Dr. James Lea, a library visitor, enjoys the new furniture that was recently placed
on the second floor of the library. More updates in both this section and other
parts of the library are expected in the future. The Lion’s Roar / Megan Simon

The Student Government Association and the administration of the Sims Memorial Library have teamed up to renovate and update the library. 

Earlier this week, new furniture was placed in the serials reading section on the second floor, the first visible accomplishment of all their efforts. This marked the beginning of the long road to renovating the entire library.

The main organizers of the project are SGA senator and Student Life Committee Head Megan Anciro, Director of Sims Memorial Library Eric Johnson and head of serials Janie Branham.

In the beginning, the library originally filed for a $100,000 grant to update the serials reading section in an effort to start renovating the library; this included getting new furniture and computers. Unfortunately, the grant was not awarded to them. 

It was not until Anciro arrived two years ago, fulfilling her duty as a freshman senator for the SGA, that the library was able to get the funding it needed to start planning and carrying out the process to renovate the library. 

“As a freshman, you don’t really know what you want to study yet, so it helps to get those people who aren’t sure what their department is going to be and to hear their concerns,” said Anciro. “So I talked to some students who were just hanging around, and I heard that a lot of these people spend their time in the library and thought it needed to be updated. That’s when I contacted Mr. Eric.”

By working together, both the SGA, Friends of Library and the library were able to get new furniture for the serials reading section, which complimented the newly painted walls. In addition to the new furniture, extra electrical outlets were put in to give students more places where they can charge their laptops, phones and other electronics.

This is only the first phase of the plan to update the serials reading section into a specialized learning hub. The next phase will be to get group study tables, varying in different heights, that are moveable. This is so students will be able to move their work spaces wherever they desire, whether it be near a window, connected to a friend’s or the other side of the room. There will also be stationary tables with white boards in between them. 

“This room will be more geared for working up projects together and for group study with computers and laptops,” said Johnson.

The third phase will be to change the format of the computers stationed in the left area of the serials section, making it resemble more like a modern cyber cafe’s layout.

The next phases will mainly involve updating other parts of the library, such as the second and fourth floors. In the future, the library hopes to continue updating sections of the library until all of it is modernized.

“I can’t tell you how grateful we are to the SGA for this and to Megan,” said Johnson. “I’m so glad she came to inquire about that [the renovation of the library] and it fit in with our plans so perfectly. So you will see changes over the next few years and more improvements as we continue.”

As for the future of the library and its relationship with students, Anciro hopes students will benefit from the new updates and see their requests for renovation were heard and answered. 

“SGA is here to serve the students,” said Anciro. “This was that was a concern brought to me by the students. They thought the library needed to be updated because at some point people do come to the library often. It’s one of the buildings I can honestly say is most used on campus.”