fabric panels around the workstations, and convenient new power connections at several of the seating areas. We are planning new, larger work surfaces around the columns, as well as new low bookcases in the Popular Reading area, for installation later this fall.

We’ve added a new Quiet Reading Room in the west wing at D. H. Hill Jr.. Not silent—no need for shushing—but quiet. This new space features power outlets at all of the tabletops.

Later this fall, we will relocate three group study rooms in D. H. Hill Jr. from the third floor to the seventh floor and add new group study rooms on the fifth, sixth, and eighth floors (a total of 13 new rooms).

We’ve also moved a whole lot of books—upwards of a million, in fact. In anticipation of a major renovation starting in May 2019, we’ve moved most of those books from floors 2 and 3 to floors 4-9. The least-used volumes have gone to the bookBot at Hunt. If you can’t find a book, we are here to help you! Call number maps have been updated in our catalog and elevators. The stack labels have also been updated. And you can request a book online or come to Ask Us.

And we haven’t left the Hunt Library out. As part of the new Dataspace, we’ve created a high-performance computing area on the third floor, near the Game Lab. Later this fall, the Game Lab will be renovated to feature a new display wall that can be used for gaming and workshops.

As always, if you have suggestions for how to make the Libraries better, please tell us!