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This year Georgetown celebrates the
35th anniversary of the opening of the Lauinger Library. As an
icon of innovation in 1970, the building was conceived as a then-modern
representation of Healy Hall and is now considered a "period
piece." It is distinctively different from any other building
on campus and students enjoy debating its design. Despite its
age, Lauinger continues to be impressively functional today,
thanks to foresight of construction and to modifications made
in the interior over the last three decades. We may be justly
proud of the services, collections and space that the library
provides, and we have augmented these three elements by creating
virtual services, virtual collections and virtual space alongside
their physical counterparts.
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During the past 35 years, librarians
have accommodated numerous adaptations critical to the evolving
mission of a student-centered research university. At the
same time, massive changes in technology and an explosive
information environment created new challenges for the denizens
and users of Lauinger. The library has augmented its virtual
and physical services and collections, and our usage statistics
show continued--in some cases, skyrocketing--increase. Despite
the popularity of search engines and the availability of
millions of pages of information over the web, our Georgetown
users constantly return to the library, both physically and
virtually. |
Why? Perhaps becasue the more people
work online in isolation, the more they need community. Studies
of today's learners show that they have individual styles and
personalized approaches to education. As librarians' roles in
educating students increase and change, so does our thinking
about resources, including space, in order to accommodate our
learners' varied needs. We are the one campus resource that provides
a plethora of possibilities for individual and group study. We
stimulate scholarly conversation outside the classroom by creating
spaces for community. Community is an important aspect of an
educational experience at Georgetown University, and we encourage
it through the use of the library. Community and the spaces needed
for it are a good thing; we need, and will plan for, more.
Our users can trust that the library's
resources are of the highest quality, acquired with great care.
They can trust that the librarians' services will continue in
our tradition of excellence. They can trust that we will be proactive
partners in the teaching, learning, and research environments
of the University. And they can trust that we will plan for future generations
of learners by acquiring and preserving scholarly content and
by designing new services and spaces. The library is at once
an edifice, a virtual place, an organic entity, the heart of
the academy. Its future is critical to the success of our learners,
scholars and researchers.
We therefore celebrate the past accomplishments
of Lauinger and we anticipate eagerly our work in the future.
Pedagogy and place are increasingly interconnected; as librarians
have rethought our roles in the university, so too have we rethought
the places comprising the Library. With pride, we look forward
to progress. Happy Birthday, Lauinger.
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