A new online app can help UGA students find a place to study on campus.
The mapping tool, which includes indoor and outdoor locations, is intended to help students find areas to practice safe social distancing while they study. Initiated by the Office of Instruction, partners on the project included the Office of the University Architects, UGA Libraries, the Office of Sustainability and the Facilities Management Division.
In addition to indoor study spaces at the Main Library, Science Library and Miller Learning Center, the map also includes spots at the Georgia Center for Continuing Education, Science Learning Center, and the Tate Student Center.
“With reduced seating in buildings to help prevent the spread of COVID-19, we wanted to help students to discover new spaces to study, attend an online class, or sit for lunch. UGA is full of beautiful outdoor spaces, most of which have WiFi. Even inside the Libraries and MLC there are spaces that students don’t know about. This map will be useful even after we are no longer social distancing,” said Kathleen Kern, director of the Miller Learning Center and member of the study spaces committee.
The interactive map allows students to find locations close to them, and they can filter results by seating options in the outdoor spaces. In addition, faculty members can utilize the resource to locate outdoor reservable spaces to host classes.
In its three largest and most popular student locations, the Libraries offer a variety of study options, including areas set aside for quiet individual study and enclosed group study rooms on the first floor of the Main Library and second through fourth floors of the MLC. A large open room on the Main Library’s fourth floor allows for conversations between students, while reading rooms on the third floors of both the MLC and Main Library are for quieter work. Individual enclosed study carrels are located on the Science Library’s third floor as well as several upper floors at the Main Library.
While chairs and tables have been rearranged to allow for social distancing, some additions have been made, such as outdoor patio seating on the Miller Learning Center’s colonnade and South Plaza. In addition, students are welcome to study in marked seats in MLC classrooms when they are not in use for classes.
Everyone must wear face coverings inside all UGA Libraries facilities except when alone in enclosed study rooms and are encouraged to use sanitation stations to wipe down tables and surfaces before and after using them. Hours have been set to allow for overnight disinfection at the Main Library, Science Library, and MLC.
In addition, students at the UGA Health Sciences campus can take advantage of the study area at the Carnegie Library. Other branches, such as art and music, are open for book circulation but not for study at this time.