New looks for books

Library renovated, services moves

By Sophia Eleftheroglou

It wasn’t very quiet around the Ryerson Library over the summer with the main floor’s $100,000 facelift.

Due to new renovations, the entrance now boasts a stained plywood boundary covering the circulation office and a spacious, open area which will provide students with greater access to computers. Many materials that used to be on the fifth floor, including reference books and CD ROM terminals, are now housed on the main level.

The cost of the renovations came to $107,000 according to Richard Milinski, Ryerson’s chief librarian. 

“We had a plan to amalgamate many of the services,” he said, “ but renovations couldn’t take place because of a lack of funds.”

The money was provided by the provincial government under a Facility Renewal Fund, a program of the Ministry of Education and Training. 

The fund gives approximately $22 million to the university sector for the maintenance of university facilities.

Milinski said the renovations will improve library services and also make the library look better. 

“Before the renovations, borrowing a book from the library essentially involved a three-step process: getting on the second floor to go to the fifth floor, getting off the elevator on the fifth floor to look up your research materials, getting back on the elevator to get those materials. 

“The new renovations reduce movement to the second floor main library entrance, so it’s really much more effective and efficient.”

Milinski admits that more renovations need to be done to the 21-year-old facility. “We hope to renovate the archives on the fifth floor by expanding the floor and adding more shelf space. We are also looking into replacing the carpeting on the various floors which is so wrong out that students occasionally trip over it .