Trash Cans in the Study Rooms

I received a suggestion to place trash cans in the Group Study Rooms today. While this seems a very reasonable suggestion, I talked with Ray Francis in Facilities Planning and Maintenance and he helped me realize that there are some very good reasons not to have trash cans in these rooms. Besides the space crunch in the rooms there has been some ecological thinking behind the decision not to have trash cans in the rooms.

Ray told me that years ago the campus went from wastebaskets everywhere to recycling stations in many locations. This provided the opportunity for the user to recycle (source recycling) thus improving the rate of recycling and reducing the waste going to the landfill. Doing so did force the population to walk a short distance to recycle/discard any item.

Recycling station placement almost guarantees everyone will pass a recycling station in the course of their normal travel. By keeping trash and recycling bins together people are given the opportunity to decide to recycle rather than toss out that paper or pop can. Having just a trash can in those rooms would make it much easier just to throw something away rather than thinking twice and recycling. The rooms are just too small for an array of bins.

John

Group Study Woes

Q: I think it is ridiculous that you have to have a reservation in order to get a room with a computer. It's very inconvenient! Especially when you have big groups.

A: Christopher Cox, Interim Director of Libraries, responds...

I'm sorry you were unable to find a group study room when you needed one. Unfortunately we only have a total of eleven rooms at this point which include plasma screens and a computer phyically located in the room. At this time or year near the end of the semester there is high demand for these rooms. The only way to offer every group an equal opportunity to use the rooms is to ask them to reserve them ahead of time.

We realize there are not enough computer group studies in the library and we are looking into installing one more in the coming year. However, our space restrictions mean we'll never be able to meet student demand. We attempt to accomodate this by offering wireless access throughout the building, meaning that other group studies which do not include computer hardware can be used by checking out a laptop here int he ibrary or using your own. Nearly any space in the library can also immediately then become a group computer study space.

I appreciate your comment, and would love to work with you and other students to figure out what additional facilities our necessary to support your research and study needs.