Texas Southern University has broken ground on a $43 million Library Learning Center on its Houston campus.
The university says the five-story building will span 137,000 square feet and is expected to be completed in summer 2019.
“This new Library Learning Center will serve as an intellectual hub not only for the university, but for the community at large. Students, academics and library patrons will have an array of resources at their fingertips,” says university President Austin A. Lane
The facility will be erected adjacent to the Barbara Jordan–Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs and the Thurgood Marshall School of Law.
The university’s distance and online education divisions, administrative offices, support services and a board room will be housed in the new center. The library will provide an array of resources for upper-level, graduate and professional researchers. TSU freshmen will receive a range of dedicated academic services to bolster their first-year curriculum. Library patrons will have high-tech access to materials and more efficient methods for data collection.
Texas Southern created a New Library Working Group that provided input to shape the design and contents of the facility. Multiple surveys, town-hall meetings and rating exercises were held over the last two years to determine what was needed in the new library.
“The campus and surrounding community continues to express excitement about the new facility,” says Janice Peyton, executive director of University Libraries and Museums.
