This will be an important summer for the University Library, and the planned renovations are more student-focused than ever.

“We’ve never seen anything like this,” said Barbara Schloman, assistant dean of Libraries and Media Services. “Anytime we have to move materials it’s a very big deal, but to have this opportunity is terrific.”

Individual study rooms, known as carrols, and a quiet study lounge area will be added to the second floor in the space where Periodical Services and Interlibrary Loan offices currently reside.

“We’re going to create two group study rooms because we definitely don’t have enough of those,” she said. “And we’re going to have something called a Presentation Room, which will seat probably four students. That’s where a student can go in and practice their PowerPoint presentation — kind of in a live setting — with the equipment and the screen.

To make room for a more centrally located service desk, a section of about 20,000 pre-1980 journals were sent to storage.

“As we can get online access, our print collection then is reduced, and we send that material to our storage facility in Rootstown,” Schloman said. “In the area where the microfilms are now, we’ll be removing a portion of that collection because it’s replaced by electronic access.”

The Writing Center, which is currently in Satterfield Hall, will be moved to the fourth floor of the library and become the Writing Commons.

“It’s run by the English department and will continue to be done that way,” Schloman said.

The aim is to better help students by giving the Writing Commons longer operating hours and putting it in the same building with all of the library’s services, she said.

With the help of a donation from the late Gerald Read and Victoria Read, the Department of Special Collections and Archives will add a classroom and a processing center to the 10th floor of the library, which will be used to prepare for Kent State’s upcoming centennial.

“They’re starting a digitization project to selectively digitize university photographs, and a good part of that work will be done there as well,” Schloman said.

David Creamer, senior vice president for administration, said the executive offices in the library will be expanded further out into the open space at the top of the escalators.

Contact libraries and information services reporter Andrew Schiller at [email protected].