Visit any campus of a US university and it is quite likely you will see a main library edifice placed near the center of the original campus. The buildings are often some of the largest on the campus. All universities need libraries to do their work.
Of course, the role of libraries has evolved in the same way that the research and creative products of the world have evolved. What were collections of books and objects in special collections have changed into what are internet-based digital products now. Special collections remain the location of ancient texts and objects that are of interest to those studying the origins of knowledge in various fields.
But completely new functions are arising as the media of representing new knowledge evolve.
Lauinger Library on the Hilltop Campus hosts the Maker Hub, a facility that allows students, staff, and faculty access to woodworking and sewing tools, printers, laser cutters, painting and model building materials, electronic components for robots, and 3D printers. For students, these have been used to construct face masks for covid protection, prototypes for entrepreneurial ventures, bookbinding, displays for class projects, virtual reality applications, and hosts of other users. Sometimes the product of academic endeavors are material entities; the Maker Hub is a vehicle to create them.
Lauinger also hosts the Gelardin Center that offers video production equipment and production rooms to assist in visual media use in student projects. Increasingly, course projects involve audio and video products – podcasts, documentary videos, etc. Other services offer access to computers of various types and auxiliary equipment for special uses with computers, including virtual reality support.
The Booth Family Special Collections contains approximately 150,000 rare and historically significant printed books in Western languages dating from the 15th century to the present, as well as archives of the local Jesuit province and of the university. The Barbara Ellis Jones (C’1974) Inquiry Classroom is used for classes that study the various holdings of the collection.
As the ways human knowledge is manifested change over time, libraries must change to fill the needs of students and researchers. At the board of directors’ meeting this week, the board was updated on aspirations to enhance Lauinger Library to become a more vibrant locus of activity for students and faculty.
Ideas include a visualization studio with a wall of plasma displays, to permit both data visualization, but also visual presentation of simulations, special collection objects, and demonstrations of data analytic output visualized. The room could be used both for research project team meetings and course meetings in data analytics and study of special collection manuscripts.
Most importantly, Lauinger Library, as a structure, needs updating and renewal of basic infrastructure. The upcoming fundraising campaign will attempt to support such a renewal. It will begin with a renovation of Pierce Reading Room, on the entrance floor of Lauinger. The plan is to open up the room to much more natural light, but having the southern solid wall replaced with windows that would permit views of the Potomac River and the Key Bridge. The room is also one possible location of the visualization wall and innovation lab. This renovation on the 3rd floor will allow all of us to envision what a fully transformed Lauinger might offer the university in enhanced study and research space.
The aspiration of the new Lauinger is that it become the logical location for a new set of student and faculty research activities, taking advantage of all the changes in how knowledge is disseminated in the 21st century and using state-of-the-art techniques to access, synthesize, and disseminate that knowledge.
TEMPUS fugit! Things change ! When I did my senior Biology thesis 1968 I had to drive weekly to the National Library of Medicine In Rockville!
Ps my thesis “ The mechanism of action of the major and minor tranquilizers!”
Yup bit off more than I could chew! I didn’t find out what they were . Actually the key comment I quoted was something like “ trying to find out what’s going on In the brain by analyzing platelet serotonin is like trying to find out how a transistor radio works by putting it a blender and seeing what happens !” Yup we’ve come a long way in libraries and research .
Although still no real answer how those work!