Robert L. Carothers Library is open for students to use with COVID-19 guidelines. Photo by Ethan Pellegrino.
The Robert L. Carothers Library and Learning Commons has made changes for social distancing and sanitation to ensure that students have safe access to its resources in-person and online.
From seating arrangements to sanitizer stations, the library has formulated a plan to help keep students in the library safe. In order to keep up with social distancing guidelines, Celeste DiCesare, library executive assistant, said that the library staff have to make sure that students are not sitting next to one another, and they have been planning making changes since June.
“We started with 2,084 seats in the library,” DiCesare said. “With social distancing, we have 773 seats now, which is quite a decrease of seating. Students have been asking for a long time for larger-capacity study rooms, so we constructed 11 study rooms with glass walls.”
Also, DiCesare has been able to maintain eight of the 11 new study rooms for one student each to use at a time on a first come, first serve basis. Another safety protocol that has been implemented is making library access strictly for URI students and faculty.
DiCesare and Dean of Libraries Karim Boughida have found feedback from the changes of the library has been mainly positive.
“I’ve talked to a couple [of] seniors and they said they could not believe what the library looks like because they were used to the masses in a 24-hour room and the masses in the main area,” said DiCesare. “You could seat 300 people in that open area. It is the physical, visual difference of what it looks like because they can still do the same stuff.”
Boughida said that the library has seen a drastic decrease in attendance due to the pandemic, but he has since found that online library materials are continued to be frequently utilized by students.
“Overall, we are still gathering data but we noticed there is less attendance than previous years and this is a national trend,” Boughida said. “One of the reasons is when they notice that they can access online services, whether it is research support or learning support.”
The accessibility of the library’s online services made their transition to online-only in March significantly easier.
“One thing that was special about us is that we never closed,” Boughida said. “When we moved, we increased those online services. The other service that we offered immediately was curbside services for physical items.”
Boughida sees the importance of the library in regards to student academic success, which is why he has incorporated new services and online collections to the library this semester.
“The library’s role in academic success is very important and by offering the spaces here and access to collections, there are more ways in correlation between using the library and your GPA,” Boughida said.
The Dean of Libraries even has plans to expand the online collection for students.
“We’re about to add new access to online collections,” Boughida said. “We are joining the consortium where you have access to millions and millions of digitized items, so that is going to add a lot, even items that we don’t own.”