It took 2 years to finish, but Truckee Meadows Community College today has the library of the future. The new "Learning Commons" was a huge project, modeled after future trends. To describe it, with its myriad of Tomorrowland-like options is a challenge, but TMCC president Karin Hilgersom gives it a try: "This is like a student heart center because you can come here in between classes. You can get tutoring help."
It’s 35,000 square feet redone at a cost of $2.6 million, and it shows. The 2nd floor used to be tables and stacks of books, they tell me. Today, its different features, different pods…including isolation chairs that serve as a spot of silence. It’s a reflection of the future. The word for today's library, is “flexible.” Hilgersom told me, “I think it’s a national trend to try to meet students where they're at when it comes to wraparound library services."
To illustrate how flexible, most everything on these 2 floors at the Elizabeth Sturm Library…has wheels. The entire Learning Commons can go from tutor-centric to private space to classrooms to customized workshops in less than half an hour. There’s a very large computer lab. English tutor Drew Willis showed us the “dual projectors, 46 new computers, ELMO system, dual modern projectors..."
Students move from project teams to skill groups to activity centers, or patch in to a solitary booth or small room. The new seating options let students choose how and where they work…a mix of high and low top, hard and soft. Willis pointed out “these 2 designated rooms for our supplemental instruction group study. We actually see one going on back there now."
Model classroom pods illustrate the future learning environment: groupings, dividing walls, high tech. Even the scanners seem to be from another time. Willis says whatever you copy “can be uploaded into like a PDF file. It can be emailed and there's a designated app for this so you can send."
Safe to say, it’s not called a library any more. But...what is it? TMCC’s president says it best: "It's a wonderful centralization of wraparound student support study services."
And there you go.
