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The Forsyth Library team and FHSU Foundation are excited to offer Forsyth Library Renovation Previews from 9:00 – 10:30 a.m. on:

• Saturday, February 24, 2024
• Saturday, April 20, 2024
• Saturday, May 4, 2024

RSVP to Attend

Attend one of the Forsyth Library Renovation Previews to see the library before we begin demolition and remodeling. We will tour the building and discuss the changes planned in response to student input and program needs, helping you imagine the new layout and how it will better meet everyone’s needs, from students to community members. In addition to library spaces, we will share updates to partner spaces for the Institute for New Media Studies, MakerSpace, Honors College, and Writing Center.

Did you know that nearly all of the internal walls in Forsyth Library are coming down? We’ll be opening up some of the exterior, too, to bring in more daylight. It’s a comprehensive change – not just some paint and new carpet! Reserve your spot for one of the preview dates – space is limited.

For more information, please contact Ginger Williams, Dean of Library Services, or Mary Hammond, Director of Development for Forsyth Library.

During the Spring 2022 campus input sessions, there were common themes that arose from both student and faculty/staff input sessions. Throughout the design development stage of the renovation project, Forsyth Library staff brought this campus input to the architects at PGAV and many of the requests have been thoughtfully integrated into the future plans for Forsyth Library.

Natural Light

Natural light was one of the most common requests from both students, faculty, and staff. “Bring the outside in by adding windows,” suggested one student. The current library has several narrow windows lining the exterior that provide a glimpse of light, but that will change with the renovation. In response to this popular request, PGAV architects incorporated large glazed exterior facades (architect speak for windows) on each side of the building. The layout of the upper and main level was designed in a way to maximize the natural light these large windows will bring in. Without obstructions of walls or large furniture, the windows will act as columns of light throughout each level.  The north and south stairwells will not only get a face lift, but they will also serve as a column of light with a skylight bringing natural light from above. Glass walls will enclose the stairwell on the upper level to reduce noise on the quiet floor but the stairwell will be open to the main and lower levels with glass railing and transparency that spreads sunshine to all levels of the building. Two openings in the floor will expose the main level to the lower level, bringing a flood of natural light while also connecting the two spaces by sound and sight. One of the openings will feature an amphitheater staircase that connects the two levels and the other will be an open space to peek from one level to the other.

Nature

Students also wanted to see nature incorporated into the building. To bring the outside in, natural teak wood will accent walls and ceilings throughout the building and other finishes and surfaces will provide a foundation for a warm, golden color scheme that has a hint of nature and a nod to our FHSU Tiger spirit. Even the felt baffling ceiling treatments and lighting in the presentation space was designed to mimic the billowing clouds in the prairie sky.

Surrounded by Books

Another theme that we repeatedly heard from students was the desire to be around books. “Being in the presence of books is a signal that I need to focus”, commented a student. Another added, “I like to take a break from studying to browse the stacks.” Suggestions for merchandising the library’s services and resources and using analogies to the shopping experience was also brought up by multiple participants: “the new design should display the books to have more of a book store feel”, one participant added. In response to these suggestions, each floor of the renovated library has carefully integrated combinations of shelving to make the library collections more visible and create an environment of being surrounded by centuries of knowledge. Low shelving will display new books near the main entrances, curved shelving will create a cozy lounge area near the café, a display shelf for popular archival materials is the prominent feature you will see as you peer through the window into the vault on the upper level, and compact shelving will efficiently store the rest of the collection while optimizing the space within the building.

Food & Drink

Food and drink options were another common request at input sessions. “People order food delivery to the library all the time” commented a student employee. In response to this request, a designated café space that includes a small back-of-house kitchen will open on the main level to provide food and drink options for visitors. The presentation space will also offer catering support with a sink, fridge, and a staging area for food to increase catering options for large events. On the lower level, a vending machine nook will be located near the Computer Lab Classroom.

