Renovations at Carlson Library continue

UT's Carlson Library will receive some new improvements, like a new writing center, as part of its recent restoration beginning this semester.

Ben Pryor, vice provost and dean of the College of Innovative Learning, said the renovation will consist of a series of projects spread over the next several months.

"Our short term plan is to accommodate more learning space. If you look at what is going on in libraries like ours, nationwide, most of them have found extra space because of transforming from print to digital," Pryor said.

He said the plan is to separate the second floor into two parts. One will be a gathering area with a monitor showing information in the center of the floor by the elevators.

The other half will be for library and COIL faculty to tutor, mentor and assist students with academic issues.

A writing studio will be included with the goal of helping students develop academically by allowing them to work with faculty in a small-group setting.

Barbara Schneider, associate professor of English, and Anthony Edgington, associate professor of English, aim to offer composition under a new, experimental model that challenges students to set their own pace to meet writing goals.

"It offers students a more self-directed way to fulfill their composition requirements here at the university," Schneider said. "It's an experimental model that draws on research both from composition and a writing center's small group instruction. The Writing Center will provide a technological environment for students to work in."

Pryor stressed the Writing Center is separate from the new studio and its new location is to be determined.

Pryor said a new second floor classroom will be involved in the remodeling.

"A new classroom containing state-of-the-art mediation for teaching and then the floor will also have more group study areas," he said. "When it comes to the class, it will not be traditional. It will have the podium in the middle and desks fanning out."

He said the idea is not an extension of the first floor, but more conducive to work.

"Last year when I started working with the library I had a lot of students complain about the noise on the first floor," he said. "It turns out that it is about 50-50 and when students are told there are other areas to study, they get very angry and feel like they don't think they should have to move."

The long-term plan is to differentiate among floors, Pryor said. Each floor would determine the noise level with the first being the loudest to the fifth being the quietest.

Plans for the third and fourth floors are to serve as the center for all the collections. Before Pryor became the dean of the library, it went through a process of removing material deemed no longer popular.

"Most of our material is electronic, so we don't have demand for the copy on the shelf, so we were left with a lot of empty space and the third and fourth floors are now packed with books that we kept," Pryor said. "I looked at various models from other universities that will motivate students."

Pryor cited models at the University of Akron and The Ohio State University.

A collaboration of designers and architects drew the space with a focus on housing the new technology.

"We want to have an iPad lending policy with library material downloaded on [it]," he said.

With the print-to-digital movement, Pryor said his only problem is most books can only be downloaded by the computer and wants UT to own its own copyrighted versions of materials downloaded on iPads.