Cardiff Uni are transforming some libraries into study spaces only

It has recently been announced that Cardiff University is altering some of its libraries in favour of producing new study spaces.

The libraries affected include Science Main Building Library (Biosciences, Earth Sciences and Chemistry), Music and Aberconway.

Currently, Main Building houses books for Science schools and the Aberconway is a base for the Cardiff Business School. With the Music School having its very own library.

In Cardiff uni's plans, books will supposedly be moved to Bute Library and Arts and Social Sciences Library (ASSL) and many will become digitally available.

However, Bute Library and the ASSL already hold thousands of books for several different schools. Therefore, there are concerns with these libraries becoming overcrowded and too busy.

Hannah Doe, a second year Biomedical Sciences student has posted a petition to save the libraries on Facebook.

Hannah told The Cardiff Tab she heard the news from a library staff member who announced the news in a Bioscience talk.

Expressing her concerns, Hannah told The Cardiff Tab: "I’m devastated that the university would even consider closing any libraries let alone go ahead with it. We walk past building sites every day for study spaces yet the University can’t even keep our current ones open… The Science library is a well used and loved place. I don’t know how they are going to manage so many schools using one library, our science library is always full.”

The Cardiff Tab reached out to Cardiff University for comment, to which a Spokesperson said: "What is proposed as part of our library spaces project is a substantial increase in student study spaces of over 500 places (increase of 22%). This responds specifically to the increasing demand for additional study spaces from our student community. As part of this project 70,000 new e-books have already been added to our collection.

"As well as increasing the number of study spaces, the library spaces project will increase the range of our digital collection, improve the study environment in the Arts and Social Studies Library – our busiest campus library – and give students access to 6 million volumes from the University of Oxford Bodleian's research collection."

So you may want to head to these libraries and cherish the books while you can, before they become digital only.