Quiet Place to Study

The newly renovated library will retain its quintessential characteristic – a quiet place to study. Multiple students said that the quiet floor on the upper level is their sacred study space to escape for a few productive hours of schoolwork. “There’s no other place on campus that I can go and know that I won’t get interrupted or distracted,” one student commented. The upper level will remain a quiet floor, with more individual study rooms, and varied seating options for students to find their favorite nook among the new quiet study spaces.

Imagine walking down a large flight of amphitheater stairs with pendant lights dangling from above. You are greeted by glass walls that showcase the latest 3D printers, scanners, and lasers in the MakerSpace. The creative and innovative vibes are seeping from every orifice as you peer in to see what innovative projects going on in the MakerSpace, the Institute for New Media Studies, and their shared classroom space. You’ve entered the Technology Zone on the lower level of the new Forsyth Library.

Flashy digital screens and virtual reality headsets catch your eye as you walk by the Institute for New Media Studies. Your mind wanders thinking of all the possibilities of the crafty things on Etsy that you suddenly have the confidence to create in the MakerSpace. Your technology and coding inhibitions are lifted as you see examples of the virtual experiences and features you could develop with a little help from the Institute for New Media Studies.

Just down the hall, you find the Media Lab, a user-friendly video studio that has preset scenes for professional-quality video cameras, microphones, and studio lighting. A green screen makes it simple for instant video production using any background and a lightboard rests in the corner of the Media Lab for producing those videos where the speaker writes equations and draws figures “in thin air”.

Next to that, an Audio Booth features an acoustically-friendly room with high-quality microphones and recording software that will be perfect for podcasting, recording your latest song or voiceovers, or layering your own audio files.

Throughout the Technology Zone, you can create to your heart’s content. No matter what your preferred medium from video, audio, virtual reality, 3D printing, or your standard workbench of tools, the newly renovated Forsyth Library will become your creative destination.

The library is the academic heart of campus, providing resources that fuel innovation and answer anything from quick questions to life-long pursuits of knowledge. With an official presentation space in the newly renovated library, thought-provoking lectures, guest speakers, authors, and panels can engage the campus community to explore intellectual curiosities and inspire dialogue.

As you walk in the main entrance of the building, just beyond the welcome desk, you’ll see a semi-enclosed presentation space that will seat up to 112 people. Designed to provide good acoustics while still being highly visible, this semi-private event space is flexible with a touch of formality. The openings at each corner of the “room” give a peek-through view into the events taking place inside, inviting happenstance or fashionably late guests to wander in. Attendees and catering staff can also come and go without the sound of doors opening and closing or the fear of disrupting the speaker. Lights and sound will all be controlled through a preset touchscreen panel.

As you look up, you’re inspired by the felt baffles hanging from the ceiling that mimic the cloud-filled skies of the Kansas prairie as “The Prairie Awakening” mural by Buck Arnold and other art bring the space to life.

The space is flexible; perfect for an event for a large or small group, in a casual or formal setting, or for a presentation or a workshop with hands-on activities. There will be multiple options for audio-visual setups, including an option for dual-projector screens on the north wall of the presentation space or a single projector screen on the south wall for smaller groups and the option for mobile monitors throughout.

A large storage area room on the south side will provide a variety of options for setting up the space with different configurations of tables, chairs, and coat racks to welcome your guests. A fridge and sink for catering support will also be located in the storage area to have easy access for providing anything from snacks and beverages to buffet-line meals.

A new entrance to the building will be located just outside the southwest side of the presentation space along the west wall of the building that faces Malloy Hall. This entrance will give easier access to parking for large events.

Can you imagine your next event here? We sure can. We look forward to hosting events and providing this reservable space to the university community in 2026.

One of the greatest areas of improvement between the existing library and newly renovated library will be the spaces for Special Collections and Archives. These unique and valuable collections will be brought from disparate locations with an inconsistent environment to an intentionally designed space that will have appropriate preservation conditions (controlled for light, temperature, and humidity), adequate space for processing collections, and built-in exhibition cases to display select materials to the public.

Special Collections and Archives will move to the northwest corner of the upper level of the building. In addition to staff offices, a digitization lab will support the ongoing work to make select materials virtually accessible from anywhere in the world through the FHSU Scholars Repository.

