Library project serves as model for future

" Don ' t worry about money. If you could do anything at all with this space, what would it be? " asked the moderator at the library renovation focus group I attended earlier this week. I ' m not asked this question, either by administrators or anyone else, that often, so it did catch me off guard, and most likely some of the other participants as well. It also inspired me to write this editorial because in all of my four years at Tech, I can ' t ever think of anyone asking me for my opinion on what average students need to get out of a space before its completed.

Typically, I ' m used to hearing about a building ' s plans for construction and how it ' s supposed to benefit the students but never really having any clue how it ' s going to revolutionize the campus until it ' s completed. Never mind getting the opportunity to participate in a focus group about the topic. Or if I do hear about how great a project is supposed to be and exact details, it ' s from a Technique article or news release about the project.

What ' s great about the library renovations project is that the Library Student Advisory Council, staff from OIT, and the library and administrators are making sure to take into consideration what faculty, staff and students together want in the project before making any final decisions about what exactly they will do with the space. The renovations are being tailored to the feedback the planning committee has received. Current plans for the space include building a caf & eacute; and better areas for group study, all of which were detailed in the Feb. 11 Technique article " Library plans for upgrade. " Additionally, nothing has been made final until the planning committee has a chance to hear the perspectives and opinions from everyone affected by the project. Before any more new buildings begin construction, the planners should follow the library ' s example.

While I ' m sure the library may not be the only entity on campus to actively seek out student input, and that there were probably dozens of focus groups about the Student Center Commons project and Technology Square, all of those took place before my time at Tech. Same goes for the Campus Recreation Center renovations project. Although I ' m a fourth-year, I ' m not that old.

Now if I was curious about what students and faculty thought about putting in a water slide and if it was their main concern at the time, I would have nowhere to turn to find out this information. All I could find was pictures of the construction that took place for the CRC. The reason is that currently there exists a lack of historical records for these projects ' planning phases.

That ' s right, if you wanted to know what the student opinion of the time was about the project and how their opinions were taken into consideration before the project was implemented, you would have no Institute resource.

While the minutes of the Student Government Association ' s committees and the Institute wide committees that play a role in these key planning decisions are publicized, online records at SGA ' s website only exist for this current year. There ' s nowhere to go to find out what last year ' s committees worked on.

Although these records may seem unimportant to the average person, the work of past committees and advisory boards affect students ' quality of life and administration policies for years.Given the amount of time and effort that has gone into making sure input from all over campus is taken into consideration for the Library project, why not make the project even more of a model by listing online the results of the planning period, along with the specifics about construction? This way if a new or old student had a question about why the Library renovations were done a particular way, they could have an online record to turn to.

I realize that any student that ' s on an advisory council or committee probably has more on their plate than they can handle, but if a simple online database that was easily accessible and maintainable was started now, it wouldn ' t be that hard to continue the effort.

I ' ve seen many great strides over my time at Tech to make everything on-campus more student-friendly. Now is the time to document the efforts the Institute is making to accomplish this goal. The time has come for the ones in power and making key decisions to start keeping records for the benefit of future members of the Tech community.