Vol
31. No 2. Summer 2000 p.29-31Henry "Joe" Runge
It had been dark when he arrived, but now the sun shone brightly into the lobby. He chuckled that the chubby kid in the Yankees hat was still asleep in his chair, a biochemistry textbook folded across his chest. Phil walked to the center of the commons and stood, indecisive. The café just outside the main entrance was inviting, but he had promised Maria he'd look at her photographs in the gallery. He peered across the lobby to see if the gallery was open yet. They had been rearranging the exhibit to try to catch passers by, but the café kept his attention. Phil was trying to remember what he had for breakfast when something caught his eye from the other side of the lobby. He walked over to the lecture hall and read the updated schedule for this week:
Thursday - Noon Forum:'Terry's giving his dissertation,' Phil laughed to himself. 'This I've got to see!' He still remembered how much grief he caught from his friend when he presented his own dissertation on elections in Germany last November. Thoughts of graduation filled his head for a moment. He would miss his school, the late nights sipping mochas in the café while studying for international political exonomy with Sophie and Dave. He had grown to love these past four years, and hadn't realized how much of them had been spent in this library. He'd spent hours here rehearsing debates with the rest of the political science majors. He'd spent days of his life gazing beyond his books onto the lobby below, picking his friends out of the crowd. Phil looked down at his watch again. Five minutes. He hurried for the door on his way to class.
"Race and Identity"
Dr. Wilson, Biology Department will discuss race as a social phenomenon and it's place in our culture. Dr. Tempero will join her from the Sociology Departmetn.
Friday - Senior Dissertation:
"Extinction, Explanation, Imperative"
Environmental science major Terrance Mitchell will present his senior dissertation on ethics and extinction.
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The role of the academic library in an age of high-speed Internet connections will undoubtedly change. As many of the books a student would search for in the stacks become available at the click of a mouse, the library must look for a new role to fill. When these new roles are realized, libraries must no longer be constructed primarily as storehouses of books, but as buildings to tie a university together, as buildings to display the work of students, as buildings where the community and the university can overlap.
The library can become the focal point of the university. As the boundaries between traditional departments fade, the library can be a place where art and science merge, a place where lawyers and philosphers can debate laws and ethics, and where photography students can have their exhibits critiqued by literature students. It can become the display area for joint projects between departments. The library could be the site where departments integrate into a campus, and provide a new kind of education.
But in order for this to occur, libraries must be built differently. If libraries are to become multi-functional, they must have the facilities to do so. The library must have places set aside for community. More than just a single common area, there must be a place where students, faculty and staff can go to build this community. This could be a café or garden, some place with appeal apart from just being another place to go. One need only look to the success of major booksellers that integrate a café into their stores. These are places where students can meet casually, where students can go to listen to local music, or hear poetry. The library café could become a center for student organizations to meet to gain support. This integration of the traditional campus coffee house into the library would give the library a strong presence in the social life of the university.
Moreover, a library built with a dedicated area to exhibit artwork or research posters would make departmental colloquiums university-wide affairs. Students interested in a potential major could see the artwork, or research, or portfolios of students in that department. Finally, a large central lecture hall designed for the public, not classroom lectures, could provide a forum for debates, presentations, and other campus-wide activities. Speakers from outside the university could address the school from here, interdepartmental panel discussions and debates could take place on this stage, student theses and award ceremonies could take place here.
A library could be built with these structures in mind. Planners could build a central commons area, and have these other structures come off from it in wings. One could enter the main library entrance and from there choose to enter a gallery, or a lecture hall, or a café, or the stacks. This vision of a library would make the architecture of the library critically important. It must be inviting, an attractive building that one wold come to even if he or she didn't need a book. Moreover, the building must be in a place of high traffic flow, so that just by passing through the library one could keep up on the happenings around the university.
The ways in which people gather information are changing. So, too, must the library change to become a common ground for a new kind of university, one that is integrated and holistic, one that realizes that an education is best achieved by a wide exposure of ideas. The library would be the place for that exposure.
Henry ("Joe") Runge graduated from Creighton University this spring with a Bachelor's degree in biology and a reputaiton for academic excellence.
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