This post was written by Andrew Alberg, Sports editor and Editorial Board member.

If you’re looking for a ground-breaking, controversial opinion from this post, you’re going to be disappointed. The fact that Gelman Library is no longer a sufficient facility for GW is well-known among the faculty and student body, but its deficiencies are highlighted during finals week.

As I write this post from the sixth floor stacks, I see students studying in chairs in the middle of the stacks because they had no where else to go. And those are the lucky ones. There are dozens of people pacing up and down the aisles, waiting for someone to give up their precious seat. As usual, the trash cans are overflowing and the bathrooms are disgusting, but the relatively warm weather outside has caused the temperature in Gelman to rise. So now it’s hot too.

I don’t consider myself a whiny person, but it is well past time for GW to invest in an overhaul of Gelman. When the library was completed in 1973, GW had no where near the number of students that it does now. Now it is painstakingly clear that there are more students looking for study space than there is study space available. And that’s a problem.

The SASS has done a good job of doing the best with what it has by opening the Fish Bowl on G Street and organizing lots of study breaks and stress relievers, but these are Band-Aids that don’t solve the main problem. Instead of spending the rumored $300 million dollars on a new science center why not build the center for $250 million and spend $50 million to renovate Gelman. Like the Smith Center renovations, it could be done in segments in order to cause as little disruption as possible, and construction could stop during finals week.

If a library is the most important academic facility on a University’s campus (and it is), then GW will not be able to ascend to the ranks of the elite until they fix the eyesore on 22nd and H.