Concept Development - Windward Community College Library

The Learning Resource Center at Windward Community College
PROJECT DEVELOPMENT REPORT
also are known for their efficient use of state-of-the-art information technologies,
innovative management practices, and faculty focused on leading-edge
professional directions. The libraries’ reputation for partnership-building and
consortium leadership is widely recognized, and is known for its client-focused
and learner-centered approach to librarianship. The challenge now is to create a
new library/learning resource center paradigm within an aesthetically rich and
dynamic physical environment. It is time to combine and transform these aging
facilities to meet the challenges and expectations of a new, collaborative,
learning environment, and to develop The Learning Resource Center at
Windward into a facility that is the heart of the campus and a vibrant and inspiring
“place” where students are welcomed and nourished.
Recent developments in higher education have prompted a near revolution in
teaching and learning, with libraries eagerly embracing such opportunities as: 1)
the advent of web-enhanced instruction; 2) universal computer-access programs
and the growing seamlessness of the worldwide community of libraries; 3) the
rapid proliferation of full-text electronic research databases; and 4) necessary
reconfiguration, plus growth of the internal geography of libraries and learning
resource centers. These dynamic new campus resource centers are being
realized through new construction or major reconceptualization and renovation of
those structures built in the 1970s or earlier.
Leadership at Windward Community College clearly has accepted these
challenges. As innovators on the state, regional, and national stages, they have
continued to engage their peers in conversations on the future of information
services.
As academic libraries move into the digital age, their role is constantly being
challenged. Obviously, this is affecting library facilities, both existing and
proposed. Library space must be designed to accommodate new approaches
toward interaction between technology and fellow information seekers. Many new
services, such as distance learning, are affecting library facility needs, and the
role of the library as a campus cultural center and icon is becoming more
prevalent on many college campuses.
In the midst of these changes, many traditional library services will remain and
continue to place demands on space. Facilities must be able to accommodate
these traditional elements, which are associated with paper format resources, as
this format will continue to play a significant role in library collections for the next
several decades. The essential element in this transition to planning for the
digital age is flexibility of space.
It is incumbent upon the proposed new Learning Resource Center to
architecturally express the importance of space in a learning society, the
changing nature of collections, the effect on the library as a symbolic and
physical place, and the library as a “community place” at the academic center of
University of Hawaii Community Colleges April 2004
Project No. CC-02-6188
III-2