Library

With your help, we will renovate Alkek Library into an active learning center: an exemplary library of the 21st century that integrates digital and traditional, collective and individual study, archives and special collections.

Students and faculty look to the library as a new type of laboratory — as the central space on campus where they teach, learn, collaborate and create, a place for social interaction and quiet reflection. Its space must accommodate evolving information technologies and support new, more interactive modes of teaching and learning.

This will be an inviting space, a technology-rich gateway to knowledge, and a place where people come to explore and discover, think and ponder, write, draw and discuss. Libraries like Alkek are making the transition from a storehouse for books to a welcoming and inviting place where those needing information can seek guidance and can discover and access the wide variety of abundant information sources relevant to their needs.

The Library Pillar addresses this need for space. Since opening in 1990, the Alkek Library has seen dynamic growth in its collections. Despite the rapid shift from print to electronic publications, we continue to acquire thousands of volumes each year. Without additional space, the library’s shelves will soon be overflowing; some materials are already stored off-site.

Additional storage space for a significant portion of the library’s general collection, as well as special collections and archives, is critically needed to preserve the collections. Construction of a collection repository facility near the Texas State campus is essential.

This new storage repository will allow library staff to repurpose library space, transforming Alkek into a technology-intensive facility to accommodate collaborative learning and research activities while continuing to provide traditional space for solitary research and quiet study. We must renovate existing library space to create a learning commons — space designed for student learning, information creation, and the integration of technology, where curiosity and intellectual growth are triggered and nurtured.

Your support of the Library Pillar will help us create this emerging library, which integrates print-based and electronic knowledge resources. Alkek’s digital initiatives will expand the breadth and depth of electronic resources needed to support the growing array of undergraduate and graduate programs at the university. We have already initiated eCommons, a digital collection of scholarly work produced by Texas State faculty and students, and we seek to digitize portions of the library’s most distinguished collections, such as the Lonesome Dove archive, and the papers of J. Frank Dobie, Sam Shepard, and Cormac McCarthy, enabling worldwide access to these important cultural assets.

Please join us as we embark on a journey to repurpose the Alkek Library, developing strong collections for individual and group work, in quiet and social spaces, with new and emerging technologies, in settings that inspire and support exploration, discovery, creativity, problem-solving, and learning.