Georgetown’s drive to do its very best work in service to the common good has shaped centuries of growth and progress. Today, it animates the university’s $3 billion campaign ambition, calling us to invest in areas of great strength for Georgetown—and even greater opportunity.
Through Called to Be: The Campaign for Georgetown, we are answering the call with resources and action, creating worldclass libraries that meet the evolving needs of our students and scholars.
Cover image: Video journalism students collaborate on projects in Georgetown University Library’s digital media studio space.
Academic libraries have always been an expression of their university’s priorities and ambitions. They best serve as both a mirror and a catalyst as they help shape their institution’s identity and trajectory. At Georgetown, the libraries play a missioncritical role—in the formation of new scholars, the pursuit of new discoveries, and the advancement of knowledge for the common good.
Today, propelled by this enduring commitment and a changing world, the Georgetown libraries are called to begin a new chapter. We are called to revitalize the ways in which we stimulate, support, steward, and disseminate the scholarship of our students and faculty. We are called to grow and flourish as dynamic laboratories and communal workshops, where our community can learn, build, and share cutting-edge tools, skills, and ideas. We are called to empower students and faculty to create and broadcast knowledge, within and beyond the traditional forms of scholarly communication.
Indeed, our libraries are rising to meet the challenge posed by Pope Francis in 2021 as he inaugurated a permanent digital exhibit at the Vatican Library. We have begun to “translate our heritage into new languages,” gradually becoming “a frontier of the present and the future.”
This revitalization is happening now, most visibly in the renovation of Lauinger Library’s Pierce Reading Room, the first phase of a much larger, phased transformation of Lau. Our libraries have many opportunities ahead as we build on our exceptional collections, staff, services, and spaces. I hope you will join us as we invest in the inestimable, enduring value of the Georgetown libraries.
—Harriette Hemmasi, Dean of the Library
A core element of our world-class university
From their earliest days, Georgetown University’s libraries have been invaluable laboratories for learning and discovery. They house and preserve the products of scholarship. They support cutting-edge teaching and inquiry. They inspire the imaginations of our students and faculty.
For our community, the library is a vital space for connection and formation. It’s a place to study, and a place to gather. It’s a place to seek information, and find help. It’s a place to think, to create. A place to get ready for class, and a place to attend class. It’s a place to reflect, and, most importantly, a place to grow.
GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES: FY24 SNAPSHOT
With four campus-based locations and one shared off-site shelving facility, Georgetown University libraries constitute the university’s most interdisciplinary entity. Together, they include Lauinger Library, Blommer Science Library, Bioethics Research Library, and the School of Continuing Studies Library, along with the emerging library space on Georgetown’s Capitol Campus.
4.2M items in collection (print & digital)
46,000 items checked out
1.5M articles downloaded
215,000 e-books accessed
900,000 library website views
7,000 questions & online chats
2,100 consultations & instruction
800,000 gate counts (library visitors)
158 hours open per week / 10 hours closed per week
A steadfast mission in a changing world
Georgetown relies on its libraries every day to live out its mission as a Catholic and Jesuit research university. Our commitment to formation, inquiry, and the common good is enduring, but the opportunities and challenges around us are always evolving.
In recent decades, social, economic, and technological developments have dramatically altered how knowledge is created and communicated, how teaching and learning are conducted, and thus how the roles and functions of libraries are changing.
Today, research is often interdisciplinary. Information has been globally networked. Computing power can unlock fresh insights. Students engage with libraries in novel ways.
Ready to excel in this new environment, we are transforming our collections, services, and spaces to meet the needs and aspirations of our university community, now and for the future.
CALLED TO BE 21ST CENTURY LIBRARIES FOR GEORGETOWN
To meet Georgetown’s growing ambitions, we must become libraries of and for a new era. We will continue to provide the full range of resources and services needed for the conventional and contemporary academic activities of students and faculty. In addition, we will pursue transformational roles for our libraries, such as enabling learners and scholars at all levels to leverage innovative tools and approaches as they create, apply, and communicate information.