The Larry and Lyn Fenwick Reading Room will provide a serene space to engage with the collections while supporting in-depth research and focus. Upon entering, a staff member from Special Collections will greet visitors at the desk and retrieve requested materials from the “vault” where the Special Collections and Archives are kept. The room exudes a palpable sense of history, as first-edition monographs of the Wizard of Oz sit behind glass, their pages whispering classic tales about a girl who discovered she wasn’t in Kansas anymore. Cases of curated materials also line the walls of the reading room adding an element of academic prestige while inviting visitors to immerse themselves in the intellectual treasures within the collections.

The Vault will be a climate-controlled area for housing the Special Collections and Archives. There will be a large window from the Exhibit Gallery that peeks into the vault giving visitors a glimpse of the types of unique materials that are stored there, such as:

• Great Plains Research – housing primary source materials, and popular and scholarly sources about the economic, political, educational, agricultural, and cultural histories of the Great Plains (central and western Kansas specifically) which includes a collection of Little Blue Books from the Haldeman-Julius Publishing Company
• Ethnic Studies – containing material that directly relates to the settlers of central and western Kansas while documenting heritage and culture from the Volga Germans, European Immigrant Communities, and Black Homesteaders
• Military History – housing primary and secondary source materials about the Second World War and American involvement in Southeast Asia
• Classic Children’s Literature – containing multilingual editions of Little Red Riding Hood, classic adventure fiction, works by Maureen Daly, and the Stratemeyer syndicate mystery series
• Rare Books – including Saur and Elector German Bibles, Gilded Age literature from Mark Twain, Horatio Alger, and Adam Smith, and American Literary Pamphlets such as a unique set of H.P. Lovecraft’s work
• University Archives – preserving photographs, yearbooks, memorabilia, university records, and faculty and student scholarship that capture the historical, cultural, and intellectual experiences of Fort Hays State University

In addition to giving the materials from Special Collections and Archives the gold standard of preservation conditions, visitors to the library will have multiple opportunities to encounter these timeless collections in the newly renovated library.

The Writing Center at Fort Hays State University is sponsored by the English Department to offer free, individual consultation at any stage of the writing process. Appointments are available to the university community including on-campus students, online students, faculty, staff, and alumni.

Lexey Bartlett, the former Director of the Writing Center, was a member of the Library Renovation Committee and helped begin the library renovation planning process in 2022-2023 while providing specific input for the Writing Center space. In Fall 2023, Lisa Bell became the new director of the Writing Center and continues to represent the Writing Center throughout the library renovation process.

“Some of the new design elements will make the Writing Center feel warmer and more inviting. We are looking forward to adding a new collaborative space to do group sessions online and face-to-face,” said Bell. “In addition, we are adding a waiting area with soft furniture to enhance the comfort of the Writing Center,” she explained.

The current Writing Center space is derived from cubicle walls in the northwest corner of the library. For the renovation, “we requested real walls and more natural light”, Bell said. In the renovated library, the Writing Center will remain on the main level, but will move to the southwest corner of the building adjacent to the new café. It will be close to the new entrance on the west side of the building (from the Malloy Hall lawn) and have strong sightlines for patrons entering from the northern and southern entrances.

With the new space, the Writing Center will be able to provide new group sessions and enhance the online sessions. “We are considering the best ways to utilize the new features of our space,” elaborated Bell.

During Winter Break, many building occupants including the Writing Center, the MakerSpace, and many library staff offices will begin moving out of Forsyth Library to prepare for the construction scheduled to begin Summer 2024. Before the start of the Spring 2024 semester, the Writing Center will move to Rarick Hall 157 and plans to provide the same services in their temporary location.

Stay up to date with the Writing Center by following them on Facebook and Instagram, checking the Writing Center website, and watching the FHSU campus communications (emails, poster routes, and display screens).

Back in 2013, Dr. Paul Adams and John Ross started the MakerSpace at Fort Hays State University and it’s been located in the lower level of Forsyth Library ever since. With the upcoming Forsyth Library renovation, the MakerSpace will be remain on the lower level as one of the main stops on the “Technology Corridor” alongside the Institute for New Media Studies, the Media Lab, and Audio Booth. It will be near the bottom of the new amphitheater staircase that connects the main level to the lower level of the library offering a casual study destination.

