What to renovate in Hammermill

Anthony Miller, Opinion Editor

Recently, it was announced that Hammermill Library will be receiving a set of renovations in the summer of 2019.

It is the latest in a series of renovations that have been hitting the campus one after another since President Michael T. Victor became president.

I love the library, but I have two things I would like to see addressed in any renovation of the library.

Firstly, I would like to see more of the library used for space for the books.

Since we lost the bottom floor of the library to the Intel lab, a large chunk of the books in the library have all been crammed onto the third floor, the floor previously used to house mainly books of fiction.

Back before the Intel lab, all the works of philosophy, among other such things, occupied space on the bottom floor of the library.

If you wanted to find a book of philosophy, you’d know exactly where you’d have to go in the library to go find it.

Now, if you wanted to get your hands on a copy of Nietchze or Kant, you’d have to sort through the entire massive second floor of the library to find what you are looking for.

Or, conversely, if you want to find a fiction book to read, your search will be impeded by the lack of space on the third floor.

In some parts of the second floor, it’s hardly possible to crouch over to see books on the bottom shelf, the shelves are so packed together.

It’s like you’re King Arthur searching for the Holy Grail or something.

And just like King Arthur, your quest will probably end in complete failure as you lose the book you’re looking for in the seemingly endless waves of shelves.

That is, unless the book you are looking for is one of the few lucky ones to ascend to the fourth floor of the library, which houses books on history, biology and the like.

The point is, I’d like to see more of the library utilized for book keeping, instead of many of the texts being crammed into one floor like it is now.

Secondly, I’d like to see more study space on the first floor of the library.

From what I’ve seen, the first floor of the library is a very popular study and meet-up spot.

I myself have used it in the past both for studying and for group work.

It would be nice to have more study space on this floor, as it can fill up really quickly during midterms or finals week.

I know this might seem contrary to what I just requested, for more of the library to be used for book keeping.

But the first floor of the library has never been much used for book keeping anyway, it’s always been more of a study space and a place for things like the circulation desk and IT help desk.