Annual Report 2013-2014

Nearly 21,000 student visits
Over 43,000 other visitors*
*Other visitors include faculty, fellow/
resident, staff and visitors
The Library was designed for a different era, and the
Google generaon is a challenge to both educators and
tradional libraries. Our plan is to make a technology rich
space that can accommodate the diversity of scienfic
inquiry among the instuons of the TMC and the community,
and provide funconal class space that can be easily
customized for project– and inquiry-based educaon.
“The only thing that you
absolutely have to know is the
location of the library.”
― Albert Einstein
S C
We’ve now moved into an economy that is driven by an
informaon glut. Google’s research shows that every two
days the human race creates as much informaon as we
did from the dawn of civilizaon unl 2003.
Student Appreciaon Day at the Library
U L
The Library serves the enre TMC campus and also is
available for community use. Our 26 free standing
computers are ulized every day and study rooms are
always full. We converted an under-used computer lab
on our lower level into a bright, student centered and
student named “Study Hub” complete with flexible
furniture where students can study in groups or just
lay back and chill. (See front cover).
Transforming our space into mul-funconal use
where people from all over can converge and engage
in transformaonal work is slowly taking shape. We
started with examining our footprint and found that
we could accommodate our future plans in approximately
50,000 over three floors that we now occupy
(current footage is 76,000 square feet). The second
floor is mostly stacks and as we downsize our stacks,
space can be released saving us costs on rent.
That’s a lot of informaon and the challenge becomes
finding that specific piece of informaon waing to be
found amid the virtual shelves. This is what our Liaison
Librarians do—they are teachers and navigaon guides
through the informaon maze to find the exact, one thing
a researcher, student or faculty actually needs.
Reference librarian is an outdated term that doesn’t reflect
what our librarians do these days. Our restructured
department, now the Client Relaonship Management
Department sounds more like a bank than a library. However,
our expectaons are the same—sasfied customers,
recurring visits, and an increased use of goods and
services.
Our liaison librarians are first and foremost focused on
providing personalized services to our constuents. We
now offer free literature searches, systemac reviews,
educaonal instrucon and personal consultaons and
the list is growing.
Professional development is important to our liaison
librarians, and they were busy aending workshops and
webinars on systemac reviews, EndNote and RefWorks,
bibliographic soware and Embase.