Transformation 2025

The mission of Mount St. Joseph University is to help students embrace academic excellence and the integration of life and learning.  The Archbishop Alter Library plays a vital role in achieving these student outcomes by providing services and resources that support teaching, learning, and scholarly research. 

Now more than ever, given the hectic pace of their busy lives, students need and appreciate library space that encourages study, reflection, collaboration, and creativity.  In their feedback to the university, students have consistently expressed the need for space that is conducive to both quiet and group study.  However, because the library has not undergone a major renovation in over thirty years, its current facilities are inadequate to meet the needs of contemporary students learning in the digital age. 

After several months of careful consideration and fruitful discussion, the Mount has developed a plan to renovate the library to address these needs.  With your help, the entire library facility will be refreshed to create a welcoming, comfortable, and inspiring space that will support learning and research.  Modifications will be made to the second and third floors of the library to create dedicated space suitable for quiet study and reflection.  In the reading room, six new groups study rooms will be created to support the collaborative learning and research that takes place on a contemporary university campus.  

These new study spaces, as well as the reading room, will be outfitted with state of the art Wi-Fi and an updated electrical system to support today’s technological needs.  At the same time, the features of the Archbishop Alter Library that everyone appreciates, such as the large open space of the reading room and the natural daylight flowing in from its tall windows, will be retained. 

This renovation project will position the Library to better support the learning and research needs of both current and future generations of MSJ students.