Your plans & outreach sound terrific and I wish you great success. Thanks too for the blog refernce – I’ll check it out.

We were working within a fairly limited word count for this Lead Pipe post, so we had to pare a lot of our initial details down. I can’t speak for St. Edward’s, but I can share some more about the Millersville process.

We certainly did a lot of planning upfront (several years-worth) but after almost an entire semester of being out of the building underneath our belts, we have found that even the best-intentioned plans sometimes don’t work out. There has been a LOT of last-minute changes and we have tried to incorporate a certain level (attitude-wise and functional-wise) of flexibility throughout the organization. It has been very stressful at times – certain initiatives we thought were going to work smoothly have not and other have cropped up to fit university needs. I personally have done a lot of collaboration with the University Communications & Marketing Department, the Office of Advancement, Student Senate, and Admissions in my role as Outreach Librarian. Others have worked closely with faculty to investigate new options for deeper engagement with classes and things along that vein. We have worked closely with our Information Technology department on new tools and services as well.

In terms of getting people to come back to the new library post-renovation, I think the unique spaces there will certainly be a draw. At Millersville, we are bringing some partners back into the building with us (Center for Academic Excellence & Instructional Design) in addition to creating some one-of-a-kind spaces on campus: a faculty collaboration lounge, media production zone, 24-hour space, distance learning classroom, a room featuring a gas fireplace for events, and reading/sculpture garden to function as an outdoor classroom among other things.

You can learn more on our renovation blog as well, where we have some of the original planning documents posted: http://blogs.millersville.edu/newlibrary/ . I’m sure at some point we’ll write some more in-depth articles about this entire process. You’ve given me a lot of ideas for things to include once we reach that point.

Thanks for the comments, everyone!

I’m so excited for you guys at St. Ed’s! Have fun. :)

If not, I feel as though I’m channeling the science professor who didn’t mean disrespectful when I say this seems mighty risky for library employees. Once people let go their attachments to the physical library and what it represents for them, and meet their material & info needs elsewhere (as many do now), I’m not so sure they’ll be as interested in the new library in 2014-2015 as you might hope.