Fixing Gelman: A Flawed Plan

It has become clear that SA President-elect Jason Lifton has no idea what is most important to GW students. He has states that his number one priority will be making improvements to Gelman Library. We have more pressing issues than wasting money on a few more desks. Let's fix dining, fix the ever-problematic residence halls, or continue to improve academic advising. Last time I checked, there's plenty of space to study in Gelman and since I'm writing this on a near-empty floor, I'm pretty sure I'm right. Even if Gelman isn't your kind of thing, Eckles is as close to an uninhabited building as you're likely to find in the District. Even then, where's the creativity in finding places to study. A library isn't the only option.

Lifton's solution to increasing study space is affront to academics. He wants to move more book to the current off-site facility to put in more desks or whatever he wants. University librarian Jack Siggins has said:

The demand by students for study seating in Gelman competes with the need to have stacks, so we constantly have to decide what books we can move to storage in order to make more room for seating

Having access to books is the whole point of a library. Unless the goal is to digitalize the books of the library (which I must say would be a more appropriate priority if one wants to fix Gelman), then removing books makes no sense. This will lead to a longer wait time to receive a book, which is never a good thing.

I presume that Jason as made Gelman a priority because the Facebook group, "Get Gelman Going" was created and had a large number of members. I wasn't ware that 1,187 students, a pretty small number in comparison to the total GW population, joining a Facebook group really mattered. Lifton taking it seriously turns good activism into idiot activism.

Having seen the pictures of the proposed renovations to the first floor of Gelman, "waste" seems to be an appropriate noun. Any renovations before other, more important issues will probably leave us with more problems. Just leave them to the next SA President. No doubt they will be fixed then.