“This new location will give us much better visibility from the main level and will be a big help for awareness,” said G. G. Launchbaugh, the Science Outreach Coordinator in the Science and Mathematics Education Institute, who leads the programming for the MakerSpace and the MakerVan.

Launghbaugh continued, “the new MakerSpace will be larger than our current space and will be designed purposefully as a workshop, which will greatly improve functionality of our services.”

The MakerSpace has 3D printers, a 3D scanner, a vinyl cutter, a laser cutter and engraver, sewing machines, soldering equipment, a toolbench with common tools and a variety of other resources to fix or make nearly anything. The MakerSpace often leads classes and workshops for large groups, so the new classroom space that will be shared with the Institute for New Media Studies was designed to accommodate 20+ people. “The shared classroom will make our workshops and events easier to hold and will allow participants to easily use the 3D printers, laser cutters, and soldering equipment,” Launchbaugh added.

The newly designed MakerSpace will feature a built-in ventilation system, better soundproofing, a water supply, resilient hard surface flooring, and more storage space. Launchbaugh explained that the new space “will allow us to add several new machines and tools –  more sanding and cutting equipment for working with wood and foam, a desktop milling machine, and eventually larger resin 3d printers and laser cutters too.”

Not only will the new space have the capacity to support new equipment, but it will be designed with the flexibility for future configurations and needs. “You really can’t predict what technology you will be using in 10+ years and how you would want to set that up in a space, so I asked for lots of extra power and data connections all over the new makerspace and cabinetry and shelving that can be reconfigured to fit whatever we might want to use in the future,” Launchbaugh explained.

The planning process has been a detailed yet exciting chapter for all those involved. “The architects at PGAV have been great at working with us to plan the most usable space possible,” Launchbaugh said; “this new space will really allow us to increase the technology we have available for students, faculty, staff, and the general public to use.”

Launchbaugh added, “we are always open to suggestions on new resources and technology people would like the MakerSpace to provide. If you want to use something we don’t have, tell me and we will see what we can do to make it available.”

Starting Spring 2024 and throughout the duration of the renovation, the MakerSpace will be in Room 102 in the lower level of Picken Hall. They will have enough space in that temporary location to keep all the current resources and technology available to FHSU and surrounding communities.

Anyone interested in learning more about the MakerSpace can to drop by and talk with us in person or watch for updates on the  www.fhsu.edu/smei/makerspace/ or on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.

If you’ve looked at the floorplans for the upcoming Forsyth Library Renovation, you’ll notice several spaces on the lower level are dedicated to a new partner, the Institute for New Media Studies, led by Dr. Gordon Carlson.

Operating as a “blue skies sandbox” where people across the university can come with their ideas and develop them from experiment to implementation, the Institute for New Media Studies works with students, faculty, and the community on projects across a range of technologies. “If you have an idea, even if you do not know how to do it or what it would take, bring it to the us and we will help you make it a reality,” said Dr. Carlson. In line with the library’s core value of access, no student has ever paid for materials, access, or services at the Institute for New Media Studies because they believe cost should never be a barrier to success.

The newly renovated Forsyth Library will bring more opportunities for the FHSU Community to come together with common interests and be a hub for learning and creating. When asked about being a new building partner, Dr. Carlson said “the Institute for New Media Studies moving into the library will be a significant leap forward in our ability to work with stakeholders, share our accomplishments with the public, and develop new partnerships.  Being neighbors with the MakerSpace in the Technology Zone, in a building full of librarians who regularly embrace technological innovation, opens a whole host of new opportunities for the institute and the university.”

In the renovated library, the institute will have two offices, a research lab, a storage area, and a large classroom space that will be shared with the MakerSpace. Dr. Carlson explained that “the significant increase in overall space, our new ability to divide and organize that space into dedicated areas on demand, and our integrated technology systems will allow us to conduct research projects we have never been able to in the past. Large scale, and long term, virtual or augmented reality projects can be conducted without the need to constantly assemble and disassemble equipment to allow for competing needs. We will be able to host classes, public visits, and open house events. This space is also being designed with future development in mind so the institute can keep up with the rapid pace of new media and technological advancement we are sure to see in the coming years.”

