On June 16, 2023, the Kennedy Library shut down for renovations leaving students on campus without a go-to study place.
To celebrate the Sept. 15 re-opening, a ribbon-cutting ceremony took place on Thursday, allowing guests to take self-guided tours and participate in a Q&A session with the artists of the new mural featured in the lobby.
The ribbon-cutting highlighted the new “Grounds for Growth” mural created by local artists, Joshua Lawyer and MJ Lindo-Lawyer. The ceremony, taking place a month after the start of the school year, avoided the large beginning-of-year crowds flooding into the new building.
“If you’d been here on the day the library opened, you know that was a good day not to have the ribbon cutting,” Department Head for Academic Services Brett Bodemer said. “It was really busy in here, it looked like Phoenix or Sky Harbor Airport.”
Throughout the first month of classes, students have flooded into the building, with an average of 6,000 people entering the building on an average weekday. If attendance pace remains steady, the library will have 2.5 million individual entrances by the end of the year, according to Bodemer.
The $78 million renovation also included updates on all five floors including new staircases, classrooms, signs and glass. Each level has its own featured upgrades: adding Julian’s Cafe on the first floor, new study rooms on the second floor and tons of brand-new books brought to floors three through five.
The extensive revamping lasted for two years causing students to utilize alternate areas for academic needs. The university implemented outdoor study tents and community study rooms in the University Union, dorm buildings and classrooms.
Read more: Cal Poly Kennedy Library returns after completion of the two-year transformation
With the additions, students now have 24/7 access to the materials on the first floor including computers and whiteboards as well as specified spaces on the second floor.
“I think it’s incredible,” electrical engineering sophomore Jonas Weldon said. “We were a lot more limited my first year, for sure.”
Certain programs on campus have also found a new home in the library including the University Honors Program and Cal Poly International Center.
READ MORE: International Center relocates to Kennedy Library at Cal Poly
The library administrators are taking no hesitation moving forward with improvements for the library. Some of their initiatives involve bring back old Cal Poly traditions. Before the remodel, as library floors increased in level, it was common knowledge among students that the volume should get quieter.
“Some people do well in noise, some people do well in quiet. So we want to have that instituted,” Bodemer said.
With the official re-opening of Kennedy library, students and library staff alike are back home for the first time since the summer of 2023.
“It’s a lot easier to take a building apart and close it than it is to put it back together again,” Bodemer said. “So it’s been huge for the students, and it’s air conditioned, which is huge for us.”