Bryan Information Commons is under construction
By Corrie Lee Lacey
Wired seating areas. A new café. I-pads and Mac books available for checkout. Vending machines with office supplies. And a first-floor exhibit to display faculty and student art.
It’s the Bryan Information Commons, now under construction. The $16 million, 18,000-square-foot addition to Kimbel Library is expected to be complete in May 2012.
The facility will operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It will offer more general seating for study and group study rooms, tutorial centers and reference desks.
The new building will connect to the current library through a skywalk. The Bryan Information Commons will also house a new café similar to Java City, as well as food and beverage vending machines. Kimbel Library will continue to house Java City.
“Java City gets a lot of traffic,” says Barbara Burd, dean of library services. “But we will add something so students can get food and beverage at night as well.”
Burd created an advisory group, including students and student workers, to help in the decision-making process. According to Burd, the group has been instrumental in choosing the design and furnishings of the new space. Students were asked to identify what they needed and wanted. Most of the additions correspond with the feedback from those students, says Burd.
Five technology-rich study rooms will include large screen wall-mounted monitors, projection capabilities and interactive whiteboards. A combination of computer workstations and laptop worktables will fill the open area of the second floor.
The Bryan Information Commons held its groundbreaking ceremony Oct. 12, 2010.
According to Burd, the only complaints she has received have focused on the library's parking lot, which will be partially blocked off during construction,
“The construction may be inconvenient, but it’s temporary, and the completion of the building will be worth it,” says Burd.
Currently there are no plans to make changes to Kimbel Library. An international media room was recently added, which allows classes to connect to other universities around the world.
The Information Commons will be a brick-and-glass structure with expansive windows extending the entire height of the building to allow plenty of natural light.
“The addition of the Information Commons is going to make Kimbel more bright, cheerful and hopefully really conducive to study,” says Burd. “It should be a nice work environment for students.”
The Bryan Information Commons is named for the Bryan family of Conway. A $1.8 million gift from the estate of Rebecca Randall Bryan in 2001 marked the largest single cash gift to CCU at that time.