Several features of the institute’s new spaces have been designed for specific purposes. Electronic access to the rooms will empower students to work on their own schedules and special flooring incorporates permanent markings for virtual and augmented reality projects, minimizing setup time. Additionally, Dr. Carlson has worked with the Office of Technology Services and Facilities Planning to design a number of useful visualization and interaction tools into the room, which include:

• advanced projectors capable of displaying very large images on an entire wall;
• ceiling mounted data and power cables that allow us to place equipment anywhere in the room safely and efficiently;
• dedicated network and server infrastructure to provide speed and reliability to our advanced workstations;
• integrated software for controlling many ultra-high definition displays with lighting and sound;
• marketing and educational displays in the windows of the lab; and
• a spatial sound system coordinated with the library’s own capabilities.

In addition to the features described above, Dr. Carlson also commented that “the shared classroom space is an important step for the institute to be able to offer unique courses to students and generate student credit hours for the university. It is the perfect balance of making dedicated teaching space available to the institute, while also serving the needs of the library and its other partners; it is another great example of how the library renovation will impact every program across the university.”

Until the newly renovated space is ready, the Institute for New Media Studies will stay in its current location in Malloy Hall 106.  The public lab hours are available for anyone (students, staff, faculty, and community members):

• Monday: 1:30pm – 4:00pm
• Tuesday: 3:00pm – 4:30pm
• Wednesday: 1:30pm – 4:00pm
• Thursday: 3:00pm – 4:30pm
• Friday: 10:30am – 2:00pm

Outside of lab hours, Dr. Carlson encourages anyone interested in visiting the lab, bringing a class in for a field trip, or looking to develop scholarly work to contact the institute to schedule an appointment by emailing mailto:newmedia@fhsu.edu. Hours may expand later in Fall 2023 so watch for more information about the Institute for New Media Studies at www.fhsu.edu/newmedia.

Now that the floorplans are finalized, much of the planning efforts have shifted toward making smaller-scale decisions of the colors, furnishing, and finishes.

PGAV presented several different color schemes to choose from and the color palette called “Golden Hour” was selected. The warm and subtle hues of tan, gold, grey, and black manifest Tiger spirit with a modern twist. When recommending materials, PGAV has been very intentional about distinguishing different spaces with distinct carpet patterns and/or ceiling finishes.

A semi-transparent acrylic surface with backlighting will provide a warm welcoming glow at the Help Desk near the North entrance of the building. White endcaps on the library shelves will give crisp, clean finishes. In addition to the large windows that will let in natural light, white speckled and light tan Corian countertops will also help lighten up the space. Geometric patterns of felt baffles will not only produce visual interest, but improve sound acoustics throughout the building.

As the construction document deadline is approaching, the new spaces are coming to life with the fine details of this contemporary yet neutral palette. What an exciting process!

It may seem like Forsyth Library’s renovation is a long way off. In some ways, 8 months is a long time. All the while, the faculty and staff at Forsyth Library are busy planning and preparing in countless ways to make this dream come true.

Lately, we have been:

• meeting with the architects at PGAV to select interior finishes (ceilings, flooring, countertops, light fixtures, and other surfaces);
• discussing how the renovation timeline will impact our services within our functional teams in the library;
• planning for relocating most of our library offices to Custer Hall for the Spring semester;
• engaging our partners in discussion about which temporary locations are best suited to their needs;
• seeking input from vendors on how to best move our collections;
• considering how to display our special collections materials in the newly designed space;
• beginning to curate artwork for our new spaces;
• and perhaps a hundred other things that all need to get done.

As we plan, we get a better idea of what needs to be done in the coming months and what spaces and services we will be able to offer in the spring 2024 semester. The steps between here and the finish line are many, they are varied, and surely will be full of surprises. We hope that the University community is as excited as we are to see this project through!