Library Renovations At Meek Center Bring A More Conducive Study Space

The library at the Carrie P. Meek Entrepreneurial Education Center (6300 N.W. Seventh Avenue) has been renovated and relocated from the first to the second floor in Room 1201.

Head librarian Theo Karantsalis described the renovations as maximizing the use of space. The area includes five more computer stations

The room that previously housed the library, Room 1109, is now a computer lab. Karantsalis called the previous space un-conducive for a library.

“Students were literally bumping elbows and feet,” Karantsalis said. “The door squeaks every time it was opened. You are literally the center of attention every time you walk in.”

Since Karantsalis started at Miami Dade College ten years ago, he said the layout of the library has been the same. He said the walls were thin and windows would rattle whenever any car with a pounding bass system drove by on N.W. Seventh Avenue.

“You can’t study with a bass system bumping and shaking books off the shelves,” Karantsalis said.

His office used to be on the second floor so when anyone in the library needed help he would have to walk across campus. Now with the new second floor set-up, his office is inside the library, equipped with a new paint-job, computers, desks, chairs, carpet and books.

More than half of the books in the Meek Center library are new and most if not all the books are in some way connected to core classes. There are not many novels for entertainment but Karantsalis upholds this as “weeding” where old, damaged books including those unrelated to curriculum material are eliminated for the sake of maximizing use of space.

Karantsalis said the renovations allow students using the library to no longer have to slither across other students to pick-up their copies. The new upstairs library offers a more spacious and cleaner looking atmosphere.

“It’s more conducive to learning,” Karantsalis said.