Reimagining our physical space—the Lauinger Library building, in particular—is critical to this ambition. Lauinger is a central force in Georgetown’s research activity and student experience. Through the library’s phased renovations, we will create a truly world-class, welcoming environment for all Hoyas and guests.
This transformation will take time and significant resources, as we must keep the library running, even as we revitalize its spaces. We know the path forward. Philanthropic investments—in the libraries’ collections, services, and physical spaces—will make this renewal possible.
We will expand access to crucial scholarly resources.
Georgetown University libraries provide students and faculty with access to more than 4 million items—printed and electronic books, journals, databases, manuscripts, maps, videos, recordings, and much more. These collections are always evolving, keeping pace with university directions, areas of academic emphasis, emerging disciplines, student demand, and the advent of new technologies. By carefully enhancing our holdings and investing in modern modes of access, we will further distinguish Georgetown libraries and support the ongoing success of our academic community.
STRATEGIC ACQUISITIONS AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS
Even as the university’s academic endeavors take on new contours, we approach library collections and access through the lens of our time-honored mission: to help students and faculty access, evaluate, and create knowledge to build a better future.
Maintaining a core set of historical and current discipline-specific and interdisciplinary collections (both analog and digital) remains an essential function. Collection endowments and current-use gifts will enable the libraries to continue acquiring carefully targeted teaching and research materials, along with distinctive special collections that build on our libraries’ strengths. These resources are critical in advancing Georgetown’s research priorities, including interdisciplinary fields such as the medical humanities, environmental studies, and digital ethics.
In addition, we hope to further strengthen our collection through the acquisition of rare, antiquarian, modern, and born-digital works with enduring value. Of particular interest are books and manuscripts that supplement the current strengths of the Booth Family Center for Special Collections—for instance, art history, 19th and 20th century British literature and Victorian novels, the study of slavery and its legacies, international affairs, and diplomacy. Adding carefully curated works of art—paintings, sculpture, fine prints, and other graphic media—is another goal for enriching the Booth Center’s activities and exhibitions.
“It’s
like watching people enter a new world.”
—CHANDRA MANNING, PROFESSOR AND DIRECTOR OF
THE
GEORGETOWN INSTITUTE FOR GLOBAL HISTORY, reflecting on introducing students to archival materials. Manning collaborated with University Archivist Lynn Conway to prepare an instructional session for students in her Civil War and Emancipation class.
BRINGING HISTORY INTO THE HANDS OF GEORGETOWN STUDENTS
Special collections are not just shelves of dusty objects kept out of reach. They are an active destination for students and faculty alike. In Fall 2024, Professor Sacramento Roselló-Martínez brought her Spain: Literature & Culture class to visit special collections to view books published by and about Cervantes and Santa Teresa from 1588-1881.
“The visit had an extraordinary impact for several reasons,” Roselló-Martínez said. “It helped students establish meaningful connections between the history of the book, materiality, and the history of literature. It opened new discussions regarding authorship, the pre-modern publishing ecosystem, and readership. Since we visited Special Collections they have been able to better understand and explain what it meant to write and read in pre-modern times.”
CONNECTING RESEARCHERS WITH RARE FINDS
When the university library purchased a book set from Colombia for Spanish and Portuguese Ph.D. student Sebastián Moreno, it unlocked a whole new avenue for his thesis research. The four-volume set, El Testigo, was published in Bogotá by the National University of Colombia. It features the photojournalistic work of Jesús Abad Colorado on the experiences of victims of Colombia’s armed conflict, along with detailed testimonials. “This book has been incredibly important to my current thesis research, providing direct, substantial, and hardto-find information that I couldn’t access anywhere else,” said Moreno. “These resources are not available remotely or in digital format.”
