Harrison Refresh: Silent Study Back Available

The Silent Study Zone on the 3rd floor in Harrison Library has been a favourite destination for students who want minimum distractions and maximum focus. It has offered a mixture of small study desks or PC places in the open area and a number of small study carrels and study spaces for more private study. It is home to our Journal collection and also has one of the best views from anywhere on campus!

Feedback

Feedback over the years about this area in particular has been that the exam condition layout of the space can be a little bit intimidating and doesn't suit everyone's needs (although some students were always fond of the smaller focused study spaces). Other issues included the fact that very few of these study desks were within reach of an available power socket to charge devices, and none of the spaces were particularly comfortable.

Additional problems in this space included regular leaks from the roof and rather dated-looking shelving.

As part of the library refresh this summer, we have tried to address many of these issues.

So, what have we done?

As we have on all other floors in the library this summer, the Silent Study Zone has been recarpeted and redecorated throughout. We now have a fresh canvas to build upon.

For the furniture, we have decluttered the space by reducing the number of study desks and added a variety of furniture options, including individual desks, desks with privacy screens, large study tables with screening and task lighting, as well as new study booths.

We have kept the orientation of the majority of study desks to be window-facing but have mixed in a few alternatives, including several comfy chairs that you can tuck yourself away in, pull up a laptop table, and relax.

To address the power issues, every non-PC space in this area now has on-desk power sockets. To give some context to this, previously there were 62 non-PC study desks in the main silent study area, of which only 21 were in easy reach of a power socket. In other words, 66% of study spaces had no option to plug in and charge your devices (and those that did mostly required you to go crawling under the desks and lift a floor box cover).

We now provide 53 non-PC study spaces, of which 51 (96%) have power sockets and charging ports at desk level or within arm’s reach.

We have also done some touching up of the shelving in this area. The old brown shelving, whilst very practical, looked a bit gloomy, so these have all had tidier end panels fitted to give a facelift and make it easier to locate the items you are looking for. We have also repurposed the more modern shelving that was originally positioned on the ground floor (where the Student Centre now lives), which now is home to our 900 classified books.

What's next for this space?

There is still a small amount of work to finish off on the silent floor, including some outstanding electrical work, installation and commissioning of light controllers for the study rooms, as well as new signage, which we hope to finish off over the next few weeks.

Whilst the refresh project has focused on the main study areas on each floor, the side study rooms have yet to be fully refurbished (they have been redecorated, re-carpeted, and had new lighting, but no new furniture as of yet). The focus is now on improving some of the study furniture in these spaces (MD325-MD330), and we have started gathering feedback from regular users of these rooms. If you would like to contribute and let us know what type of furniture you would like to see in these spaces, you can use the link below to send over your thoughts and suggestions.

Silent study room feedback form

Did we mention the roof?

If you have studied with us in the past, you may be familiar with the occasionally leaky roof that can drip in across the 3^rd floor. This summer, our estates department has carried out significant work to repair and reseal the whole roof of the library which will keep you, the stock and the new carpets nice and dry going forward. This work is still ongoing so you might experience some disruption from the roof whilst using the silent study area, but this should become less and less as the semester progresses.  

We hope you enjoy studying in the refreshed Silent Study zone. Don’t forget to let us know your thoughts on the news space, which you can do via our social media pages or by using the link below

Harrison Library Refresh feedback