Renovations of Payson Library are expected to begin fall 2014, bringing in new furniture, study spaces and more technology, according to Dean of Libraries Mark Roosa.
“There’s a lot going on right now concerning the library,” Roosa said. “When I arrived here about nine years ago, there was a good deal of interest in renovating the facility. So we began a planning process that involved talking to students, talking to faculty and talking amongst ourselves to try and understand what a 21st century library should look like.”
Roosa said the team did a fair amount of environmental scanning, which involved looking at various university libraries all over the country.
“We’re just trying to get a sense of how public-facing libraries are responding to new publics that they serve,” Roosa said. “So we began conversations on campus about how we could create a better space. We brainstormed and came up with some basic general ideas.”
The past few years have led to the completion of the Great Books Room, the Academic Center of Excellence and the Surfboard Room among other minor projects, though the library still has quite a few renovations in its future, according to Roosa.
“For the last about 18 months we’ve been raising money for the renovations of this library,” Roosa said. “The library has changed over the course of years from being just a depository of stuff to an exciting and energetic place. So in this renovation we have been planning, we hope to preserve that functionality as kind of the third place between the dorm room and classroom — a place that is for discovery, learning, meeting with friends and socializing.”
The grand plan of the renovations is to open up the floor “to support students’ work,” Roosa said. Rather than removing various features in the library to create more space, Roosa said they plan on taking down some of the walls to create an open-concept area.
“We think opening up some of the vistas will be key to the renovation,” Roosa said.
Along with an influx of new technology, new and varied furniture, and more spaces carved out for group study sessions, Roosa said the team also plans on creating a “flipped” special collections section, making it more accessible to students.
“Special collection sections are often the places in libraries that are difficult to find,” Roosa said. “We’ve been seeing more and more libraries being ‘flipped’ in a sense, making it easier for students to access the historical documents and artifacts.”
The lack of study space in Payson is one of the primary things they hope to change during the renovation.
“Right now we are short on study rooms in this building,” Roosa said. “Students are constantly saying that there aren’t enough. We want to turn that around and create more study spaces. That’s one of the main objectives.”
Freshman Bradley Bourdon said creating more study rooms is a good idea for Payson.
“I think the study rooms are beneficial, but there’s always a want for more,” Bourdon said. “I’d also make the library open 24 hours.”
Junior Taylor Whited said the main cause of traffic flow in the library is the amount of hours it is open for students.
“I don’t think [the library] is open near enough as it needs to be,” Whited said. “It gets crazy in there, especially around finals. I’m not sure where they have extra space, but having it open longer would make renovations unnecessary because people would be going at different times. They could even set up a satellite location on campus and divert students there.”
Along with more study rooms, Roosa said there are plans for more secluded spaces for individuals who prefer studying in more private areas.
“I mostly just study in my room because I’m not good at studying in public places,” freshman Chris Buchanan said. “But if they had more private study areas, I’d check it out.”
Junior Skie Osborn said that although she doesn’t use the study rooms that often, she’s looking forward to new furniture in Payson.
“What I’d like to see is good seating,” Osborn said. “And maybe some taller tables so you don’t have to bend down as much. I think back-supportive chairs combined with good lighting would be a good change.”
Roosa said he’d like to bring in different types of seating into Payson and have students vote on which ones they prefer.
“Right now when you come in, you’re like, ‘OK, there’s a computer, there’s some soft seating,’ but there’s not much in-between,” Roosa said. “So we think today’s library users want to have a lot of different choices and places to work. We think we can accomplish that by not only having more varied furniture, but places where that furniture is located. So we want to create a bunch of mini spaces within the library space where you can go in your own study zone, set up and do your work.”
Roosa said the staff values student input concerning the library development, which they typically receive through surveys. Additionally, they have been working closely with a student advisory group made up of Student Government Association members with whom they meet a few times each semester.
“It’s a great working partnership, and we’re so glad to have an engaged team of student advocates, this year particularly,” Roosa said. “We’re 110 percent committed to students, and we want to support what students are trying to do here at Pepperdine — become life-long learners, academic achievers — and to have opportunities to socialize and work collaboratively. We think libraries offer a unique service in this regard. We look forward to partnering with students to make sure the renovations we do will fully meet their needs and help them at Pepperdine.”
Roosa said the library will remain open while renovations take place next academic year.
“We only have one library on Seaver campus, and you can’t really say, ‘This room is going to be the library now’ because it doesn’t really work that way,” Roosa said.
Renovations will probably take place in phases, according to Roosa, with one floor of Payson Library closed for construction while the other remains open.
“Hopefully it won’t take too long,” Roosa said. He hopes renovations will be finished in six months at most. “We’re not tearing the whole building down, and we’re not going to renovate the entire building. We’re not really doing massively invasive stuff.”
Roosa said the top priority during that time will be to provide adequate study space.
“It will be disruptive a little bit, but hopefully it won’t be horrible,” Roosa said. “Our goal is to make the libraries an indispensable service in the lives of students and to be right in the flow of learning, teaching and socializing on campus. So if we’re able to achieve that with the renovation, we’ll be 100 percent happy.”
Partnered with development company AC Martin, Roosa said the plan is to “build for the future” and include some flexibility for the unknown.
“It’s an exciting time — the world is changing quick, and libraries serve as these unique, indispensable elements on college campuses,” Roosa said. “We see the library as an interesting project — one that’s always changing.”
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Follow Julia Naman on Twitter: @Julia_Naman
