Evaluation

The Simmy and Harry Ginsburg Health Sciences Library, all 50,000 square feet of it, opened on June 19th. The Library is located in the Medical Education and Research Building, which is approximately 480,000 square feet, 11 stories, and will house classes for the departments of medicine, dentistry, nursing, and pharmacology. Of the approximately 100,000 square feet of the building that is for educational purposes, half is taken up by the Library, emphasizing the committment that Temple has made to resurrecting the reputation of its libraries.

The library has 30 group study rooms, two classrooms for library instruction, and wireless access facility-wide. Additionally the library is equipped with flat screen panels to convey directions to different sections of the library, hours of operation, and other annoucements.
The library has seating for almost 1000 and work stations for over 150. There are also "learning rooms" with the multimedia technology for sharing and reviewing information.

Perhaps the greatest advantage of this library is that students, faculty, staff, and researchers will all be under the same roof. Having research and education in one building will make interaction much easier on many levels. Librarians will be an arm's length away from students; researchers and librarians will know each other face-to-face, not just email-address to email-address. Faculty will be able to stop by reference and discuss resources they are interested in, not happy with, or looking for. As comfortable as we are all with email, and the shortcuts for expressing emotions :) sometimes face-to-face discussions are the most efficient and best teaching method.

As the Library has only recently opened, there are not many photographs, but I am including links to the ones I have found. The architect for the building, Ballinger, still only has the conceptual drawings on its website. Compared to some libraries, the Ginsburg comes across as very spare. However, I like the clean, clear look of the interior. As the Library has opened during the summer time will tell if the layout meets the needs of the entire population that will 'living' there.

A bit of trivia about events that took place while the MERB was under construction: Harry Ginsburg died in December 2008, so he did not see the Library completed(Simmy had passed away several years earlier); in November 2008, Temple obtained is 3 millionth print resource.


http://www.temple.edu/medicine/newbuilding/5.21.09_slide5.html

http://www.temple.edu/medicine/newbuilding/5_21_09_slide6.html

http://www.temple.edu/medicine/newbuilding/5_21_09_slide7.html Staircase(my favorite)

http://www.temple.edu/medicine/newbuilding/construction_update1.html

http://www.temple.edu/medicine/newbuilding/index.htm

User Centered Services

My choice of libraries is the Simmy and Harry Ginsburg Health Sciences Library at Temple University in Philadephia. Temple University was founded in 1884 and its health sciences degree programs include medicine, dentistry, nursing, and pharmacy. The Ginsbury Library opened on June 19, 2009. Prior to the new library being built the health sciences resources were housed in the Kresge Library and the South Library. In a coordinated effort to maintain services for students while moving the resources in to the new facility , the Kresge closed on June 17, and the South closed on June 26.

The Temple administration and Board of Trustees recognized in 2003 that reinvestment in the libraries of the University was necessary on multiple levels to regain the high status that had been previously held. Besides enlarging the library budget in 2004 and 2005 and including in the new Medical Education and Research Building a state-of-the-art Health Sciences Library, Temple hired Larry Alford, a nationally respected librarian, to head up the Universitiy's 10 libraries in 2005. Mr. Alford is currently the Dean of Libraries at Temple and the Chair of the OCLC.

Day One

Hi all,

Well, this is my second blog so setting it up wasn't as murky of a process as the first.

I do not have a science background so I am wondering how much that will slow me down in
this class. I do have a pretty good memory so hopefully with terminology that will be helpful.

Back to reading and figuring out the next step.