Last semester, it was announced that the Alvin Sherman Library would be building new study rooms and rearranging the second floor to feature more seating and study areas for students. Students requested additional study space and, after months of renovations, the library is nearing the end of its construction.
According to Jim Hutchens, the vice president for information services and university librarian at the Alvin Sherman Library, “We are putting more space, more collaborative space similar to what we have on the third floor in the [Alvin] Sherman Library so students can work together in a non-quiet environment. What we are doing is we are moving all of the books from the second floor to the fourth floor in some undeveloped space along the fourth floor east.”
The journals from the Martin and Gail Press Health Professions Division Library will be stacked with the rest of the academic journals on the fourth floor of the Alvin Sherman Library. Hutchens said, “Because we are moving the books from static stacks, unmovable stacks, to movable stacks, we put more books in a smaller physical footprint. We are going to end up with almost 350 more seats in the Alvin Sherman Library. We also took on some books from the [Martin and Gail Press Health Professions Division] Library.”
Eight more study rooms on the second floor with six seats each are being built on the second floor. The continued renovations happening at the library are expected to last approximately a month, with the library staff hoping that these new study rooms will be functional by Sept. 15. Due to the transition from static shelves to the moving shelves that are present throughout the Alvin Sherman Library, the construction was delayed, as the necessary parts for the new shelves had not been delivered as early as expected. According to Hutchens, the renovations are about a month behind schedule. The area on the second floor west, where the academic journals were housed, is being converted into a collaborative study area that is modeled off the Circle of Friends Collaborative Study Room that is on the third floor of the Alvin Sherman Library.
“I would really like to recognize the staff that helped move the journals from the second to the fourth floor, and the staff from the HPD Library. We did it in two weeks to keep our project and the timeline relatively on track. I just think this type of work is indicative of staff throughout all the libraries. We are invested in the success of students at NSU, and being student-centered is something we appreciate,” said Hutchens.
