Year after year, without any hesitation, the University spends a great deal of money on building new athletic facilities, UREC renovations, private student athlete dining centers and the famous Death Valley. But somehow, Middleton Library has only had few structural improvements and renovations since 1958.
Not only have University executives had little regard for our library’s condition in 59 years, but when they finally give it much-needed attention, they announce they’ve decided to tear it down and fill the space with a “park.”
How are we supposed to do research in a park? Where will the bookshelves be in the park? What about the study rooms and SI sessions? What about CC’s Coffee? As if this isn’t bad enough, not only will the new library will be built on the scarcely-populated southeast side of Tiger Stadium, but it’s also going to reduce on-campus parking even more to “turn the campus back over to the pedestrians.”
“The library never should have been built there,” LSU President F. King Alexander said in an article by The Advocate. “Nobody puts a modern building, a massive building, in your main quadrangle. It breaks up the foundation of your campus.”
I seem to have missed the meeting where we decided campus aesthetics were more important than functionality and academics. Administrators argue that the buildings that make up the border of the Quad are Italianate buildings established in the 1920s, while Middleton Library was added in 1958 with a more modern style. Although I understand the concern about an architectural clash, I do not deem it a vital deal-breaker concerning the future of our quad. If major renovations were conducted on Middleton, the plans could reflect similar architectural styles to the surrounding buildings.
The Quad is the academic core of this University. It’s surrounded by halls that nearly every student visits multiple times a day. It’s within two minutes of the Union and three minutes from the Barnes & Noble. Thousands of students utilize the quiet, studious environment between classes and late into the night. Many commuter students don’t have the option to run back to their dorm during their one-hour break from classes. Instead, they spend their time in the library due to the convenience and accessibility of Middleton Library. It’s part of our culture and of college culture.
The Quad isn’t necessarily lacking green space either. It’s a very open, grassy area filled with beautiful oak trees where students set up hammocks while they watch parkour enthusiasts do their somersaults and standing backflips, play Frisbee and relax in the shade. If the University is attempting to give us more space to sit and watch parkour by taking away our library, they could just put in a few benches instead. Just a thought.
According to The Times-Picayune, the master plan the University released declared “the spine of the academic campus runs along Field House Drive.” The current suggestion for the location of the new library is “an area near the intersection of Field House and South Campus drives.” I know I’m not the only one who can admit to only being near that intersection while on a mission to retrieve ice cream from LSU AgCenter Dairy Store.
The plan centers the University more toward Nicholson Extension rather than west campus. It is my understanding the creators of this “master plan” are living by the “If we build it, they will come” mentality. Personally, there’s not a lot of things that could entice me to walk out of my way from the Quad, toward a part of campus I normally wouldn’t find myself in, to use the library in between classes or at night.
The notion to build up the southeast side of campus has good intentions, but this is a process that could take years to accomplish. Moving our library is a very bold, risky budge to kick off the potential development of less populated parts of campus. There are smaller, neglected buildings in the south east side of campus that need to be cleaned up before students can be convinced the campus is blooming in other regions. These buildings have the potential to be nice, useful offices or classrooms. In order to draw students to other parts of campus, a gradual shift in overall quality is critical. The University should focus on upgrading the area around which they aim to relocate the library before building anything else.
The University board members truly believe there is too much available parking on campus. They even admit building this new library would reduce our parking even more. If I were a board member, I’d ask the thousands of people who read, liked, commented and shared last week’s article about the parking struggles of commuter students written by my colleague, Abbie Shull.
The removal of Middleton Library seems to spark excitement for those who wish to revert the space to its previous use as a courtyard park. “This is spectacular,” board member Stephen Perry said, according to an article by The Advocate. “This truly is transformational. This is like a dream.”
Whose dream? The dream of the University’s Board of Supervisors to increase the amount of on-campus residents by slowly taking away all commuter parking lots? The dream of the University’s Board of Supervisors who want to have a nice field to show off during recruitment tours, instead of a library in the Quad? Not me. It’s not my dream. The Quad symbolizes what this school means to me. The Quad is a communal place where people from different ages, majors, countries and beliefs can come together to watch the young men practice their flips, engage in peaceful protest, hang out by in the infamous “smoker’s alley” and study in the library with friends and colleagues.
Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate the long-overdue notion of renovating the library. Renovations should absolutely be planned and executed if the University really wants to do something beneficial for the students. However, the relocation away from the academic core is completely unnecessary, and the reasons released should not be good enough for us.
The master plan has not been finalized, so there is time to have our voices heard. The Quad isn’t the Quad without Middleton Library. It has been there for 58 graduating classes, and it is a historic part of our campus.
To the University Administrators. We love our library. Maybe not the water damaged ceiling tiles and the ripped-up chairs, but we love where it is. A renovation would be more beneficial to our academics and the symbol of our flagship university.
Casey Pimentel is an 18-year-old mass communication freshman from The Woodlands, Texas.
The University plans to demolish Middleton Library and remove it from the Quad.
