By Melody Bailiff

As the university continues to diversify its field of studies for students, an organization hopes to assist with the addition of a new library on campus.

The UK Feminist Alliance is applying for a grant to create a gender studies library and resource center to be located in Student Center in the Center for Student Involvement.

The Feminist Alliance will be applying for a grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women in the spring, but they do not currently have funding for this project.

The president of the UK Feminist Alliance, Virginia Conn, said the library will be a significant addition to UK because it shows the university is committed to diversity. Conn said women are making up more of the workforce than ever before.

“Society is slow to recognize the changing demographics of the nation, but something as small as a library can be an important affirmation of the premier place women are now assuming in academia,” she said.

Patricia Cooper, chair of the Gender and Women’s Studies Department said the library project is not affiliated with the department.

“Any effort that helps raise awareness about feminism and dispels stereotypes and misinformation, is something that I applaud and encourage,” Cooper said. “I also hope folks will be generous with their donations to the Feminist Alliance.”

The Feminist Alliance will be obtaining books for the library through a book drive. Boxes for students to drop off literature pertaining to gender and women’s studies can be found in the Patterson Office Tower, W.T. Young Library, Kastle Hall, Fine Arts Library and the Center for Student Involvement.

The Feminist Alliance encourages all students to make donations to help get the project off the ground. The group has already received donations of books and artwork.

If and when they do receive the grant, treasurer and technology manager of the Feminist Alliance, David King, said they would like to use the money to incorporate a bar code system for checking out books, as well as funding for textbooks.

The library will also contain a resource center. Students will be able to access information regarding the Violence, Intervention and Prevention  Center, OUTsource, Planned Parenthood, Vox and the Kentucky Women Writers Conference. There will also be staff present in the center to help students with the library.

Psychology senior and Vice President of the Feminist Alliance Jaime Lazich said she hopes the library will help students learn something new.

“(The new library would) show there are people at UK who care about these kinds of things and it will open some people’s eyes who have not thought about this before,” she said.

“Hopefully students walking through the student center will know something they did not know before because its there.”