Tom Isern, NDSU

You really ought to have a look at what the folks at the University of Nevada-Reno are doing. In a couple of weeks the move begins from the old Getchell Library to the new Mathewson-IGT Knowledge Center. Check it out here - and be amazed. This is the land grant university library of the 21st century.

A university library is not merely a service facility. It is the heart of the learning environment, a symbol of university commitment to serious intellectual endeavor, and the anchor of campus community. The people in Reno realize this.

High-tech, to be sure. And yet, the people in Reno recognize that technology is merely the baseline of library operations, the necessary infrastructure. They have resolved to make their library a place where people will wish to be and where they can pursue serious studies. There will be, as usual for university libraries these days, a coffee shop. There will be actual sunlight, too, lots of it. And reading rooms - I mean, they actually call them "reading rooms" - what a concept! Including one reading room set aside for faculty and graduate student use. Beautiful study areas. An auditorium, so that this center of campus intellectual life can host significant events. A gallery - not just digital exhibits, which they do wonderfully well, but real material stuff, including a sculpture garden. And actual collections, more than million volumes. And special collections that distinguish the library and lend distinctive identity to the university. All right, I'm starting to begin sentences, or rather fragments, with conjunctions, which means that I am breathless, panting with envy.

They just did it right at Reno. No mumbling or fumbling, no mealy-mouthed good-enough attitudes. They got together as an institution and said, we will be a university indeed.

We can do this at NDSU. We can achieve stature - something we will never fully possess until we do this thing. We have the resource base, the donor base, the crying need for a library worthy of a land grant university. What we lack is the campus culture and institutional will to make it happen. Now. But it will happen.

Congratulations to Dallas Carlson, History & Theater student, for his great work as the balladeer Bee Doyle in the Little Country Theater production of Floyd Collins.

Just a quick note to draw attention to a new series on Prairie Public Radio in which Jessica Clark, PhD student in History, has had a shaping role: "Growing Up German-Russian: A Radio Series, Part II." This series, once again, features clips from the Dakota Memories Oral HIstory Collection, compiled by the Germans from Russia Heritage Collection, NDSU Library. Real voices, real experiences.