C A Building for Ne w Times T H E M A R I E T TA C O L L E G E LIBRARY NEW LIBRARY MEETS FUTURE EXPECTATIONS FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING > BY EVELYN FROLKING 20 < A U T U M N 2 0 0 6
NEW LIBRARY For more information, visit www.marietta.edu/about/library U RV E D WA L L S A N D A N G L E D P O RTA L S leading in four directions will beckon students and faculty into a thoroughly modern building designed to enhance today’s culture for teaching and learning. Construction of the new Marietta College Library, a building that will almost certainly reconfigure the center of the campus, is planned to begin next May with the building’s opening currently scheduled for January 2009. The $17-million project is inspired, in part, by the College’s close relationship between students and faculty. Classrooms for formal instruction are part of its new design, as well as a 24-hour cyber café that will be situated on the main floor. Small clusters of study tables and comfortable furnishings will be scattered throughout. Laptop computers will join desktops in a wireless environment and a new Center for Teaching and Learning will offer faculty members advice regarding new technologies, such as creating podcasts. “An academic library like ours doesn’t just find answers,” says Dr. Doug Anderson, library director. “We relate to students and help them learn the process of finding the answer, we find out what their real questions are, we try to help them become independent library users.” The modernized, high-tech design of the facility will focus on flexible spaces, engaged librarians and compact storage of the library’s extensive collection to reflect the ever-changing influence of technology. “We still have a foot in both worlds,” Anderson says of the presence of technology and its transformation of the academic process. While most references and more and more journals are now electronic, Anderson sees printed books gradually converting, but by no means disappearing. “We continue to add to our book collection and we continue to collect the scholarship that’s out there, print or electronic,” he says. A concept that was once called “information literacy,” has evolved into a term called “information fluency” to describe the mission of the teaching and learning library. In Anderson’s vision, the library guides students to sources of information, helps them determine reliability, challenges them to think critically and asks them to look keenly at how information is used. From there, information fluency stretches deep into faculty development. That emphasis will most noticeably be centered in the new Teaching and Learning Center on the second of the new facility’s four floors. There, faculty will be able to explore new classroom strategies, engage in conversation about teaching and use technology to enhance educational collaboration. “Teaching is an isolated profession,” explains Dr. Laura Little, newly appointed director for the Teaching and Learning Center. “This open concept will create dialogue and help faculty explore new ideas.” If, for example, a professor wants to learn to create a podcast or to try out other new technologies, the Center will be the place to go. The Teaching and Learning Center, modeled after similar centers in other liberal arts colleges, features key areas. In addition to conference rooms, there is a project room and areas for “champions” who are faculty members who act as mentors, says Little. “The Center will open conversations about teaching and learning on the campus,” she adds. The new library, situated closer to the McDonough Center for Leadership and Business, replaces Dawes Library to distinguish the campus center. Persistent water and humidity problems in Dawes Library and its outdated 1960s design no longer serves the needs of a technologyrich campus, says Anderson. > THE HEART OF CAMPUS The library construction is expected to create a new campus center with a parklike space between it and the Gilman Center. NEW LIBRARY > FITTING IT IN The new library will be located where there is green space in front of the McDonough Leadership Center. The view above is from the south of campus by Butler Street; the view at right is an overhead view from the southeast. ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF BURGESS & NIPLE, INC. M A R I E T TA > 21
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