“I also want to highlight the broader value of having these volumes in the university library. While they are a vital resource for my research, they also provide others with access to these important stories. By amplifying the voices of victims, this collection fosters meaningful engagement in academic spaces beyond Colombia, contributing to a larger dialogue on memory, conflict, and human rights.”
—SEBASTIÁN MORENO, SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE PH.D. STUDENT
RESOURCE SHARING AND DIGITIZATION
Meanwhile, there are many things our libraries do not own, cannot own—and in many cases, do not need to own. Budgetary and space constraints prevent the Georgetown libraries, and libraries at most of our peer institutions, from purchasing endless materials “just in case” they might be of use to students and faculty.
In addition to focusing our expenditures on a thoughtfully tailored collection, we also deliver a wide array of requested scholarly materials “just in time,” through direct purchases and collaborative resource-sharing arrangements, such as interlibrary loans and consortium-based joint purchasing agreements. These types of agreements with other academic libraries are poised to become even more important with the growing emphasis on ensuring students and faculty can select and quickly access any item, at any time, from any place.
In this spirit, the Georgetown libraries also are engaged in new models of open-access publishing, as well as collaborative efforts to preserve print and locally digitized materials. Gifts to support digitization of Georgetown’s unique treasures will help ensure that these materials are preserved, visible, and accessible in the long-term.
With your support, we will ensure our collections reflect Georgetown’s ambitions and will broaden access through sharing, digitization, and preservation.
We will support new ways to create and communicate knowledge.
Library services are undergoing major changes in response to new modes of creating, publishing, and interacting with scholarly content. We have access to more information—of varying quality and accuracy—than ever before, making librarians’ skills and guidance increasingly vital. Home to highly trained information specialists, Georgetown libraries are not only expanding their role in the distribution of information but also embracing their potential as places where students and faculty can produce and disseminate new forms of scholarship.
Shavini Fernando (G’18) spent long hours on the first floor of Lauinger Library developing the prototype for her wearable oxygen monitor, shown on her ear. Her company, OxiWear, was a finalist and grant recipient in the American Heart Association’s EmPOWERED to Serve Business Accelerator.
A DRIVING FORCE IN INFORMATION LITERACY
The process of finding and using scholarly resources has become even more complex amid a rapidly multiplying array of resources, formats, and technologies—with limitless paths for discovery, use, and reuse. Flooded with information, students and faculty benefit from having the library as a trusted partner to help them effectively navigate available content.
Georgetown is fortunate to have some of higher education’s most highly trained information specialists. Often as a team, library staff work side-by-side with faculty and students, exploring ways to articulate scholarly ideas, building and shaping arguments, providing interpretation, and conveying insightful conclusions. We must continue to invest in these experts and their skill development.
HELPING STUDENTS NAVIGATE THE CHALLENGES OF GENERATIVE AI
With the rapid proliferation of generative AI, university libraries are playing an essential role in helping students understand the connections between humans and machines, teaching them crucial evaluation skills. Literature Liaison & Reference Librarian Melissa Jones worked with Associate Teaching Professor Phil Sandick, director of the Creative Writing Minor, to teach his students how to use lateral reading techniques to evaluate claims and sources generated by AI tools.
The class undertook a several-week unit on critically engaging with generative AI and completing group projects related to creativity and cutting-edge applications, ethical engagement, and critical media literacy. Students noted how much they enjoyed the experience, and how time-intensive it is to track down corroborating sources. “I really appreciate that as one main takeaway,” Sandick said. “Many [students] had been unsure of how to verify claims or sources AI makes, and now at least they’re aware of—and understand—a method. I find it really helpful too!”
