Dive Right In

Coming Soon: A New Archives and Special Collections Building | Part One of Three | Teaching & Student Impact

When Joanne Kaczmarek ’88 LAS, MS ’00 LIS, thinks about the new Archives and Special Collections Building, she finds herself brimming with excitement.

“Of all the incredible resources the Library makes available, I believe creating a single point for access to our materials is going to be one of the most immersive learning opportunities we have ever provided to the campus,” she said.

And as head of University Archives, Kaczmarek eagerly awaits the day when Library users can enthusiastically plunge deep into that experience.

“Our current configuration, with separate access points, is a bit like trying to understand a body of water based on how it reacts to a stone being skipped on its surface,” she said, “versus jumping in with diving gear to explore the full contours of what’s beneath the surface.”

You can be sure that when the facility opens in the fall of 2027, Kaczmarek will encourage any interested parties to dive right in.

A new home for the Archives, the Illinois History and Lincoln Collections (IHLC), and the Rare Book & Manuscript Library (RBML), the renovated building will combine research, teaching, and awe-inspiring exhibits in a singular setting in the very core of the university’s grounds.

It’s a vision that has inspired the Library to do its very best for its vaunted holdings, its dedication to scholarship, and the preservation of knowledge itself. And the Library is looking forward to having its patrons realize its possibilities.

By their very nature, these collections—comprising the history of the university and the state, as well as treasured items from around the globe—require specialized care and dedicated learning environments. The new centralized location (formerly occupied by the Undergraduate Library) will directly address those issues, offering key amenities such as state-of-the-art preservation and up-to-date accessibility.

Not to mention vastly expanded teaching opportunities that previously have been stymied by physical limitations. For librarians in these three units—which provide 20% of the Library’s overall teaching efforts—those opportunities center on location, space, technology, access, and flexibility.

One home, one building

In simplest terms, the move to one building will efficiently gather these collections in a single place. At present, Archives, RBML, and IHLC reside on different floors in the Main Library, while the Student Life and Culture Archives (SLCA), a program within University Archives, sits about a 30-minute walk away in the historic Horticulture Field Laboratory.

“One of the big benefits for us will be the central location,” said Ellen Swain, MS ’95 LIS, who heads SLCA. “Once we get the students out here [now], I feel like they get excited about the material, but when you don’t have to have them trudge across campus, . . . it will be beneficial.” In addition, more time can be spent on actual lessons, rather than on factoring in travel time.

The location is “going to bring a different kind of visibility to the records than has been there before,” said Bethany Anderson, the natural and applied sciences archivist who focuses on documenting the history of science at the university. The Archives and Special Collections Building now underway will occupy a central spot just south of the Quad (behind Foellinger Auditorium and across from the Main Library), offering more than 45,000 square feet on its upper level, including more than 9,500 square feet of instructional space.

Room to spread out

That dramatic increase in space—for instruction, research, exhibits, and events—may be the new setting’s brightest appeal. On the upper level, plans call for three modifiable instruction rooms of varying size (totaling 3,722 square feet), a nearly 2,500-square-foot reading room for researchers, two seminar rooms, an exhibit area, and a 1,796-square-foot gallery/event space. The lower level will house the collections.

Consider that an educational “classroom” for these units doesn’t merely require tables or desks accommodating the number of students. Not only must there be room for patrons to sit but also room for the box or paper or artifact each visitor is examining. “It’s not just you with . . . a notebook or pencil,” explained Cait Coker, curator of rare books and manuscripts at RBML. The materials, she said, “take up a bunch of space.”

Coker pointed out the formal and informal teaching experiences RBML offers, ranging from prescribed lessons to open houses and walk-in visitors. “We have to teach them how to safely handle” rare materials, she said, and she delights in the “light-bulb moment” when they realize, “‘I’m looking at the real thing. I’m looking at the Shakespeare materials from 500 years ago. I’m touching this 4,000-year-old cuneiform tablet.’”

“Our focus is often trying to teach students about interacting with primary materials,” said Krista Gray, IHLC’s archives programs officer, that is, learning to examine and think about the broader context of the item—such as who created it, how it was formed, and what its purpose was. This requires space for both the observer and the artifact.

The librarians believe the more expansive quarters will prompt both their colleagues and professors to envision additional class opportunities as they realize the location will offer more space, flexibility, and possibilities for collaboration.

Upgraded technology, access

While working in 100+-year-old buildings has its charms, challenges exist.

Swain sometimes projects lessons on a whitewashed wall in the Horticulture Field Laboratory. In the Main Library, large media screens cram into small elevators to move from floor to floor for presentations. RBML’s gathering space has glass walls—the better to observe the handling of rare materials, but rather useless for high-tech purposes.

“The technology [aspect] will be huge,” Swain said. Anderson also pointed out that multiple screens in each of the new classrooms will enable larger groups to see and hear presentations more conveniently.

Moreover, screens will help patrons more easily grasp what a finding aid is, a key to conducting archival research. “A finding aid is kind of a summary of what’s in the collection,” Gray said. “It lists what’s in each folder and the categories. So you’ll be able to display that much better.” Currently librarians use paper handouts illustrating these tools, but a technological presentation would explain the information much more thoroughly. In addition, whiteboards—a cleaner alternative in a setting with rare materials—will be available and appreciated.

The new setting will also be modernized to comply with the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), providing easier access to the facility and the teaching opportunities therein. “Constructed decades before the passage of the ADA, the former building presented barriers to access that excluded many on our campus community,” said Tom Teper, associate dean of libraries. “For a university with such a rich history serving individuals of all different needs and abilities, that was a problem for us.

As a library, we are about providing people with access to information and not throwing barriers in their way.”

The revisions include a zero-grade outside entryway and properly sized elevators for improved navigation. “While technically accessible, the former Undergraduate Library poorly served those with accessibility requirements,” Teper said. “It will be satisfying to welcome the whole community into this Archives and Special Collections Building.”

Flexibility

Librarians at Archives, RBML, and IHLC service requests from professors and students in a broad range of disciplines, including such areas as history, literature, art and design, rhetoric, religion, Jewish studies, creative writing, gender studies, communications, anthropology, and ecology. Even steelworkers attending an annual session at the U. of I. School of Labor and Employment Relations get quality archives time.

But accommodating those various needs and groups involves some creativity and rearranging, something that will become easier to do in the new building.

For example, IHLC currently occupies two modest rooms on the third floor of the Main Library, an area too small to hold more than six or so patrons at one time. Finding space in the first-floor Archives for IHLC projects may involve relocating researchers or staff, transporting equipment, and spending time setting up the lesson.

Movable classroom walls, modular tables, dedicated research space, user-friendly outreach, and accessibility to more materials will all make for what Gray calls a “seamless” experience. She also sees the collections being used more often “because it’s convenient and because you have space and because it’s right there.”

“What we’re doing now we’ll be able to do better because of our space and the location,” Swain said. “We’ll be better coordinated and better connected to each other.

There’s so much collaboration we could do [because] we’re kind of in our silos now.”

“We’re excited about future opportunities,” Coker said, “and looking forward to what people are going to be thinking when we’re in the new space.”

Or as University Archivist Kaczmarek might advise: Come on in—the water’s fine.

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