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The research commons at the Ward E. Barnes library has been open in various states of preparedness since the beginning of the fall semester, but its grand unveiling was on Wednesday, Feb. 2.
A small crowd of librarians, staff, faculty and students showed up on the UM-St. Louis South Campus to celebrate the unveiling and partake in door prizes and sugar-free cookies.
"We opened the library research commons at Thomas Jefferson Library with 70 workstations, and since then we haven't had an empty seat. Today we are opening the research commons here at the Barnes Library," Amy Arnett, Dean of Libraries, said at the beginning of the official opening ceremony.
Arnett, along with Jim Tom, Vice-Chancellor for Information Technology Services, and UM-St. Louis Chancellor Thomas George gave public remarks at the event.
"I think it is a very exciting and also important day for the libraries," Tom said during his speech, "I couldn't be more pleased that we are here to dedicate the research commons. It would not be possible without all the hard work of the people in the libraries. It's a tangible symbol of cooperation between library and ITS."
The research commons features 57 individual computer work stations with monotone and color printers, wireless internet accessibility, scanning stations and several couches.
Chris Scheetz, supervisor of Instructional Computing Services, explained the evolution of the new research commons.
"We have the library research commons in the Thomas Jefferson Library. Students liked that so much that ITS and the library got together and wanted to do the same thing [at Barnes]."
The research commons is the result of more than a year's work of cooperation between the Ward E. Barnes Library and ITS.
"As far as the library research commons goes we had been toying with the idea for a number of years," Cheryle Cann, director of the Ward E. Barnes Library, said. "We saw a need for it and the students wanted more access to the computers without having to wait to get on."
"We finally decided that, in partnership with ITS, we would open a library research commons over here," Cann said. "It had worked so well at Thomas Jefferson that it was just a good thing to do for our students. I must say that all of our students have been extremely happy with it."
One of the project managers from the library, Ted Ficklen, explained the timeline of construction.
"The planning for [the research commons] started Christmas 2003. We had our first meeting then," Ficklen said. "Then construction took place summer of 2004. We had preliminary opening fall semester 2004 but there have been details we have been ironing out."
Cann said the opening had been postponed until winter semester 2005 for minor reasons. "We actually had it ready and open first day of fall semester but there were little things here and there. The lounge furniture hadn't arrived yet and it just wasn't ready."
The library funded the furniture in the commons while ITS funded the computers. One estimate was that each work station cost more than $2000.
"It's your student computing fees at work," Ficklen said. "A big impetus for computing is making sure student computing fees are spent responsibly and yet conspicuously. It's nice to have something big and new on the south campus."
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