DIGITAL SCHOLARSHIP SERVICES
With a growing cadre of digital experts, tools, and specially equipped spaces, the libraries also are becoming crucial testing grounds for new ways of interrogating and activating knowledge. The libraries’ digital scholarship services team supports student and faculty research at all levels, spanning a range of functions:
• Data services: analysis, computing, visualization
• Research lifecycle: project management, digital publishing, digitization, DigitalGeorgetown, data management, archiving and preservation
• Research methods: text mining, digital maps/geographical information systems, scholarly uses of immersive reality and artificial intelligence
• Media production: multimedia storytelling, podcasting, video production
Philanthropy will ensure we can continue to acquire essential tools and software, creating a robust infrastructure for the development, production, dissemination, and preservation of digital work.
MOVING FROM STATIC CONTENT TO INTERACTIVE MODELS
Where, exactly, does Washington, DC, have mail-in ballot drop boxes? Are there more at Metro Stations or at local libraries? Are they distributed equitably across wards? This data was publicly available—but trapped in a giant spreadsheet. Working with a Digital News class, Georgetown’s library staff taught students how to use that open data in a way that allowed them to visualize trends and convey insights, producing a digital map showing the placement and location of DC drop boxes.
THE MAKER HUB
The Georgetown Maker Hub is another way teaching and learning in the Georgetown libraries have taken on new dimensions. Launched in 2016, the Lauinger Library space provides members of the university community with free access to specialized equipment and a collaborative atmosphere to design, prototype, and innovate.
Offering a variety of high- and low-tech tools—including 3D printers, laser cutters, sewing machines, bookbinding and printmaking supplies, and woodworking equipment—the Maker Hub promotes the creation of physical and digital objects as pathways to creative problemsolving and entrepreneurship.
Through self-directed experimentation and tinkering, or more structured curriculum-based research and learning experiences, students in the Maker Hub draw connections between thinking and doing. Donor support will help the Maker Hub to obtain and maintain equipment, purchase needed supplies, and provide students with engaging opportunities to transform ideas into physical reality.
ENGINEERING CUSTOM TOOLS FOR INNOVATIVE NEUROSCIENCE EXPERIMENTS
Prachi Shah (Ph.D.’28), a doctoral student in neuroscience, has used the Maker Hub extensively to create experimental lab setups. Given that 60–70% of the genes found in flies are conserved in humans, Shah uses fruit flies to study processes like learning, memory, and forgetting. The Maker Hub has enabled her to fashion several critical tools—some of which have been shared globally—needed to look at the brain of these tiny flies. For instance, Shah has used the laser cutter, 3D printer, woodshop, and electronics equipment to create:
• An elaborate recording chamber for live imaging experiments of fly brains, during which the fly’s brain is open but it can move its body, legs, and wings, allowing the lab to examine and record the activity of specific neurons and brain structures.
• A custom holder for experimental vials.
• Models of fruit fly brains and structures, which serve as teaching tools to communicate the science the lab is doing, as well as to onboard new lab members. The models amplify the size of fruit fly brains from 0.3mm to 115mm, allowing for clearer examination.
STUDENT e PORTFOLIOS
In keeping with our abiding commitment to the development of the whole person, the Georgetown libraries also are using their archival skills to launch a new digital tool, the Student ePortfolio, which will enable students to connect their academic study with their personal and professional development. Developed in collaboration with campus partners, the ePortfolio will provide a secure, permanent website where students can collect, document, and showcase highlights of their academic and personal work at Georgetown, chart lifelong learning, and maintain connections with Hoyas everywhere.
The ePortfolio will help Georgetown students differentiate themselves as creative change makers and problem solvers in an increasingly competitive career context. With philanthropic support for the ePortfolio’s startup and maintenance costs, we will create an invaluable tool for students’ development, self-discovery, and career discernment, as well as an irreplaceable historical record of their work at Georgetown.
With your support, we will invest in the human and technological resources needed to thrive in this new era of scholarship.
Spaces We will reimagine Lauinger Library.
At the crossroads of the Hilltop campus, Lauinger Library is home to exceptional collections, staff, and services. Yet, those assets no longer fit or function effectively in our 20th century building. To better meet the needs of our Georgetown community, we are transforming “Lau,” and putting the learner and researcher at the center of that planning. This multi-phase project will create spaces that both inspire and advance the vibrant academic journeys of Georgetown’s students and faculty.
