The Friends of the SMU Libraries, a group dedicated to enriching and promoting the services of all the libraries on campus, hosted a panel discussion last night titled, “This Isn’t Your Grandmother’s Library Anymore.” Four librarians, including two from SMU, met with the group to talk about how technology has changed the stereotypical stuffy, quiet atmospheres of libraries.

Gillian M. McCombs, dean and director of Central Libraries at SMU, was the first to speak on the topic. McCombs started with a slide show and talked about the early stages of libraries on SMU’s campus.

“It was a museum for the book,” McCombs said. “We limited access. Students could only come at certain hours and had to wear certain clothes and be quiet.”

McCombs went on to discuss that until Fondren Library was built in 1940, the only library on campus was in Dallas Hall, where girls and guys were not allowed to study together.

The older crowd cheered when McCombs brought up the card catalogue, but was quickly silenced when she said the Internet and computer technology was the new way to perform research. With the technology today, information has spread and is more easily accessible. Librarians are not the only ones who know how to access information anymore. McCombs pointed out that the “keys to the kingdom” have been passed on from the librarians to the students.

Pattie Orr, vice president for Information Technology and the dean of University Libraries at Baylor University, noted that “at 1:10 p.m. students feel it is nap time; at 1:10 a.m. it’s time for them to get out the books and laptops.”

Because students now use libraries any time during the day, librarians like Orr are working to find ways to make libraries as resourceful and accessible as possible. Baylor, like SMU, has implemented 24-hour libraries. The Baylor libraries have also instituted a program called “IM your Baylor Librarian.” This is a program where a student can use his screen name to instant message a librarian during working hours to ask any question. They can also check out iPods to listen to Podcasts and music that has been assigned for their classes.

Orr also supported the idea of having the library be everywhere students and teachers are, including Facebook. Libraries are now buying advertisement space on the social network to promote their hours and services.

Both McCombs and Orr agreed that libraries are now about the students and making sure their needs are met.

“We want to make it feel as if they are at home,” McCombs said.

Orr talked about how they now have different study areas in their libraries such as a monastery quiet zone where no talking is permitted, and a “nice restaurant quiet zone” where students can interact, talk and work in groups on homework and other assignments without fear of bothering others.

It will be hard for students to do their homework, though, if they don’t have the right information, according to Orr. Libraries have reached the point now where they need as much information as possible. This means that libraries around the country have started to share their resources with others through online databases. Orr admitted that libraries cannot collect everything, and that in today’s world partnership was absolutely necessary for libraries.

“It’s about access not ownership,” Orr said.

Sandy Miller, director of the Business Information Center at the Cox School of Business stated that the “electronic library is the wave of the future.”

Gerald D. Saxon, dean of Libraries at the University of Texas at Arlington, said that his school now has to store books in an off campus depository so that they could make more room for computers and other technologies. He also mentioned that all of this technology comes at a price.

“We have to learn to stretch our budgets farther and farther,” Saxon said. “All of this technology is a budget-buster.” He also stated that libraries have to depend on donors and friends more than ever now to keep up with all the changing technology.

Although new innovations are being used, each of the four librarians agreed that technology would never beat a book.

“It is very hard to improve upon the technology of a book,” Orr said. “You don’t need special light, battery or wires to use it.”