Campus Master Plan--Completed Projects: Raether Library and Information Technology Center

Trinity possesses one of the largest and best developed libraries among the nation’s top liberal arts colleges. It offers an expansive wealth of books, periodicals, and rare-book treasures, and it is operated by a friendly, helpful, expert staff. As one of the College’s central academic buildings and principal places of learning, our library must offer students and faculty an attractive and comfortable place for study and research.  First-time visitors -- prospective students and faculty -- must see the library as one of Trinity’s signature strengths.  In order to support this impression, renovating and expanding the library -- long recognized as one of the highest priorities of the College -- became one of the most vital projects in the first phase of the Campus Master Plan.  Accordingly, the College's Trustees approved a $32-million renovation plan in January 2000.

The newly renovated and expanded library -- a state-of-the-art learning and information technology center -- was conceived by the distinguished Canadian architectural firm Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg to invite students to the serious work of scholarship.  It now offers additional, aesthetically enhanced study spaces where students can pore over a book or conduct research over the Internet.   New classrooms and service areas allow students, faculty, and library staff to work together.

In this age of advanced electronic technology when a virtual world of information lies waiting at fingertips, there also was a compelling logic for joining the library with the College’s computing center. Although the library already offered students and faculty access to an impressive range of electronic and networked resources, it was clear that learning in the foreseeable future would require even greater access and more advanced resources.  Academic journals and texts were increasingly found on-line, meaning that research would be split between the stacks and the World Wide Web. The new and integrated facility has built on Trinity’s distinctive strengths in computer and information technology by furnishing network access in all study spaces, expanding the number of public service workstations, and enabling students, faculty, and library staff to work more efficiently with dedicated computer resource specialists. The library has truly become a state-of-the-art learning center for the 21st century.

Concept

Completed project