By May 13th, ITMS will finish moving to its new home: A consolidation of the two rooms on the second floor of Luther Bonney, with a new entrance just around the corner from their old one. With this smaller space comes the loss of one staff member, the moving of another and the relocation of some of their lesser used services.
In January of this year Instructional Technologies and Media Services (ITMS) at the Portland campus began a process of consolidation with the Glickman Family Library, moving towards the creation on campus of an “Information Commons,” which library director David Nutty calls the “best of what a library has to offer with the best of what a computer lab has to offer mixed with what ITMS does.” This merger will not affect how media technologies like VCRs, DVDs, and TVs will be distributed.
The relocated services include the video camera used by American sign language students in their classes and the viewing room. The video camera is now housed in the Linguistics House (the department of linguistics runs the American sign language minor), while the viewing room has been consolidated with a similar, but bigger, facility on the second-floor of the Glickman Library. According to Ron Levere, Director of ITMS, both changes should improve service for students, expand hours, and in the case of ASL students, give more direct contact with the department.
The biggest change comes for Levere himself. His office will soon be relocated to the fifth-floor of the Glickman Library, in the Heldenbrand Faculty Development and Collaboration Room. “Initially I wasn’t excited about this,” said Levere. He called the smaller space for ITMS in Luther Bonney “a challenge,” and the separation of the department from its director may make communication more difficult. However, “sometimes things like this turn out to be a positive,” he said. “This will let us work more with faculty.” The move will also facilitate the staging of events by ITMS at the library.
It is for the benefit of faculty, and in turn students, that this change is happening, said David Nutty, director of the University library. Before coming to USM, he worked as the media librarian for Layola University in Chicago and supervised the Academic Technologies department while Dean of Libraries at Richmond International University in London. “It’s not unusual in other academic libraries for ITMS and libraries to be together,” said Nutty. “The library is considered an academic support system and so is ITMS, so we both have the same mission to support students and faculty academically. I think the library and ITMS can be more proactive working together and that will benefit students.”