If you have been in the library this year, you might have noticed it looks a bit different. Jeff Morris, one of City High’s librarians, teamed up with the City High Architecture Club to help make the library a more welcoming space for creating.

“Libraries aren’t exclusively for books anymore. They are places where people come to study and to create,” Morris said. “New spaces were added to cater more towards what students really need.” 

Morris’ main focus for the remodel was to bring in more chairs and tables for seating and get rid of the empty shelves that were left after old textbooks were discarded. By moving the shelves down to the old rifle range, the library was left with more space by the north classroom. Morris then included Architecture Club to help with the remodel and get student input.

“We came up with a ton of ideas for the layout and talked to people about what they wanted to see in the new library,” Hannah Boer ‘18, a member of Architecture Club, said. “We did research and looked through catalogs of furniture and had meetings with the student senate and other administration members.”

Architecture Club focused on allowing natural light into the library. They then designed the area with new whiteboard tables, a space which is mostly natural lit from the window. The whiteboard tables were added to accommodate the larger groups that like to spend time in the library, and having these large groups behind the remaining bookshelves and towards the corner of the library further cuts down on the noise.  

“It’s definitely more open and welcoming. I really like the added seating and how you can be at a larger table for bigger groups of people,” Mikayla Lacey ‘17 said.

Extra chairs were also added towards the center of the library for students to read in. Along-side these are magazine shelves moved here to be more accessible to students. Morris chose to relocate the shelves in hopes that students would be more willing to read the magazines since they are now more centrally located.

“Overall, I think students have really been liking the space. I think the library has also been quieter since the larger groups are more towards the walls rather than in the middle [of the library],” Morris said.

These changes have gotten very positive feedback from students and has shown a more practical application of the library since they are now more for work than reading.

“Now that it’s all set up, it’s great to walk through the library and see what we had all talked about last year right there,” Boer said.