Attending: John Kolsti, Kenneth Ralls, John Slatin, George Sylvie; Craig Burgler, Lisette Espinosa, Blaire Knox: Sarah Thomas, Fred Heath, Dennis Dillon, Jo Anne Hawkins, Sue Phillips; Jocelyn Duffy
The next and last meeting of the committee will be held in GEO 4.102 from noon until 1 P.M., on April 27, 2005. Dennis Trombatore, head librarian of the Geology Library, will give a presentation.
Fred Heath introduced his distinguished colleague, Sarah Thomas, the University librarian at Cornell University. Her abridged slide presentation with running commentary to the committee was titled, "The Library as Intellectual and Social Crossroads," and attempted in forty minutes to survey various illustrative strategies on different college and university campuses across the country with regard to library spaces, their user communities, books and library staff.
She began by noting that the current view of libraries appears to be shifting from "vaults for books" to "spaces for learning and discovery," and that libraries remain iconic places on campuses, with trends favoring high-ceilinged reading rooms with big windows, comfortable seating and no books on display.
She wove her narrative through libraries shown with cafes and "streets of services"; big windows lit at night to invite students in 24-7 and with spaces for exhibits, conferences and speakers; desks that provide single-points-of-service for a variety of user needs and areas of the library that can be locked off or have controlled access; common study areas for different levels of students and collaborative learning computer labs; and flexible assignments of space for study and for library staff.
She reviewed placement of the books in the collections, including shared off-site storage facilities, compact shelving, underground stack areas, and mergers of smaller libraries to obtain economies of scale as well as to facilitate multi-disciplinary research by faculty.
She spoke about bringing the librarians to the students, touchdown suites (spaces across campus that librarians can use from time to time as needed to provide services), and points of outreach in buildings which may be book-less, staff-less and almost space-less.
Questions began with Kay Sewell asking about the size of the coffee shop at Cornell (2.5 times larger than PCL 3.204) and John Slatin subsequently asking about handling access for people with disabilities.
Sarah said that all web pages are accessible, and all new spaces are made ADA-compliant. When older spaces are repurposed, they are made accessible.
Following a lively give-and-take with members of the committee, Sarah concluded that applying another library's model wholesale to your own library usually doesn't work. Libraries mix-and-match, taking the best from all the places they've seen and creating a relevant application on their campus.
Jo Anne Hawkins announced that all older UT IDs will be deactivated on May 31, 2005.
