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USM Libraries Director David Nutty surveys the Glickman Family
Library's UnumProvident Great Reading Room as he dodges, respectively,
a carpet installer, cabinetmaker, and electrician. "Look at
this," he says, panning a wintry view of Back Cove and pacing
the cavernous space of the library's seventh floor. "Is there
really a better view of the city in all of Portland?"
It's March and these are the final weeks of work on the library.
Nutty shows off the library's soon-to-be-completed top three
floors like a proud host awaiting his guests. "We want people
to use the library for all sorts of reasons," he says, "to
be a true center of learning where all things come together."
On the fifth floor, with its flexible furnishings and computer
work stations, students can cluster in collaborative work
zones. Also on this floor is a cafe with Internet hookups,
as well as the Faculty Development and Collaboration Room.
The latter is pivotal in Nutty's mission for the library's
increasing role: It gives faculty technical and library support
for integrating information literacy into the classroom.
The sixth floor features the Mildred Brenner Glickman Special
Collections Area, Mary Walton Giamatti Seminar Room, and the
Kevin P. and Sherry L. McCarthy and Family Reading Room. Nutty
notes that "the special collections have been scattered around
the university, with some in storage; this brings the collections
together in probably the best such facility in Maine."
Hopes are high that the Glickman Library will become both
the physical and academic heart of the Portland campus, uniting
a sometimes fractured community into "a learning-centered
campus." It's a challenge facing many universities, says Nutty,
"as electronic and distance options erode campus cohesion."
"If libraries are not revitalized, campus life may fracture
even more," he says. "Universities are gearing the learning
environment more toward collaboration. Students are now learning
and working in groups. It makes great sense for the library
to support the new learning environment -- whether physically
or virtually. Academic libraries today must be true 'information
commons.' If they aren't, libraries will be increasingly marginalized."
Nutty has headed up USM's libraries for just six months.
He inherited the library renovation project at the perfect
time, he quips, "after the hard work of raising money, hiring
architects, builders, and planners had been completed." In
fact, he has had a strong hand in shaping the project, most
notably the development of a Center for Information Literacy
and the Student Collaborative Computing Lab -- both dedicated
to giving students more advanced tools for negotiating the
dizzying array of information now available electronically.
Academic libraries everywhere feel the omnipresent rumble
of the information explosion. "Can we tame the electronic
beast?" smiles Nutty. "Well, there's no turning back."
The physical renovation may have been the easy part. USM's
libraries also are pivotal in bringing what has been termed
"information literacy," into the heart of the academic experience.
Roughly defined, information literacy is the increasingly
sophisticated skills set that students, faculty and the public
need for retrieving, evaluating, and ultimately using, the
breadth of information available electronically.
"We're all overwhelmed by the information that is available
to us through digital technology," notes USM Provost Joseph
Wood. "What education should be helping everyone do is to
become critical consumers of that information -- whether for
academic reasons or any other. How do you sort out info that's
coming to you in huge data dumps? What's of value? What's
not? How do you use the range of electronic tools out there
to find and evaluate the very best information?"
It's not enough, agrees Nutty, "to just go to Google or Yahoo
for your research. Students need to be taught skills about
how to approach the research process, how to find a variety
of resources, how to evaluate Web sites, use subscription
databases, how to cite electronic sources. These are skills
students will need at work and throughout their lives."
This requires libraries to rethink their "holdings" by measuring
their excellence, in part, by the range of information-literacy
services they provide. "Academic libraries used to be judged
by inputs," says Nutty. "For example, how many volumes you
have, how many periodicals. In recent years there's been an
emphasis on outcomes, because accrediting agencies, state
legislators, university presidents want to know how the library
contributes to student learning and the learning outcomes
of the institution."
Library staff are key to this transformation. Nutty sees
many of USM's 42 full- and two part-time staff working collaboratively
with faculty, program coordinators and departments to "raise
awareness about information literacy and then help them integrate
these skills into the curriculum." He envisions the library's
new Faculty Development Room as a think tank and learning
lab, where groups of faculty and library and other university
staff can further develop USM's electronic teaching tools
and research services.
All of this is labor-intensive, but Nutty thinks it is doable.
He recently hired an information literacy program coordinator
to be a liaison between faculty and library staff. Plans are
in the pipeline to reorganize library functions to increase
connections between reference, circulation, and periodicals
so that staff can work more flexibly throughout the organization.
As work on the Glickman Family Library nears completion,
Nutty shifts his attention to USM's other libraries. "Historically,
there was a tendency to see the libraries as three separate
libraries," observes Nutty. "I think of it as one library
on three campuses, each with a different focus.
"Portland library is the largest; it's our premier facility
and is a resource for the larger southern Maine community,
more so than the other campuses. LAC has a wonderful, close-knit
facility that is integrated into the campus very successfully.
Gorham's library is in need of physical remodeling. Hopefully,
we'll be able to fund its renovation in the next two years.
It shouldn't be a mini-Glickman, but suited to its campus,
which is residential. I envision a comfortable information
commons there, a place where you can blend library resources
with student computing labs and scanning and copying stations.
Students can do everything all in one place."
For now, Nutty just seems pleased to have helped pull off
the Glickman renovation: "You want to know what my favorite
part is? Almost all of the window space has been designed
for student use. They'll be able to work on almost all of
the seven floors and look out over the city." He thinks about
this a moment. "It may not improve their concentration," he
grins, "but I think it says a lot about the direction of the
university."
Comments from Gov. Angus King at the dedication of the
Glickman Family Library, Oct. 19, 1997:
Libraries are magical places. It's all here. Somewhere
in this building, Lee is planning whether or not to send Pickett
across the line at Gettysburg. Jefferson is writing the Declaration
of Independence. The quiet wisdom of Confucius and Lao-tse
is just downstairs. The madness and destructiveness of Hitler
is in this building. The wisdom of Aristotle and Plato is
here, in this building. Everything we've known or dreamed
is here. And now, through the wonders of technology, the libraries
of the world are in this building.
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