By SUSAN JONES
With Hillman Library’s multi-year renovation now complete, Kornelia Tancheva, who became director of the University Library System just as work on the project was starting in 2016, is rightfully excited.
“It is even better than what I envisioned,” she said this week. “You have to really be an architect to envision that beauty. I envisioned the function — to me, that is what is important. But you need that grand architectural vision in order to have the space that we have. So, yes, I’m very happy.”
Hillman Library is inviting everyone — faculty, staff, students and community members — to an open house from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sept. 4. Visitors will tour the newly opened areas and get information about the library’s services. There will be self-guided tours with people at each of the different labs to explain how they are used, and two guided tours.
The library’s three-story glass atrium — designed to resemble a stack of books — opened quietly on May 8, along with the ground floor and other areas that had been closed off since January 2023 during the final phase of Hillman’s reinvention.
Already, students and others are streaming through the new spaces. On Aug. 18, as first-year students were still moving into residence halls, Tancheva said there were more than 2,000 visitors. Even before classes started, students could be seen working throughout the library.
“The library that we’ve built is a library that is building on tradition, … but it’s about people,” Tancheva said. “We invite students, faculty and staff to come use our resources, our technology and our programming to learn something new through doing something new, whether it’s learning how to make paper or learning how to print or bind a book, or learning how to use 3D printing or how to use digital media technology, or how to use digital scholarship methods and pedagogies to teach in their classes. So think about the library as your laboratory outside a science laboratory.”
The library is in the business of making researchers’, teachers’ or learners’ life easier, she said.
For instance, if a faculty member wants to record a lecture right now, they can come to the One Button Studio — part of the media suite — press a button and record a whole lecture. “You don’t need to know anything more,” she said.
The library has many gathering spaces for all types of groups, but Tancheva said it’s important to remember that they are not just for random events. “We don’t have event spaces. They are for our events, because everything is for the students. … If we have an event, we’ll have to displace the students. So the policy is, we will host your event, but it has to have some connection to the library.”
She gave an example of one school that wanted to host its Board of Visitors at the library. “We also have archives in that specific area that we want to show to their Board of Visitors. So we do a showing of the archives, and in exchange, they get to use our space.”
Library tour
The library director gave the University Times a detailed tour of the new spaces. Here are the ground floor highlights.
Entry space: Tancheva said the entry volume was meant to bring in the light, which it definitely does. “And the other thing that it does is create this soaring feeling that kind of mirrors the Cathedral,” which can be seen from the library’s first three floors when looking through the atrium.
Reading rooms: The K. Leroy Irvis and Latin American reading rooms fulfill one of the renovation’s goals “to make the library a gathering space, a place where faculty, students, staff and the community have a place to come together, have discussions, whatever,” she said.
The rooms reflect their namesakes. The Irvis room has wood reminiscent of the piece of artwork outside it, which was created by Irvis, the first Black speaker of the house in Pennsylvania. The Latin American room has wooden carvings inspired by cave art in Colombia.
Both rooms can be used for meetings of large groups, or divided in two by sliding walls for smaller gatherings. When not reserved, anyone is welcome to study in either room.
Media Services: The media suite has a film room, an audio room, the One Button Studio and two editing rooms. “These are spaces where, no matter what your major is — it doesn’t have to be media studies, film studies, film production, whatever — you can come and use our equipment in our spaces to create videos, podcasts, film and then sound effects, and then color correct or whatever else you need to do.”
There was some final work going on this week to improve the soundproofing in the media suites, which Tancheva hopes will be completed before the open house.
Technology Lab: The library and Pitt Digital are partnering on this space, which has a computer lab, along with a help desk and classroom space to teach programming languages, AI and other technology-related topics. All of the partnership spaces, like the Technology Lab, are staffed and programmed by the library and the partner, Tancheva said. The programs are then of benefit to both organizations.
Study spaces: There are a wide variety of study spaces throughout the library, but particularly on the ground floor. Several enclosed study spaces for multiple people have been added, bringing the total near 40. The furniture varies throughout, with soft low chairs with no arms, to high-back wrap-around seats and couches, along with tables and chairs for two to eight people.
Digital Scholarship Lab: This lab was at the library previously, but it’s been made more visible, just to the left of the service desk. You can work on your project independently or get help on data science, digital humanities, geographic information systems and more.
Other floors
The other floors were mostly completed before the ground floor project started, but there are still a few changes.
First floor: While the main library entrance is off of Schenley Drive onto the ground floor, the entrance off of Forbes Avenue will remain. A new terrace facing Schenley Drive is open to everyone, but is only accessible by going through the library. Chairs and tables cover the area, which wraps around the side of the building.
Cupboards along the wall in the space near the Cup & Chaucer café hold video screens for use during special events. The Open Lab, a partnership between the library and the University Center for Teaching and Learning, has expanded into space that once held the media equipment lending library, which has been moved to the ground floor.
A digital interactive wall has been added near the staircase from the ground floor. “We are going to partner with the Office of Undergraduate Research and the Office of Sponsored Research to display projects that are interesting and also yield themselves to a different type of presentation,” Tancheva said.
Second floor: There are two floating meeting rooms that look out over the atrium. The one nearest Schenley Drive is open as study space, while the other is for library staff only.
Third floor: A terrace sits on top of the atrium addition. It is directly diagonal from the Cathedral of Learning and will only be used for special occasions. Tancheva said they will host library donors and others during Homecoming 2025 to view the fireworks.
Artwork: Many items from the library’s permanent collection will be returning to the walls soon, Tancheva said, “but we also have an art program where we exhibit student art, either through Studio Art or through different student groups, and we are working on expanding our art opportunities.”
She emphasized that they will be looking for feedback, especially from students, on the renovations. “We’re going to have evaluations, assessments, surveys, questions all over the place,” she said.
That includes feedback on the areas of the library that were previously renovated.
“The fourth floor was finished in 2019. That was six years ago. Things have changed, and we want to know whether the spaces that we’ve built are good for now or we have to start changing them. … Research changes. How people learn changes. So that’s why everything is so flexible and movable, so that one space can be used for many, many purposes.”
Susan Jones is editor of the University Times. Reach her at suejones@pitt.edu or 724-244-4042.
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