I wanted to start a new entry where people could report on what they said and heard at the Fstone focus group meetings. I know that Joe, Adrienne, David Russell and I went to two different focus group meetings, if any one else went please post as well. An overarching topic is obviously moving books out to annexes to make more study spaces. Most grad students came on the side against this, we talked about the importance of browsing, of having easy access to books, and of having books near grad study spaces. A minority opinion (mine) was that some shifting of books and use of accordian book cases would be worth increasing the amount of open study spaces in the library.
If any one who didn’t go to the focus groups wants to add their two cents in email:
Dorothy A. Pearson at pearson@Princeton.EDU
The librians, library staff, and architects at the meeting said that this was a 10 year process and that (contrary to rumours) no plan was yet in place. Here’s a quick list of what was discussed, the best of my notes/memory.
1.Quality of Space
-inadequate natural and artificial light (both the amount and quality of the light)
-lack of comfortable chairs
-poor air control technology – heater/AC tooo loud, too cold, etc
2. Kinds of Space
-making more spaces like the trustees room, perhaps on the 3rd floor, which has lots of natural light and high ceilings. Making the space by increasing the number of accordian style bookshelves (think C floor).
-renovating the reserve room on the A floor
-renovating and increasing the size, number, utility of grad-only study spaces
-providing small storage facilities for laptops & books
-renovating and getting rid of classrooms in the library
-adding a cafe-study space in the library
3. Misc.
-adding more (and better) water fountains
-allowing covered drinks in the library
-changing library security to a more mechanized system (guards not searching your whole bag,using magnetic strips in books)
-increasing library hours
-making the library more or less of a maze
-shifting all call numbers on to the library of congress system
I won’t be able to be at the GAC meeting today because it clashes with my Latin class, so I thought I’d write a brief comment here instead.
There wasn’t a huge amount to report from the monday 10am focus group; it was very genial, and we were assured that the plans to renovate were not yet concretised or confirmed. I think we did a good job about voicing our concerns and making clear how we feel the library should and shouldn’t change, and should or shouldn’t be used. I agree with Greg that a coffee shop would be a bad plan, and also that covered dirnks should be allowed; if they did this people wouldn’t have to smuggle coffee, and they could clamp down on people who bring in noisy or messy foodstuffs. As far as the actual renovations go, they sound very long term, so i think it’s just a good idea for us to keep dicussing them in this way to make sure they proceed in the right direction.
Sorry I couldn’t make it to the group meetings; but I’m happy to see that a great amount of the potential changes sound useful and even necessary. My one concern is the idea of introducing a cafe in the library. Between East Pyne cafe, Cafe Vivian, and the coffee shops available in town, a student is rarely more than a few steps from caffeine. Certainly covered drinks should be allowed past the guards without having to smuggle cups in paper bags/brazenly disregard library policy/be a girl. But bringing the cafe itself into the building will only increase the general noise-level in Firestone. And not only around the cafe itself: building a cafe will contribute to a shift in how social the overall space of the library is perceived to be and will alter how the research-oriented structure is inhabited by both undergrads and grads.
I caution as such because I’m thinking of the main library at Washington University, where I did my undergrad and masters degrees. The library was under renovation for years and when it was finally completed, in the second year of my MA, the ground floor had a new cafe installed squarely in its center, with a vaulted ceiling such that the top three floors circled their glass-walls around the large cafe space (think a Benthamite panopticon where the guard tower serves lattes). And it was predictably awful, with the cafe a core of chatter and the study areas made peripheral to the sociality of this restaurant. Wash U’s an extreme case, but my concern with a cafe in Firestone would be an analogous step in the mall-ification of our places of work.
Now, if by “better water fountains” they mean ones that spout coffee, I could get down with that…