Marilyn Stokstad

A retired Kansas University distinguished professor has given $250,000 to renovate Spencer Research Library’s reading room and make improvements to its entryway.

Marilyn Stokstad, a distinguished professor emerita of art history, said she wanted to give back to a place that she has used again and again during her KU career, which began in 1958.

“I have worked in Spencer Research Library as long as it’s existed,” she said, adding that she was also a friend of Helen F. Spencer, the library’s benefactor.

The renovations will be immediately evident to most users of the library. One major change will move the library’s main service desk into its main entryway.

And patrons will be able to access the reading room by immediately turning left and going through a room that currently serves as a sort of social gathering space.

The reading room is an important place in Spencer Research Library, as most of its materials aren’t in circulation, so researchers and students must examine them inside the library.

Now, patrons have to navigate a series of hallways to get into the room, Stokstad said.

“I’ve been a little dissatisfied in recent years with the entryway” of the reading room, she said. “It doesn’t immediately say this is a place to come in, work and do your research.”

She said she hoped the renovations would make the library more inviting to students.

Major researchers, she said, will likely fight through anything to get the information they need, but she said she hoped students would be encouraged to take advantage of the library’s many resources.

The donation will also provide for improved furnishings, upgraded electrical infrastructure and a new service desk inside the reading room.

Stokstad has also supported KU’s Spencer Museum of Art, the Hall Center for the Humanities, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the Lied Center.

Work on the renovation is scheduled to begin after the spring semester, and library officials plan to complete the work during the summer, when the library is used the least. The new space could be ready as early as the beginning of the fall semester.