The redevelopment of levels one and two of the Glasgow University library will not be complete until “early in 2016”, despite assurances that the work would be completed in November of this year.
Since renovation work began, access to the library has been through a side entrance to the building. Security staff have been asked to check student cards physically before permitting students to enter the library, a procedure which has resulted in queues, some of which have extended down the hill to the Fraser Building.
Over the summer, the two central lifts in the library were replaced after reports that the existing lifts, which were installed in the mid-1980s, were becoming increasingly difficult to repair. Level one will become “a large, quiet study space” and level 2 will become part of what the library describes as “a new active learning zone.” Work started on 8 October “to drill through the concrete floor on level 2 to create a staircase, and light wells, down to level 1”.
A spokesperson for the library said: “The Library is working very hard to ensure that the impact on students of the redevelopment of Levels 1 and 2 of the Library is kept to a minimum. All Library services and the majority of the study spaces in the building continue to be available and the Library will open up as many rooms as possible during the exam period
“The redevelopment of Levels 1 and 2 is being done to address queuing at the Library entrance, to create further study spaces for students (including individual and group study spaces) and to continue the improvement of the Library’s infrastructure in which the University has made significant investment over the past few years. The timing of the project has unfortunately been delayed, but we anticipate that the works will be completed early in 2016”.
GUSRC president Liam King said: “It is ridiculous that level two of the library sits empty and bare while we face another year of squeezing everybody onto campus. Whilst the SRC will be promoting study spaces and computer clusters outside of the library, it isn’t enough. At some point the University will have to actually do something about this, even if that means temporary structures or actually not renovating what we have during term time”.
