A floor-by-floor tour of the UTC Library

The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Library is one of the most-used and active places on campus. The building was completed in late 2015 and is open seven days a week during the fall and spring semesters. Click here for library hours. During finals, it stays open until 2 a.m.

Many students may not realize just how many resources the library actually provides.

From quiet study spaces to collaborative areas with board games and computers, as well as equipment and resources for exploring all types of multimodal media, the library offers something for every kind of student.

UTC Library Dean Tim Gritten and Bo Baker, department head for research and public services, gave a tour of the UTC Library and a floor-by-floor perspective of what makes the library such an important and interesting part of campus.

Ground Floor

The ground floor is what your typical library looks like. Shelf after shelf is filled with books and physical media, stretching across the floor.

“I can take you all the way down there and guess what you’re going to see—more books,” Baker explained while pointing to more rows. “Print readership has declined for decades. We still buy print books. We get new books all the time, but we wanted to shrink the footprint of what that took and still make things accessible.”

The shelves are designed to be as compact as possible, but also to help students find the books they want as efficiently as possible.

“You identify what you need, you turn the wheel, you move the shelves to open up what you need, you go get it, and you check it out,” Baker explained.

Baker showed the browsable shelves dedicated to the current popular readings, as well as other areas filled with more physical media—including DVDs, CDs, vinyl records and VHS tapes.

The ground floor also has many desks for students to quietly study. The desks sit beside windows that look out onto campus, where students can watch classmates walking to and from classes and campus buildings.

“When students want to study and have a view, this is where they’re frequently going to be,” Gritten said. “Particularly at night, I think it’s beautiful down here.”

First Floor

Going from the quiet nature of the ground floor up to the much more active first floor can be surprising at first.

“This is our Barnes and Noble floor,” Baker joked. “This is how you get in and out of the library.”

The library’s main service point desk is on the first floor. This is where students can not only check out books, but also nearly any technology they may need throughout the day.

“You’ve got to check stuff out? That’s where you do it,” Baker said. “They have laptops, headphones and any kind of HDMI cable if you need to borrow a cable to use in a room. Calculators are also super popular here because it’s something students generally don’t buy.

“Some of that they can take with them, some of that stays in here for a few hours, but we try to be the place that provides things that students maybe don’t have access to or don’t want to carry around all day.”

Because the first floor is the only place of entrance and exit, there is a lot of foot traffic and socializing. Baker and Gritten responded to that accordingly.

Multiple shelves feature card and board games like Connect 4, Cards Against Humanity and Monopoly. Graphic novels, magazines and newspapers also fill shelf space here more than any other area.

Private study desks, booths, and entire rooms also surround the floor, as students can rent the rooms for a few hours at a time if needed. One room is currently under renovation and is intended to become a gaming lounge for students to hang out and play with their friends.

“We’re going to have some video games. We’re going to have more tables that are conducive to grabbing these board games and sitting down,” Baker said. “Another thing we’re trying to address is providing access to food preparation. Students have forever been asking us to get some microwaves so they can heat their food, and we’re finally doing that.”

The Writing and Communications Center also resides on this floor, where students can receive help and feedback on any writing project—including creating a resume, portfolio or cover letter.

“(Staff members) are available to meet students in multiple modalities,” Baker explained. “It can be a drop-in, a scheduled appointment, or they can do it in person or over Zoom. It can be an email or feedback over email. I think that’s really important for students to understand is that wherever they are, they can work with the people in the library.”

Second Floor

The second floor of the library acts as the research services point, where all the research and reference librarians can help students with their projects.

“We have a really strong instruction program,” Baker said. “We go into classes and work with faculty to deliver research content for that course.”

The second floor is being renovated. What was once a floor filled with 178 desktop computers will now only provide 30. However, these changes will give the library more space that will be filled with bigger, more work-friendly desks.

“The desks are bigger, so if you need to work with a buddy, you can,” Baker explained. “Before that, the spaces were much smaller. If someone wanted to add a dual monitor set up, we could do that, and that’s helpful for students because many of them may not have that in their dorms.”

Along with the desks, the library is working to add newer and more comfortable furniture. This floor also provides many private work areas, offering specialty rooms that can help students who need accommodation or have specific majors or interests.

“We had an occupational therapy student come to us and say, ‘Hey, your study rooms are wonderful, but they’re not great because they’re small and hard to navigate. So could we get a space for someone who may have accessibility needs?’” Baker said. “So, we’re trying to do just that.”

Baker described another room as a “little lounge” that will feature comfortable furniture and lamps for calm lighting.

“If you need to get away from distractions or if you need to cool down between classes, this will be open,” he said.

Third Floor

For most, the main selling point of the third floor is the UTC Library Studio. The studio gives students access to programs and devices such as computers with Adobe software, animation software, 3D printers, a music production studio and two full-sized recording studios.

The campus community can also take advantage of technology available to rent, including cameras, tripods, lights, camcorders, microphones and guitar pedals.

Students can also receive assistance with their projects, including help setting up and using the technology.

“Students know how to do ‘dog-on-skateboard,’ recording something like a viral video,” Baker said. “They may not know how to tell a story and they may not know how to edit. We can teach them those skills.”

The third floor is also home to the Center for Academic Support and Advising (CASA), where students can receive tutoring, career support and advising. The Testing Center also moved onto this floor last year, where those needing accommodations can take their quizzes and exams.

“We felt it was important to co-locate CASA here in the library because it created an efficient way for students to get all the academic resources they needed,” Baker said.

Like every other floor, the third floor provides plenty of desks and rooms for private study. Bigger reserved study rooms for larger groups are on this floor as well, giving people even more space to work or hold meetings.

Fourth Floor

The main service point of the fourth floor is Special Collections, where many important parts of UTC’s history can be found.

“They hold the unique, one-of-a-kind artifacts and treasures of the University,” Baker said. “Things like the yearbooks, administrative documents, photographs of campus, any sort of collection of faculty, they’ve got them.

“They also do a lot with Chattanooga and the region. It could be anything from the Civil War diary of a family that lived in Chattanooga in the 19th century to archival photographs to artwork. We’ve got collections of local industries, and if we have any alums that are famous, we try to reach out to them.”

Another historical feature of the fourth floor is the Roth Grand Reading Room, which was modeled after the New York Public Library. It also acts as another big study area with a nice view from the highest accessible floor, as well as an area for public gatherings and events.

Baker told a story of a live court case that took place in the Roth Grand Reading Room, which featured real judges and attorneys from the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals that students could observe.

“We do stuff like that here, but most of the time this is a great student space to come have some quiet, be contemplative and do your work,” Baker said.

Online Services

As students continue to rely more on digital technology rather than physical media, the UTC Library has adjusted. The library provides a variety of online services that support students, faculty and staff.

One of these services is Libby, an app used in many public libraries that gives people access to eBooks and audiobooks.

“We continuously update these collections, and the usage is great,” Gritten said. “We have the suggestion box on the ground floor, which can dovetail nicely into letting folks know that if they can’t access a book or article, we can probably get it for them if they ask us.”

The UTC Library also has access to the entirety of online catalogs such as the Loeb Classical Library, the Cambridge University Press and Springer Nature.

“A librarian helped a student look for a specific book and found it in the Loeb Classical Library,” Gritten remembered. “The student was shocked and grateful that we have access to the entire online library, and he even found the librarian after the fact to say how amazing that was.

“Students may not realize that for every print book in our collection, there are four e-books in our catalog.”

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