Northwestern University Librarian David Bishop knows a few adjectives to describe the building’s condition a few years ago.

The benches in University Library’s Core Collection were “wretched.” The nearby student lounge used to be “really horrible.” And the reference room on the first floor?

“Absolutely abysmal,” he said.

But after about $8 million of construction work, the building has become brighter, more colorful and all-around more attractive, said John Blosser, the library’s project manager.

Construction projects throughout the past three years have focused on revamping areas frequented by students, including the reference room, Core and the periodicals room on the first floor.

Last spring’s addition of the Plaza Cafe offers coffee and snacks for students while they study, and Blosser said the library administration also has plans to renovate the central information center and main corridor this summer.

“Since many of our resources are available electronically, people don’t always have to come to the library,” Blosser said. “We’d like to make it a nice place for people to want to come.”

Students might not find it nice right now, however, as the whirr of power tools pollutes the air because of the installation of a sprinkler system on the first, second and lower levels of the library — a project that should have been completed during Winter Break, according to Bishop. The installation should be finished within a month.

“It was more complicated than they thought,” Bishop said. “It’s no question that it’s an inconvenience, but this is the very end of it.”

Most construction work is done during the summer, he added, so students aren’t disrupted.

Despite the recent noise, some students still study in the reference room.

Shaska Venumbaka, a Weinberg junior, satworking at a table just before noon Wednesday. The construction hasn’t made her change study locations because she is accustomed to background noise, she said.

“It doesn’t bother me, but I know people have stopped studying in here,” she said. Venumbaka also said she appreciates the bright light and the large tables.

One of the focuses of the construction projects, Bishop said, was to improve lighting and seating in the library.

“This used to be an incredibly dark, dingy area,” he said and gestured to the center of the reference room. “The lighting was so bad that you could barely read.”

Lower shelves were installed two summers ago so students could see out the windows. The old shelves, which were 7 feet tall, blocked the natural light. New workstations also were added, and more seating space was created.

The transformation, Bishop said, has turned an area that was “hardly used” into one that is routinely crowded.

Walking into the periodicals room, Bishop noticed a student dozing in one of the two dozen armchairs added to the room last summer.

“There are people sleeping,” he said and laughed. “But you know what — so what?”

The library administration received a number of requests for more casual seating, he said. The periodicals room was a good place to start.

Lance Steagall, a Weinberg junior, sat reading in the room on Wednesday, his feet resting on an ottoman.

He said he migrated to the periodicals room because the reference room was too noisy. Steagall, a transfer student from the University of Colorado, said NU’s library is “a little nicer” than his former school’s.

“People at Colorado went to the library to socialize,” he said. “There’s less commotion and less noise (here).”

He said he also enjoys the Plaza Cafe.

But Bishop said there was some initial resistance to the cafe’s addition, now one of the highlights of the building’s renovation.

“People would say, ‘It’s just like Borders,'” he said. “That’s not all bad.”