In early November 2009 my wife Mary Frances, a professional librarian, and I got an inside tour of the University of Nevada-Reno's Mathewson-IGT Knowledge Center. Our tour guide was Carol Parkhurst, Senior Director, University Libraries.
Why post about a library? This is a water blog!
Two reasons:
1) this is not about a library - it's about a model for the evolution of libraries; and
2) WaterWonks need superior access to knowledge and a place to house and distribute the knowledge they discover.
[Disclosure notice: Carol Parkhurst and her husband, hydrogeologist extraordinaire Steve Wheatcraft, have been very good friends of mine for close to 30 years. I take partial (50%) credit for introducing them to each other; I was the best man at their wedding and Steve fulfilled the same role at ours.]
Since my wife is the expert I asked her to write about the UNR KC.
In November we toured the University of Nevada-Reno Mathewson-IGT Knowledge Center. The tour guide was the person responsible for this remarkable entity—Carol Parkhurst, Senior Director, University Libraries. Both Carol and I have been in librarianship for a long time and have seen the naming fashions come and go. Often these trendy names for libraries (e.g., information center, learning center and knowledge center) are just attempts to attract non-library users. But the UNR KC has achieved something special in my mind—it is a true, physical and functioning knowledge center.
Besides being gorgeous—all its appointments tasteful, functional and coordinated—it is designed to integrate all the various information accessing technologies available to us today. Remember that books are a technology just as nettops are a technology—the key is to get the entire format product line to provide a whole, seamless experience in information access to the user. UNR KC does that. Books are very much in evidence, but they flow in the physical space to connect with computers and other media so that information may be discovered and extracted (or created). A multiple-story edifice with almost 300,000 square feet of usable space, it contains expertly-organized computer areas, media production services, social interaction areas of various types, clearly-marked, well-lighted bookshelves and supports these products and services with state-of-the-art (and more) backend processes.
The whole exceeds the parts, which should be a goal of libraries. Carol Parkhurst was able to bring prodigious attention to detail together with an overall vision to create this true knowledge center. Congratulations!
I was impressed by the multi-story publication 'warehouse' at the back of the KC, where about 660,000 little-used documents are housed and retrieved remotely - all in about 10-15 minutes after a request is made.
Here are some videos of the UNR KC. Take a look at the slide show of the KC's construction.
You get the picture. This is an extraordinary resource. What's incredulous is that more attention (as of early November 2009) has not been paid to this feat. I suspect it will eventually; the KC has been open just a little over a year.
"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it." -- Samuel Johnson
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