Buoyed by a $10.9 million grant from the Lilly Endowment, the renovation modernizes the library and elevates its capabilities to preserve rare materials, protect library holdings and educate visitors. Already open in a reduced capacity, Lilly Library staff hope to welcome visitors at an open house Sept. 2 during IU Arts and Humanities’ First Thursday festival.
Source: Indiana University
“We’ve been pretty quiet about our reopening as we get everything together and we’re kind of considering that to be our grand reopening where we’re hoping a lot of people will come in and walk around,” said Rebecca Baumann, who is the head of public services at the Lilly Library. “We’ll have lots of librarians on hand to chat with people, show people new spaces. We’re hoping that a lot of our fans and also new faces will stop in and take a look around.”
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Baumann is thrilled with the renovation’s reception from the public, with one student mentioning in their earshot that Lilly is “the perfect library.” They hope that the renovations will help encourage new, more diverse visitors to explore the library.
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area.
He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit.
Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.
