Iona College has cracked the universal library code and built a wildly adaptable facility that is friendly, works efficiently and ”“ the showstopper ”“ thrums with students.
The Gaels began using the Ryan Library in August. The ribbon cutting was Oct. 17, but Iona College President Brother James Liguori, Joanne Steele, vice provost for information technology, and Richard Palladino, the New Rochelle college”™s director of libraries, toured the $14.6 million facility with the Business Journal Oct. 16.
The North Avenue building is tech heavy, though details like dark wood trim and big windows to maximize natural light ”“ including a large central oculus ”“ convey the library message clearly. As such, though bustling and alive with dozens of screens flashing at once, everyone is quiet.
The book shelves by design stop well short of the ceiling, the better to promote an open atmosphere. “We”™ve tried to blend modern and traditional in a very comfortable space,” Steele said.
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“The original library was built in 1949,” said Liguori. “There was an addition in 1959 and from 1959 until 2009, the library was what it was. Today, this library is the academic center of the college and into the future it will remain the academic center of the college ”“ a library for the 21st century.”
Libraries used to feature rows of tables, often screwed to the floor, in layouts as tidy as the Dewey decimal system. That ethos has been replaced at Ryan Library by seminar rooms with collapsible walls and circular, fully computerized study kiosks. Both desks and chairs are on wheels in a lecture room where thick cables anchor computers to IT jacks on the floor. Overstuffed club chairs are made for motion; students can sidle up to a lab partner to confab or slide a chair into a quiet nook to tackle Thomas à Kempis in solitude.
There is a climate-controlled archive room, but there is no card catalog ”“ jettisoned some 20 years ago.
Ryan Library, named for the founder of the Christian Brothers in America Patrick J. Ryan, is the culmination of four years of planning. Ground was broken in spring 2008. Palladino said the process from planning to ribbon cutting ran on budget and on schedule.
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The building is 14,000 square feet and the entrance is another 3,000 square feet. “We opened the last week of August ”“ open for business ”“ which was right on schedule,” said Palladino. “We have about 250,000 books. We have 700 journals and periodical titles, but with the electronic database we have access to 15,000 titles and millions of full-text articles. We have 104 dual-boot Mac computers. We have classrooms, technology rooms, seminar rooms.”
Dual-boots can accommodate Macs and PCs at the same terminal, a technology that only became available in 2006.
The seminar and conference rooms are soundproof. There is even a coffee shop.
Steele said the design scheme of limited regimentation and maximum collaboration is modeled after the library plans of Emory University in Atlanta, a vision selected over more traditional setups she and fellow planners visited. “Emory really looked at how students study; that”™s the key element we took into our design,” she said.
A Carnegie-Melon grant enabled both library and IT pros from the college to confer on the finished product. “Now what we have is information technologies and library combined with all of the services in one place,” said Steele.
The Helen T. Arrigoni Library and Technology Center across North Avenue from the new facility opened in 1995 and remains open. Fifty-five dual-boot computers are among its offerings.
