Opening of library marks a new chapter in Santa Clara University history
SANTA CLARA, CAth March 31, 2008. On Monday, March 31, Santa Clara University opened the doors of its newest building, the Harrington Learning Commons, Sobrato Technology Center, and Orradre Library. The 194,000-square-foot building merges the age-old components of liberal arts education with modern information technologies to form what is expected to become the intellectual heart of the Mission campus.
(Media-Newswire.com) - SANTA CLARA, CA– March 31, 2008. On Monday, March 31, Santa Clara University opened the doors of its newest building, the Harrington Learning Commons, Sobrato Technology Center, and Orradre Library. The 194,000-square-foot building merges the age-old components of liberal arts education with modern information technologies to form what is expected to become the intellectual heart of the Mission campus.
On Monday afternoon, the SCU Pep Band marched from Kennedy Commons to the entrance of the new library, where University President Paul Locatelli, S.J., Congressman Mike Honda, and Provost Lucia Gilbert joined in a ribbon-cutting ceremony. After, guests took self-guided walks of the new facility.
“The new Learning Commons, Technology Center, and Library is an extraordinary building at the frontier of advancing knowledge and learning in all academic areas,” said SCU President Paul Locatelli, S.J. “It is a tribute to the tradition of Jesuit education and a world-class resource that includes classical texts, books, and archives more than 150 years old as well as the latest in technological tools and resources that didn't even exist a few years ago.”
From its architecture to its furnishings, its rare books to its state-of-the-art technology, the new facility blends the traditional with the futuristic, allowing for conventional, solitary scholarly experiences while encouraging more current, collaborative learning for SCU students, faculty, and staff.
“This building has been designed for people rather than for materials, to provide the variety of spaces our students and faculty need for learning, teaching, and scholarship. The design also makes it relatively easy for us to adapt it to new styles of learning, new ways of interacting, new kinds of information resources as we move into the future,” said Ron Danielson, SCU’s vice provost for information services and chief information officer.
The new four-level building occupies the site of SCU’s former Orradre Library and has nearly twice the square footage. Not only is the building aesthetically pleasing, it boasts a number of environmentally friendly features including 11 water-free urinals, access to natural light in more than 90 percent of the public space, and furniture that is recycled and/or recyclable.
The building offers the capacity for more than 1.1 million volumes and features 25 collaborative workrooms, laboratories for faculty development and multimedia, three video viewing and taping rooms, wireless networking throughout, and 1,050 reader seats—each with a wired network connection and electric power.
More special features of the new facility include:
Three “incubator spaces” for experimenting with new educational technologies An Information Commons featuring the fastest, “hottest” machines on campus, with nearby support staff A café—Yes, food and drink can be taken into library An automated retrieval system capable of storing 1 million volumes in special shelving Expanded and climate-controlled storage space for the University’s Archives and Special Collections, as well as a dedicated reading room for researchers using these materials Construction on the $95-million library facility began in summer 2006, near the end of a five-year fundraising campaign, “The Campaign for Santa Clara,” which brought in $400 million for endowed fellowships, scholarships, and capital projects. Dozens of donors made the new building possible. Among them is leading national philanthropist Lorry I. Lokey, founder of Business Wire, Inc., and a member of the SCU Board of Trustees. Lokey contributed $25 million toward the Learning Commons. The building is named for Joanne Harrington, a member of SCU’s Board of Fellows and Lokey’s longtime and dear friend. SCU alumnus and Silicon Valley real estate developer John A. Sobrato, and his family, contributed $20 million toward the technology center. In 2003, Congressman Mike Honda announced $900,000 for Santa Clara University as part of the $397.4-billion spending bill signed by President George W. Bush.
About Santa Clara University Santa Clara University, a comprehensive Jesuit, Catholic university located 40 miles south of San Francisco in California’s Silicon Valley, offers its more than 8,685 students rigorous undergraduate curricula in arts and sciences, business, and engineering, plus master's and law degrees and engineering Ph.D.s. Distinguished nationally by one of the highest graduation rates among all U.S. master’s universities, California’s oldest operating higher-education institution demonstrates faith-inspired values of ethics and social justice. For more information, see www.scu.edu.
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