Imagine what a library Students are helping us see the possibilities. Graduate architecture students imagine a very different McKeldin Library. For starters, they’d like to see a building designed for people rather than for books. When the library was constructed in 1958, few could have imagined the digitized and downloadable world we inhabit today.
Rooftop terrace, accessed from 7th floor study area
“Information is out there,” Emma Crenshaw says. “Research today is less about finding information in a book and more about being analytical about the information that exists.” As one member of a studio class that explored many variations, Emma sees a library with light-filled spaces for collaboration and learning, a multi-story, inspirational reading room, and flexibility in the way common spaces are used. Her work builds on ethnographic research performed by students from the Department of Anthropology in a far-reaching design process that encouraged students and faculty to dream big. The partnership is a model for other studies on this campus and for other libraries around the country. David Cronrath’s hopes for a reimagined McKeldin Library are no less grand than his students’ vision. “The library,” he says, “would foster greater partnership between the university’s students and faculty as they investigate the biggest challenges of the 21st century.”
8
ge Entrance/brid facing the student union