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It's a sign of the times: The William and Anita Newman Library's periodicals room—where generations of students squinted at newspaper on microfiche or photocopied cumbersome bound volumes of journals—has closed down. Almost all the periodical needs of today's students and faculty can be handled online, so such prominent and accessible space for print resources is no longer needed.
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Here are some outstanding examples of how technology is being used to facilitate—but not to replace—traditional education at Baruch:
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And what has replaced this mainstay of college libraries?
A laptop loan desk.
University libraries are moving with the digital times, and Baruch, led by the Newman Library and the Baruch Computing and Technology Center (BCTC), has managed even in years of budgetary restraint to keep itself at the forefront of the revolution. At the same time, as a public college with the most diverse student body in the nation and a majority of students who work and often have family responsibilities as well, Baruch has distinct needs that inspire its own special approach to online research, learning, and communication.
The Newman Library recently was named the best college library of 2003 by the Association of College and Research Libraries, in large part for its innovative use of information technology. The many digital services the library provides include access to 155 commercial databases, which offer content from 12,000 journals, magazines, and newspapers; a 24-hour online reference service through which librarians answer student queries using real-time text chat; and supplemental course texts that are available online. The building is fully wireless, so with your laptop and wireless card, or a laptop on loan, you can use these resources anywhere in the library, as well in many parts of the Vertical Campus across the street. If that's not convenient, one floor above the library, in the Information and Technology Building, is the main computer lab for the College, which happens to be the largest single university computer lab in New York City.
Most important, all the library databases are available to Baruch students logging into the network from home or elsewhere. The technology that once was seen as something that isolates the student and possibly breaks the bond of student and teacher is, for a campus of busy commuting students, instead a force that unites them. All of the 110 classrooms in the Vertical Campus have podium-mounted computers with Internet connections and projection equipment that allow faculty and students to include Web pages and multimedia material as part of daily lectures and discussions.
"It's an amazing new world," says Arthur Downing, chief librarian and assistant vice president for information technology. "The technology at Baruch is being directly driven by the special needs of our very busy students."
And Baruch technology can lead to more technology. Last year, a Baruch student and a Baruch alumnus combined efforts to create a business plan for a company in the annual Entrepreneurship Competition. Their idea: produce content and develop new and better modules and designs for online video streaming. At the same time, the Newman Library was in the midst of planning to produce online tutorials and workshops. Psychology Professor Glenn Albright, who helped the contestants develop some of their technology, employing Web-based teaching tools he had programmed on his own for his classes, brought the library and the new entrepreneurs together. The new company was named Kognito, and it has just produced three tutorials with more in the pipeline. The first of these, instructing new students on how to use all the resources of the Career Development Center, was also put onto 5,000 business-card-sized CDs and distributed to students who use the center.
Students at Baruch may be juggling jobs and families while pursuing a degree, and they often don't have the time to visit the library or drop by for special tutorials. But they are tech savvy: A recent survey revealed that 95 percent of Baruch students have a computer at home, the highest percentage of any CUNY college. So it's understandable that Baruch students' needs have kept the College's technology on the cutting edge. And the innovations in technology just keep coming.
Above: Baruch has the largest student computing center in New York City,
providing computer access to 250 students at a time.
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