Dear Colleagues,
At its meeting yesterday, the Board of Trustees approved the first phase of a four year, ten million dollar renovation of the John T. Richardson Library. The first phase of the renovation is scheduled to begin this summer, with subsequent phases taking place each summer through the summer of 2014. These phases have been planned in such a way as to minimize the impact on ongoing library operations.
Opened in 1992, as a state-of-the-art facility, the library in its present physical configuration has struggled to keep up with the rapid changes in information technology, modalities of information delivery, and patterns of student and faculty usage. Most of the square footage of the library that has been used for such activities as the Art Museum will be fully recovered in this remodeling. The entire technological infrastructure of the library is approaching obsolescence and will be replaced. The first and second floors will be transformed into a dynamic, multi-functional, Information Commons that will reflect industry standards and our own understanding of how best to meet the information literacy, reference, curricular, and study needs of our students. Archives and Special Collections are projected to continue to grow with the expansion of collections and the addition of new collections. Its new facilities will also accommodate a large increase in curricular and research uses. Finally, new spaces will be designed for various Library departments to optimize efficiencies and workflows.
Over the last several years, in support of its role in achieving Goal I of VISION Twenty12, the Library has received an unprecedented level of funding from the Provost. Part of this funding was strategically invested to help fill gaps in key collections created by previous decades of under-funding. In consultation with faculty, we have also been able to accelerate the strategic move to databases, ejournals and ebooks as these have increasingly become the industry standard. Finally, this funding has been used to invest in the leadership of a new generation of highly-talented library professionals who understand the opportunities and challenges of a library that will support student learning and the research and curricular agendas of our faculty given DePaul’s identity as a teaching university.
We believe the newly-renovated John T. Richardson Library will give us the physical flexibility that will enable this facility to serve the university well for up to 25 years. In addition, we will also continue our investments in moving into the virtual delivery of content and services. We will endeavor to bring these planning insights as to the changing nature of information delivery into the universitys strategic planning process. The other articles in this special edition of the faculty newsletter will give you more detailed information about this renovation, and the future of library services at DePaul.
I’m very grateful to our library staff, our consultants, and faculty and students whose comprehensive feedback has helped us envision our future.
Sincerely,
Rev. Edward R. Udovic, C.M., Ph.D.
Vice President
Teaching and Learning Resources