Overview
The Grainger Library contains five different levels, with a center area, west area, and east area. On the first floor center area are the south main entrance, the north entrance, the main circulation desk, a computer area, and a printing station. In the fall of 2015, a coffee shop was added behind the elevators. The west area of the first floor contains quiet study spaces with desks for multiple people to work together, and the east area is mostly administration offices.
The second and third floors are entirely quiet floors. On the second and third floor, the center area contains a two-story Main Reading Gallery, which can seat 1,254 people. The west and east area both have two sections, a one-story area on each floor and two-story reading galleries at the ends that can each accommodate approximately 100 people. The galleries are also used for special events and dinners. Books are mostly located on the third floor west and east areas, with some in the second floor east area. The second floor west area mostly contains study carrels.
The fourth floor contains the Center for Academic Resources in Engineering (CARE), which has tutors and exam study sessions for students. The east part of the center area contains an EWS (Engineering Workstation) computer lab with Windows-based computers, while the west part has collaboration tables and frosted glass that acts as whiteboards. There are two large rooms used for exam study sessions and staffed with tutors. The west area contains more collaboration tables, and is surrounded with group study rooms which students can reserve online. The east area is a quiet study carrel area.
The basement of Grainger is a quiet floor with large tables in the center area and west area. The east area contains a computer lab that is operated as a computer-based testing facility.[6]
The facility contains three large seminar rooms (seating around 50 people) and four smaller conference rooms. When the building opened, it had 60 networked computers, 100 terminals, seven information kiosks, and six servers. The building offers group study rooms, individual study carrels, faculty and scholar studies and conference rooms.[7] It was so technically advanced that the furniture had to be custom-designed because no one had ever had data and power connected to every seat on this scale before.
