Spectrum - Volume 18 Issue 33 June 13, 1996 - Communications facility on mall receives approval

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including The Conductor , a special section of the Spectrum printed 4 times a year

Communications facility on mall receives approval

By Netta S. Smith

Spectrum Volume 18 Issue 33 - June 13, 1996

The Building and Grounds Committee of the Board of Visitors has given architects the go-ahead for further design development on a $25-million facility to be constructed adjacent to and over the Mall to connect with Newman Library.

Construction is expected to begin next summer and to be completed within a two-year period. According to Jim McCoy, director of capital design and construction, no disruption of traffic flow or parking in the area is expected until construction begins.

Towers, similar to those on Burruss Hall, will be built onto the end of the library leading into a 15-foot-high "reading room" stretching across the mall. The Advanced Communications and Information Technology Center will be connected to the other end of the reading room.

The building is described as the locus of the 21st-century information revolution at Virginia Tech, bringing together libraries and researchers and teaching faculty members to collaborate on new learning techniques. Movable walls in research bays will allow flexibility.

Three major program areas will be included: classic research on communication and information projects, a teaching and learning environment where research can be applied, and application of research, including linkages to the library and interdisciplinary integration of knowledge.