Trent collection not going to Giant Tiger site
Trent University moving into future while retaining library’s heritage in $18M makeover
Trent University has changed its plan, regarding one of the two temporary library locations it will use for a year while Bata Library is under renovation.
Trent had planned to use the empty former Giant Tiger building on Lakefield Rd. to house all its books, and the empty Shoppers Drug Mart downtown for all its reference materials.
But Giant Tiger is no longer part of the plan: Trent will use an empty warehouse at 2109 Whittington Dr., instead.
That’s in Cavan Monaghan Township, just northwest of Fleming College.
Students won’t be expected to find their way there to check out books, though. The warehouse will be for staff only.
It will work like this: students look up books they’d like to borrow, from a computer database on campus and then make a request.
Next, librarians at the warehouse will put those books on a shuttle van for delivery to Trent’s campus.
Robert Clarke, the university librarian, said Trent decided to drop the Giant Tiger location because it wasn’t going to be available on time.
Bata Library is expected to close for renovations for a year, starting May 1 – and the books needed to move out following exams, during the last week of April.
If Giant Tiger wasn’t going to be available then, Clarke said other arrangements had to be made.
A search led to a new warehouse on Whittington Dr. that was available immediately. Trent takes occupancy April 1.
Clarke said the Whittington Dr. location is better than Giant Tiger because it’s brand new and all on one level (there are two floors at the Giant Tiger building).
The iconic Bata Library on the main Symons campus at Trent is about to undergo an $18-million renovation project to create the new Bata Research Innovation Cluster.
Only about 50 per cent of the books will be returning to the newly renovated Bata building when it reopens.
The first two floors of the Bata building will no longer have stacks of books, university officials explained when the project was first announced.
Instead, there will be study and meeting spaces dedicated to specific areas of research: one for entrepreneurship, for instance, another for research on ageing, and another for indigenous studies.
Trent has received $8.1 million in federal and provincial funding, along with donations, for the planned $18-million transformation of the Bata Library.
The 50-year-old Bata Library was designed by Canadian architect Ron Thom. The architectural firm Perkins + Will is designing the renovation.
Architectural design firm Perkins + Will showcased its nearly completed plan to bring Trent University’s Bata Library into the future – while still retaining the structure’s heritage.
An open house was held Thursday in the library to show off the upcoming, year-long renovation plans.
Safdar Abidi, principal for the firm, said there were two “compelling” yet “in some ways opposing” parts of the renovation designs.
“One is a very future focused and change-based driver,” Abidi said. “The other driver is how do you preserve the architecture and character of the building?”
The Thomas J. Bata library was designed by Ron Thom, an architect who imagined many of the buildings throughout the university. The library was built between 1967 and October 1969.
Abidi explained that materials were an important element of the original design for the library.
“The exposed concrete is a very distinct Ron Thom expression of architecture. As architects we love it because it’s a very honest expression of material,” he said. “Wood has also been used in a very particular way.”
Abidi also said the red and green colours were part of the buildings heritage and would be reused during the renovation.
The architect stood in the courtyard near the entrance to the library and gestured up to the glass roof of the soon to be redesigned library.
“The central atrium is a stunning feature of the library, and the light it brings in,” Abidi said.
But the most important structural element of the building’s heritage was its geometry and the views it creates on all sides of the library, said the designer.
“In our redesign we’ve tried to maximize views and reduce obstructions,” Abidi said.
As a leader for the firm’s higher education practice, Abidi said he has worked with many universities about the shift in purpose of campus libraries. But who better to talk about them than a librarian of 34 years?
Robert Clarke, university librarian, said that over the last 20 years there has been a transition in the nature of his duties caused by the development of technology – mainly the internet and digitization.
“Now most publishers are producing digitally, if you want a print copy they’re actually making a print copy from a digital version,” Clarke said.
This transition from knowledge producers writing things down in print to typing them into a computer makes his job less about “manually scribbling notes and checking card catalogues,” he said.
As librarians job shifts, so too should the places they work in, Clarke said.
He said he’s particularly interested in the critical making studio and the visualization space – featuring a 270 degree visual screen around its walls – which the renovation will bring.
“I sat in on a presentation at another university (in May 2012 at the University of Calgary) that has one of those centres,” Clarke said. “They digitized all the (historical information) and created a 3-D image of an Elizabethan town.”
The renovation isn’t just about innovation and architecture, said Clarke; it’s also about cutting down on the structures energy use, and upgrading its infrastructure.
The library is closing starting after the school’s exams at 7 p.m. on April 26, 2017 until May 1, 2018 during the renovation period.
The $18-million project was jumpstarted in May 2016 when the university successfully applied for $7 million federal and $1.1 million provincial funding. It still needs $900,000 – which is being accepted through online donations – before its completion.
“I’m happy because it’ll be wonderful, it’ll get done and I’ll still be here. I won’t be retired,” Clarke said.