Phase one of a massive $800,000 enhancement project began during Christmas break, featuring improved facility conditions, extended hours and more books.
By Faith Lynn
Staff Writer
Pepperdine’s Payson Library is finally getting a facelift, improving its atmosphere and making its services more numerous and accessible.
One of the primary goals of the ongoing renovations is to return “prime real estate” areas with views of the campus and ocean to students.
Henry Gambill, Director of Assessment, said the ultimate purpose of the renovations is to “get students a more inviting, comfortable environment.”
Gambill said the present stage of the enhancement is focused on improving the library as a building.
He said included in that plan is new carpeting, lighting, paint and furniture. Also on their way are improved acoustics, aimed at making the newly opened study spaces quieter. Some of these improvements are already in place, and most will be done by February. The cumulative cost of the project will be about $800,000.
Though for now the effort is only working on improvement of the library’s environment, Gambill said the university remains committed to improving the database and book collections as well, but that at present the effort is looking toward “rethinking and redesigning of the space.” The library has, however, pledged to add 100,000 books to its collection over the next 10 years.
Students have expressed concern about the print collection’s scope. Music students like sophomore Christin Wismann would like a larger music collection with scores available. She also suggested that textbooks for every class be put on reserve so that students unable to purchase the books could still have access to them.
For the most part, though, students are pleased with the new improvements and the library overall. Director of Libraries Nancy Kitchen said several students are already taking advantage of the extended hours, staying in the library as late as 2 a.m.
“I like all the space and I like the carpet. And the new hours are pretty cool,” junior Napali Souza said, though he would like to see a slightly better book collection.
Kitchen said they were lucky to complete as much as they did over the break.
“There was this window of opportunity … the best thing you can do is grab it.” She said it would have been better to complete the project over the summer, but that she is glad the enhancements have progressed as much as they have.
Gambill said the renovations will also make the library easier to navigate, since part of the planned enhancement includes adding signs to direct the students and arranging the book collections more intuitively, faculty and staff who use the facility.
The building has already extended its hours to allow more time for study, and the entrance to the second-floor computer lab has been made more accessible.
To facilitate an extended book collection, the 15,000 square feet occupied by the Pendleton Learning Center will be added to the library. Gambill said the last renovation in the mid-1980s almost included the center, but that the space needs of the business program made it impossible. Since the advent of the Drescher Graduate Campus, however, the space is again free for other uses.
The basic vision of the effort is that “Payson Library will become a thriving academic, intellectual, and, to a certain extent, social center that will be open day and night for student, faculty and staff users on the Malibu campus, while continuing to support off-campus Pepperdine programs and authorized users.”
Gambill said Nancy Magnusson-Durham, the vice president for Planning, Information and Technology, has been the driving force behind the project. She is the “first vice president to really push for renovations,” he said. Under her, planning started in spring 2001 and quickly got underway.
Gambill said long-term plans for the renovation include adding even more collaborative areas for study groups and adding further technology. All computers open to students will eventually be upgraded to the faster flat-screen units available at some stations, and Internet access and speed will be improved.
Kitchen said she regrets the current state of the library’s print holdings, but said that in the last six years more of the focus has been on building the databases.
Now that the electronic collection is larger, she said much more attention will be paid to the book collection and its quality.
Many of the books currently in the library were purchased in the seventies and eighties, Kitchen said, “back when volume count was so important to the accrediting agencies,” so several books will be eliminated from the collection as new ones are added.
The current phase of renovations will be finished by April, Gambill said, as a sort of “gift for the upcoming finals.” The present stage was supposed to have been completed by last December, but timelines and shipping schedules pushed it back to spring.
Those involved also have quite a vision for the future of the library. Gambill said he envisions the library will embrace more of a “one-stop philosophy,” bringing diverse services such as inter-library loan and a copy center closer to the entrance.
Kitchen said she hopes that in the future several additional services can be added, such as the Writing Center. The current footprint of the library will not allow any major improvements, so until more square footage is added Kitchen said the library is doing “the very best with what we have.”
In January 2002, more than 500 students, faculty and staff were surveyed and asked what they thought of the present library situation and any improvements they believed to be necessary.
“We really have used that as an ongoing guide for what we need to do,” Gambill said. He said the survey was what guided the planning for renovations.
When serious planning began, he said, the opinions expressed in the survey played a major part in the deliberations.
Gambill said he sought out the opinions of everyone the renovations would affect, conducting interviews and focus groups with the heads of each department, as well as students and even those who run the library from day to day. Their desires and opinions were collected and used to structure the improvements, allowing the library to better serve the university.
In accordance with the wishes of department heads and library staff, the book collections will be improved in several areas important to various disciplines.
January16, 2003