After the early closure of the Joseph W. England Library at the University City campus over the summer, the library is temporarily reopening its doors for finals week.
The first two floors of England Library will be open for students to use as a study space with limited hours, wrote Anne Krakow, EMBA ’14, St. Joe’s library director, in an email to The Hawk.
“At least the first two floors will be accessible to students from Dec. 11 to Dec. 18,” Krakow said. This space will be available in addition to the newly-created Griffith Library.
However, England Library will have no library staff — just a guard — and will be closed on Friday and Saturday (Dec. 13 and 14), Krakow said.
England Library was originally set to close at the end of the 2024-2025 academic year but was closed early due to air conditioning failures over the summer.
Despite this closure, none of the utilities in the library were shut off, and the heating system is still functional, wrote Ken Ogawa, associate vice president of administrative services, in an email to The Hawk.
Billy Scott ’25, DPT ’27, said he would consider revisiting the England Library because of the quiet atmosphere.
“It is something I’d probably go back to, especially because they have study rooms in place, and it feels more like a library,” Scott said.
The future of England Library is still undecided, Krakow said.
“We may not reopen the England Library in the spring. We have a lot of work to do with the collection, particularly getting ready to move it to Hawk Hill. The moving of materials and reorganizing would disrupt our students’ ability to study,” Krakow said.