Updates will include a newly designed, inviting Level 03 Lobby and Midnight Mug Cafe.
REVITALIZING AN ICONIC CAMPUS DESTINATION
The work of a modern, world-class university requires a variety of library settings—places for quiet contemplation, social interactions, solo and group study, active collaboration, and experimentation with both ideas and materials.
Starting with a renovation of Pierce Reading Room, we are redefining how Lauinger Library can serve students and faculty in the 21st century. These updates will facilitate a range of formal and informal learning opportunities, connecting students, faculty, and researchers with content, with each other, and with librarians. The new Lau also will incorporate the latest technologies, and its renewed spaces will enable the hosting of exhibitions, academic symposia, and community gatherings.
PHASE 1: PIERCE READING ROOM
A renovation of the Pierce Reading Room, located on the third floor, is the first phase of the university’s commitment to transform the entire Lauinger Library. The project will make an additional 3,000 square feet available for student use, creating a dynamic, engaging, and inclusive destination.
The revitalized Pierce Reading Room will feature an open, flexible space for quiet study, as well as active research and learning. New south-facing floor-to-ceiling windows will add light and offer beautiful views of the Potomac River.
A centerpiece of this space, the Visualization and Learning Lab, will feature the university’s first openly accessible large-format, high-resolution display wall, enabling students, faculty, and alumni to analyze and present data-rich and other visually mediated forms of scholarship. The virtually soundproof lab will be available for small classes, seminars, collaborative group work, digital exhibitions, and large presentations.
An expansive Exhibition Case will enable the library to display materials from its collection of rare books, maps, and archives, as well as items from its world-class art collection. The new exhibition space also will showcase student and faculty research.
The renovation will add two group study rooms—modern, collaborative spaces equipped with conferencing technology and high-definition displays.
A FULLY REFRESHED LAUINGER LIBRARY
The changes to Pierce Reading Room represent the first stage of the comprehensive evolution ahead. Future phases will produce a modern, flexible, and highly functional environment. Open, light-infused spaces will energize the library, while encouraging experimental methods of teaching and research. Visitors will have access to centuries of scholarship, as well as the latest research and technologies.
By redistributing existing service and study areas within the building and adding more seating and innovative functionalities, the renewed Lauinger Library will encourage hands-on, experiential learning, along with collaborative computing and ideation. These major functional areas include:
Undergraduate research commons
Graduate commons
Community commons and event space
Updated entry (with relocated circulation and help desks)
Additional instructional spaces
New interior stairwell connecting floors 1–3
Digital scholarship lab
Expanded Maker Hub
Additional exhibition and special collections space
Modernized Midnight Mug cafe
Enhanced quiet study and collaborative study areas
Students and faculty also will find a variety of additional seating and work areas— from open seating with soft chairs and sofas to contemporary library study tables and chairs, spaces for remote collaboration, and new seminar rooms.
Addressing the Lauinger building’s exterior is equally important—for instance, by improving the surrounding landscaping and building access, adding clear UV windows on all sides, and replacing existing concrete panels with large-paned windows.
A transformed Lauinger is on the horizon. We look forward to partnering with our community to create an environment that calls Georgetown’s diverse communities together for inquiry, interaction, and innovation.
With your support, we will ensure Lauinger Library is prepared to enhance our community’s academic experience for decades to come.
For generations, the Georgetown libraries have fueled Hoyas’ formation and academic achievements. Today, we are called to reimagine our collections, services, and spaces, opening doors to new intellectual and creative opportunities. Georgetown alumni, parents, and friends will be crucial partners in this work.
Thank you for your support.
To learn more about these priorities, contribute to the Georgetown libraries, or plan for future support, please contact us at giving@georgetown.edu.
