Academic Commons Planning Committee Meeting Minutes

April 24, 2006

Present: Jane Boomer, Alan Boyd, Ray English, Jessica Grim, Shozo Kawaguchi, Cynthia Murnan, Ann Sherif, Fred Zwegat

1. Kalamazoo College Library.

   Ray attended the dedication of the renovated and expanded library at Kalamazoo College. He reviewed various features of the library with the committee. These include a café, a help desk adjacent to the reference desk, and media, production, and graphic services – all on the main level. The building also has furniture designed for collaborative use of workstations and several smart classrooms.

   Ray announced that Kalamazoo College will be dedicating their “Library Commons” on Saturday April 22. He’s hoping he will be able to be there for the event.

2. Planning Process.

   Ray noted that Leo Evans has been named the project coordinator from the physical plant staff. Leo will help facilitate the planning process and also assist in the selection of the planning architect. Leo has received information from Terry Hajduk, the architect from Columbus that Fred met at an earlier conference. He and Ray will review that information and make a recommendation on how to proceed.

3. Communication.

   The committee discussed how to best communicate with both the public and with college (especially library and CIT) staff regarding the progress of the academic commons project. If Albert is not able to provide direct access to the public part of the Blackboard site (without logging in), then we’ll need an alternative means of communication. It was agreed that we want to share openly minutes of all meetings, survey results, the basic planning documents, finished products, and the names of all committee members. Jessica will talk with Megan about the possibility of creating a separate web site. Cindy will work on the possibility of creating a single log in to the Blackboard site for CIT and library staff access. Alan will talk with College Relations about the possibility of setting up a public site similar to the one that was established for the science complex construction.

4. Constituent Input Subcommittee.

   Over 1,000 students have responded to the subcommittee’s survey. There appears to be general excitement among students about the possibility of change in Mudd Center. Students expressed support for various components of the academic commons project. The survey results also made it clear that they especially value quiet individual study space, in addition to group space. Focus groups with students are in the works. They will deal mainly on questions related to services, rather than the café. The subcommittee plans to conduct a short faculty survey that will go out before the end of the semester – probably during the reading period. The group is also planning to survey library and CIT staff.

5. Space Subcommittee.

   Alan has met with Allison Gallaher to discuss a variety of issues related to space in the area of the current circulation department. The basic idea would be to merge circulation, reserve, and interlibrary loan into one physical location. This would very likely involve an expansion of space into the area currently occupied by the Dewey Catalog. In addition, some processing functions for interlibrary loan might be performed in the current technical services area. The planning process will consider whether or not a closed reserve area is more desirable than the current open reserve setup on the A-level. The transition could very likely include incorporation of films and videos from the AV collection. Microforms remain an unresolved issue. It may be desirable to create shared scanning facilities (for college faculty and staff) in the area.

6. Next meeting.

   The next meeting of the planning committee is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. on Monday, May 8.

Minutes by Ray English