Published: September 23, 2009 08:24 am      

Uncovering the past while building for the future

Next fall, Eastern Kentucky University’s library will open what planners call a cutting-edge innovation.

The Noel Studio for Academic Creativity — at the library’s center — will give students a single location where they can get help with research, writing and public presentations.

The studio will include sound-proof rooms with the latest audio-visual equipment so students can practice public presentations and review their performances.

Space for public presentations also will be available.

“At each step of the way, as students do research, write and practice, coaches will be available to offer critiques and advice,” said Dr. Russell Carpenter, who will direct the studio.

Perhaps no other university in the nation will have a comparable facility, said Carpenter, who wrote a doctoral dissertation on the concept at the University of Central Florida.

Carpenter is a perfect fit as studio director, said Betina Gardner, EKU’s librarian for public services.

“We knew he was the person for this job,” she said, “because he was thinking exactly along the same lines as we were. And, he had thoroughly researched the concept and its effectiveness.”

As a storage area was gutted to make way for the studio, workers uncovered a triple archway that was part of the original 1924 library structure but had not been seen for more than a generation.

“The brick archways were part of the building’s original entrance,” said Kari Martin, the library’s development director. “The archways got covered over when the library was expanded in the mid-1960s and the entrance was moved out to the sidewalk on University Drive,” she said.

The discovery has prompted the university to revise the studio’s design to incorporate the archways. Steam pipes that run behind the central arch will be moved.

Giant skylights that for about 45 years had illuminated only a storage space also will be incorporated into the design, Martin said.

Older alumni and retired faculty given a tour of the project area Saturday recalled the old library entrance and their memories of EKU when it was known as Eastern Kentucky State Teachers College.

The studio is being named in honor of Ron and Sherrie Lou Noel of northern Kentucky, who are major donors to the project.

Bill Robinson can be reached at brobinson@richmondregister.com or at 624-6622.