In the current Jones Library building, the public restrooms are in the basement. The women’s room has 2 sinks and 3 stalls. The larger stall does not meet current accessibility standards. The men’s room has 2 sinks, 2 urinals and 1 toilet stall. There’s a single room restroom in the children’s library on the first floor.
And that’s it! 7 toilets and 5 sinks for over 2,500 visitors every week.
Patrons visiting Special Collections or attending an event in the Amherst Room must find their way down to the basement to use the restroom. Staff report that many patrons express safety concerns about using the public bathrooms, which are not directly visible from staff workspaces.
Once the renovation and expansion is complete, the Library will have public restrooms on every floor. Each will be an accessible, single-user toilet room. In addition to a separate family bath, the garden level will feature an 8-stall, unisex bathroom with floor to ceiling privacy partitions, available during regular library hours and during after hours events in the meeting rooms and galleries.
No more long lines for the powder room – three cheers for potty parity!
With 15 privies spread across all floors, project plans more than double the number of public toilets and create accessible break space for staff, including loos, too.
CORRECTION: the Feb 25, 2025 e-newsletter incorrectly stated the Jones Library has over 20,000 visitors every week. This was a typographical error missed in proofreading and not intended to inflate visitor numbers. The post above has been corrected to over 2, 500 weekly visitors.
