Gee Library's Curriculum Library

My name is Scott Lancaster. I am the Education Librarian at Gee Library at Texas A&M-Commerce. One of my major duties is managing the Curriculum Library, which includes the Curriculum Collection, Juvenile and Youth Collection, and the State Adopted Textbook Collection. I am also the liaison to the Education: Curriculum & Instruction, Education: Leadership, Counseling, Health & Human Performance, and Psychology & Special Education departments.
My office is on the second floor. One thing I like about it is that it is surrounded on four sides by glass--two sides look out on my area, one side looks out onto a large marble stairway, and the other looks outside. I am available whenever I am in my office for consultation.
I have tried to make the Curriculum Library inviting and adapted to the purposes that our students use it for. The State Adopted Textbook collection consists of textbooks currently in adoption by the state of Texas for use in public schools. These materials are not circulating. Students use the collection in the library to design lesson plans and compare publishers.
The Curriculum Library is promimently featured on the second floor of the library at the top of the large marble staircase. From my office on the left I can watch students ascend the stairs or congregate in the lobby.
Outside the entrance to the area we have a "coffin" display and also a large glass display case (on the left) that we use to display new books or special events. This month we are displaying books related to Hispanic heritage.
This is a photo of the area when I first assumed the position of Education Librarian. After some thought and observation about how the area is used by the students I have been involved in a redesign of the area, shifting of the collections, as well as weeding of old material or moving it to the general stacks.

One of the main things that has dictated the design of the area has been metal mesh walls surrounding it and forming a sort of cage. My understanding is that one of the previous librarians in the sixties wanted to maintain tight control over the textbooks. She was afraid young people would come to the library and get answers out of the teacher's edition. My recollection of the library having been here as a child when my mother was a student is that she assiduously guarded the one entrance and would NOT let children pass, even to look at the chldren's books that are also in the area.
This view shows the front part of the cage, attached to the display case.
This is the inside area where students used the State Adopted Textbook Collection. Note that it is rather cramped.
Earlier this year we took down the front cage wall and expanded the area outward to the front of the display case.
This class makes use of the expanded area. We have entire classes come in with 25 to 35 students who use the textbooks under the instruction of their professor to complete lesson planning assignments.

Further back in the area we have the Curriculum Collection (to the right), which consists of lesson planning material, books that can be photocopies to produce handouts, as well as the most recent state adopted textbooks that have just gone out of adoption. The shelf on the left marked Pre-K is part of the State Adopted Collection--that grade level tends to be so large that we have it shelved separately from the rest of the collection.
The area also includes a small computer lab of four computers and a printer, alongside the OPAC. A larger computer lab of 80 computers is downstaris, as well as 20 comptuers in the reference area for research. Our small lab is used by education students or people who I am helping.

After shifting around furniture this is how my area looks now. I brought some rugs from home to create an inviting sitting area.

We have just last week gotten rid of a lot of the extra furniture that is in the library. This library was built in 1959, doubled in size with a remodeling in the 70's, then added three more floors on top of the new edition in the 80's. New furniture has been added periodically but I don't think anything has been gotten rid of. On the plus side there was always extra chairs or tables--but that was offset by the fact that we were so crowded and it was hard to keep things matched. Students moved chairs from place to place and sometimes one table had six chairs none of which matched.
We've tried to scatter chairs more sparsely. Many of our students commute or take their classes online. I do get a lot of traffic in the Curriculum Library because so much of what we have here is not available online. Textbooks, children's books, and reproducible lesson planning material is rarely found as an online book.

Now we use the area outside the display case for seating. I'm sure we will continue to move things around. Maybe when classes start in two weeks I will find a better way of arranging things. And we continue to wait for several million dollars from the state legislature for a major remodeling.