Susie P. Gonzalez

210-999-8406

susie.gonzalez@trinity.edu

Foundation Awards $1.2 Million Grant to Trinity University

Sept. 10, 2002 – The Robert T. and Ruby N. Priddy Fund of Communities Foundation of Texas has awarded $1.239 million to Trinity University to develop a state-of-the art gateway to an array of library and online information services that will help the University continue its commitment to providing a quality education that includes enhanced learning skills for the 21st century. To be called the information commons, it will be one of a few such facilities in the nation at a primarily undergraduate university. It will serve as the entry point for students to interact with the online catalog, reference librarians, and instructional media services in a central kiosk located in the Elizabeth Huth Coates Library. The information commons will usher in a new era of information delivery for both students and faculty. It will feature a cluster of comfortable work zones along with a computer lab and a component of full-time library staff to assist students in navigating both the print and virtual information highways. “The information commons will enhance teaching and learning, modernize the liberal arts, and strengthen our ability to sustain the promise of the education that must be available at the best liberal arts colleges of tomorrow,” says John R. Brazil, president of Trinity University. Consistent with Trinity’s national reputation for quality education in the liberal arts and sciences, the information commons will connect students with librarians who can work one-on-one with them to locate and analyze information, said Charles B. White, vice president for information resources and administrative affairs. As the 21st century begins, libraries are redefining their traditional roles as repositories of primarily printed material to that of portals for electronic data from around the world, he says. “Students can come here and enter into both an electronic environment and a print environment,” Dr. White says. “To obtain information fluency, they can learn how to more readily locate information and make decisions about information.” Work on the information commons will begin this fall, with most of the construction scheduled to take place during the summer of 2003, Dr. White says. Shelves on the entry-level of the library will be relocated to other floors or changed to waist-high stacks that will give the library an open feel, he says. At the same time, window treatments will be modified to allow more daylight to shine in, carpeting will be updated, and walls will be painted. “The information commons will be educational, but it will also be physically attractive,” Dr. White says.

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Last updated on September 10, 2002 by the Office of Public Relations