If you visited the Moody Memorial Library prior to last summer, you may no longer recognize the Garden Level. The space has gone through a series of changes that generated excitement for both our students and our staff as they worked together to create an ideal study environment.

Phase I started last summer with the addition of the Ray I. Riley Digitization Center, the Dottie S. Riley Conference Room and renovation of the study area near the Harvey Garden.  Following the completion of Phase I, students were encouraged to record what they did and did not like about study facilities on flip charts placed throughout the Central Libraries.  The renovation team began compiling the students’ comments. They then met with a student focus group to get their help identifying themes and categories based on the comments and to come up with statements that would help guide future renovations.

“We felt this process was instrumental in helping the students’ voices to be heard,” said David Burns, unit leader for Student Technology Services. “Yes, we wanted the space to look good, but we really wanted it to be utilized by our students.”

This past spring, several furniture groupings were purchased with funds from the Ferguson-Clark Author Series to see how students like to study prior to spending money on additional furniture.

“The students favored the Bix bench and soft-seating groupings (see photo below) and the moveable tables and chairs,” said Tim Logan, director of the Electronic Library.  “They loved both the portable and fixed erasable whiteboards.”

The newly renovated area also showed planners how crucial group study space was for students working together on projects.

Phase II of the renovation began in May 2009 with the installation of new ADA-approved restrooms, an entrance to the Harvey Garden and the removal of shelving and carpet to make room for the expanded 24-hour Garden Level Study Commons.  This redesigned area now offers students 10,000 square feet of group and individual study space.   Each group area contains a monitor and computer with moveable tables and chairs to allow students more flexibility.

In addition to this improved group study space, over 100 desktop and laptop computers, formerly housed in the Moody Garden Level Computing Facility, are now available in the new Garden Level Study Commons.  Workers also installed additional electrical outlets for laptops and added access points for improved wireless service. The desktop computers have been arranged in clusters throughout the renovated space.

“We found the old computer lab model with the rows of computers was not working for student groups.  Sometimes there would be up to eight students crowded around one computer,” Logan said.  “Clustering the computers in stations facilitates both group and individual computer use.”

Be sure to visit our Web page at www.baylor.edu/library/ as we move forward to Phase III in the coming months.