Vol. 25 No. 19The Commonwealth's Department of General Services has released funding for the design phase and has named architects for the $17.3 million construction project on the Middletown campus.
The Library of the Future will be designed in a joint venture between Hayes Large Architects of Altoona and Shepley Bullfinch Richardson and Abbott of Boston.
The projected 115,000-square-foot library will replace the current facilities of the Heindel Library located in the Olmsted Building on campus. In addition to the $17.3 million provided by the state, a $2 million Penn State Harrisburg campaign will provide funding to enhance the equipment and fixtures of the facility.
The Library of the Future will employ state-of-the-art technologies to provide global information access for both on-site and remote users. In addition, the new facility will provide adequate storage and use for the library's research collections in business, engineering, Pennsylvania folklore, women's history and other areas.
The geographical service area of the new library will encompass nearly 1.5 million potential users, including more than 7,000 graduates of Penn State Harrisburg who still reside in southcentral Pennsylvania, as well as area businesses and state government.
Existing library space at PSH has not increased since 1978. Since that period, the upper division college and graduate center has grown nearly 60 percent to more than 3,500 students.
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