Founded in May of 1969, Samuel C. Williams Library has been providing Stevens students with an environment that encourages learning for over half a century. The library supplies resources that promote information in a variety of subjects, while also aiding the Stevens community in developing their critical and creative thinking skills. In an interview with the director of Samuel C. Williams Library, Dr. Linda Beninghove, The Stute was provided with some insight into the newest updates regarding the library’s hours, as well as the installation of a new women’s restroom.
As library director, Beninghove aims to make sure that students have ample access to information, research, and study spaces. Thus, whenever the library receives feedback that access to one or more of these aspects of the library has become limited, library staff works with the necessary Stevens departments to create the best changes. This was certainly the case when it was brought to the library staff’s attention that students wished that the library’s hours were longer and that there was more of a balance of women’s and men’s restrooms.
In regard to the issue of the library’s hours, Beninghove spoke to both the Vice Provost for Academic Innovation and Faculty Affairs, David Zeng, and to her colleagues that work at the library about if lengthening the library’s hours was possible. Beninghove explains, “My colleagues and I evaluated potential options and we determined that we could proceed with expanding the Library hours from closing at midnight to closing at 2 a.m. on Sunday through Thursday evenings, and closing at 10 p.m. instead of 9 p.m. on Friday and Saturday evenings.” She also comments that these hours “[represent] a return to our pre-pandemic library hours schedule.”
As for the restroom update, Beninghove recounts that prior to the addition of a new women’s bathroom, staff heard of concerns from students about the balance of bathrooms for each gender and they had “observed that during the Library’s peak use times, queues would form at the women’s restrooms but not at the men’s restrooms.” Beninghove also shares that staff have been waiting on an update for a while now, so they were very “excited” and “grateful” to have the opportunity to collaborate with Facilities and Campus operations to make it happen. When weighing their options, Stevens decided that it would be best to turn the second floor men’s restroom into a women’s restroom. Before the project there were two all-gender/single-user restrooms, three men’s restrooms, and one women’s restroom, but now there are two of each, making for more of a balance throughout the library.
The Stute interviewed some students about how they felt regarding the new changes to the library and, for the most part, received positive feedback. One student, Marcelo Cuya, remarked that because of the library’s extended hours, he “didn’t feel like [he] needed to rush to finish before the library closed” and he was “able to do a thorough job on [his] work rather than just riding through it.”
On the other hand, female students are happy with the improved access to a restroom, but multiple of them have noticed that in the new women’s bathroom there are no trash bins to dispose of menstrual products inside the stalls. This issue was brought up to Beninghove, who stated that she would immediately request the installation of these trash bins. They managed to install them the same day.
Beninghove lists multiple ways to provide feedback to the library, including completing the surveys sent out via email, emailing library@stevens.edu, and making an appointment with Beninghove herself to discuss any concerns, ideas, or questions. Overall, Beninghove stresses that she and the rest of the library staff “[care] a lot about continuously working to improve the student experience at Stevens,” so it is greatly appreciated when students provide them feedback to achieve this goal.
