Under the direction of Dr. Maria Georgopoulou, the project, funded by a $400,000 challenge grant from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation and two $250,000 matching grants from the Andrew W. Mellon and Horace W. Goldsmith Foundations, will commence in July. The project begins with the reclassification of the holdings of the School's three libraries (Gennadius, Blegen and Wiener Laboratory) to the Library of Congress system of classification and provides the over 250,000 titles with security and identification tags.

In addition, the Gennadius will focus on binding, repairs and conservation of its unique collection. With the opening of the new Makriyannis Wing, it will be possible to segregate research resources from special collections and thus make the library more accessible to users and wider audiences:  the Gennadeion will emphasize its role as a special collections library while its research collection will be for the first time housed in open stacks, and the Blegen will be the primary research collection, with the Wiener Laboratory library as a satellite. This will not only bring the libraries of the ASCSA into the 21st century, but will also provide a stable platform to take advantage of the next generation of developments in library management.  The end result will be a significantly more efficient operation for the thousands of international users whom the libraries serve each year.

The project has commenced and will continue through December 2019. In order to minimize disruption to its users, library closings will occur in stages. The first scheduled closing will be of the Gennadius Library from August 5 - October 31. Any questions related to library operations should be addressed to Gennadeion Senior Librarian Irini Solomonidi (isolomonidi.genn@ascsa.edu.gr) and Blegen Head Librarian Maria Tourna (mtourna.blegen@ascsa.edu.gr).