Language and Culture Library and Commons
September 7, 2005
Description: With the name of Language and Culture Library and Commons, this option
identifies both the inclusiveness and the focus of the redesigned and repurposed space on
the 2nd floor of the Library. It is conceptualized as a place that will meet the needs of
many students, staff, faculty, and visitors with subject expertise, circulating collections of
core materials, reference resources, both print and electronic, and the technological
infrastructure needed to support research in the 21st century. It incorporates the rooms of
the 2nd floor that form an inter-connected U: 220-200-225 to create a variety of kinds of
spaces to suit the varying needs of its users. There will be specialized teaching /
presentation space, most likely located in 220, because of the better suitability of that
room to these activities. 220 will also be the place where the faculty and staff of the new
unit will housed.
Room 200 itself, with its 294-foot sweep of space, will accommodate a series of
variously configured user spaces. The term ‘user spaces’ encompasses implementations
ranging from small areas of comfy chairs to group study spaces and on up through
clusters of a variety of technology-intense worktables ranging from digital video editing
to CAD-CAM design (although this later function might be better served if located in 220). A
robust circulating collection selected from what is now the English Library and the
Modern Languages and Linguistics Library will be shelved in the wall cases around the
perimeter of the room. Low cases serving as separators between the user spaces will
house reference materials. Additionally, exhibit cases will be deployed throughout the
room and serve as visual dividers as well as collaborative instruction opportunities. The
print journal collections will be combined and shelved in what is now the Government
Documents Library staff space with comfortable seating and work spaces. It was
designed as a journal reading room when it was installed back in the 1940s and which
purpose it served until after the Undergraduate Library was built. A service desk which
will be the primary contact point in the room will be located near the center and also
serve as a circulation desk and a reserves desk. Room 225, currently the Slavic Library,
will be expanded in scope to accommodate reference and other materials from additional
area studies units.
Advantages:

In keeping with the Foreign Language Building initiative, it brings together the
collections and the expertise to serve a variety of disciplines.

It supports the mediated interactions of users and subject specialists with the onsite circulating collections that are so critical to user success.

LC2 will have the critical mass of equipment and staff to ensure technological
digital expertise and support.

Collaboration between Library faculty and teaching faculty in instruction and
research projects would be enhanced.

It promotes and supports inter-disciplinary and cross-disciplinary research.

It brings collections and services currently hard to find and hard to get to into an
accessible, open, and inviting space.

LC2 will bring together sub-collections, both reference and circulating, currently
divided by collection lines, e.g. international cinema and Hispanic-American
belles letters.

It reduces the duplication of reference materials and reference services.

It reduces service points.

The relationship between the L&C L&C and the Central Reference Service will
be facilitated by proximity to one another and to the major reference sources
located in 5 Front.

The opportunity to create a LC2 integrated webspace with linkages to the entire
array of resources will further support the unified approach to scholarship.
Disadvantages:

As with every single solitary unit and function in the Library system, the name
may not convey its full meaning to every potential user at first glance. This can,
of course, be remedied through publicity and user education.
Tom Kilton
Kathleen Kluegel