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After many years of planning and more than two years of construction, the Foster Business Library opened to the public on June 23, 1997. The new facility combines an attractive, spacious library environment with a technological infrastructure that will allow the delivery of a wide range of electronic services now and, just as importantly, will allow services to expand or change in the future.

BACKGROUND

The project, which also included the Seafirst Executive Education Center (now the Bank of America Executive Education Center) and the Boeing Auditorium, was funded by a mix of private and public money. In late 1990, the University of Washington Business School received a gift of three million dollars from the Foster Foundation. The intent of the gift was to help fund a new business library, to be named in honor of Albert O. and Evelyn W. Foster. Albert Foster graduated from the University of Washington Business School in 1928 and founded the investment banking firm of Foster & Marshall in 1938. Evelyn Foster graduated from the University of Washington in 1932. The Business School combined the Foster gift with two others and developed the concept for a complex that would come to include the Seafirst Executive Education Center, the Boeing Auditorium, and the Foster Business Library. Planning for the project began in February 1991. Construction began in March 1995 and continued through June 1997. The old business administration library (on the first floor of Balmer Hall) was closed during the Spring/Summer interim of 1997 for the move to the new facility and opened as the Foster Business Library on the first day of Summer Quarter, 1997.

THE LIBRARY

The Foster Business Library is a "below garden" facility. The most striking physical characteristic of the new library is the 800 square foot skylight located above the reading area. The skylight and twenty-foot ceiling give the space a comfortable, light, and airy feeling. In terms of size, the new business library is over 23,000 gross square feet, or approximately double the size of the old business library facility. The new library space is divided over two levels. The lower level contains Circulation, Reference, the collections, library workstations, and most of the reader seating. The mezzanine level of the library overlooks the reading area and contains additional reader seating and group study rooms.

The library offers a variety of study spaces to accommodate different user needs and preferences. One of the biggest differences between the old and new facilities was the addition of seven group study rooms (now eight group study rooms). These rooms accommodate between six and ten people each, and are available for students assigned to work in groups or teams. The rooms may be reserved up to one week in advance and keys are checked out on the Libraries circulation system, just like books. The room check-out period is two hours. Most of the library seating consists of four-person tables or two-person carrels. The furniture and chairs are constructed of cherry-stained maple, and are heavy, solid, and very comfortable. Nearly every library table and carrel, as well as the study rooms, are wired for power and data. A student will be able to bring in his or her laptop computer, plug into the campus network, and access their uniform access account, the Libraries' databases, or the World Wide Web. Last but not least, because some library users prefer to curl up in a comfortable chair, there are eighteen soft chairs in the mix of seating.

The new facility was designed to allow easy access to power and data. There are few spaces within the library not within reach of an outlet or data connection. The library also has four wireless hubs for laptop users. This infrastructure has enabled the library to expand its range of electronic business services. The library's Electronic Reference Area contains over twenty library workstations, many with word processing, spreadsheet, and other Microsoft Office software (restricted to authorized UW users). An adjacent library lab includes another eighteen computer workstations. Ten workstations are available for public use. Another six standup terminals serve short-term users on the first floor, with two more standup terminals on the mezzanine. Users have access to the Libraries' databases, the World Wide Web, and CD-ROM databases. UW students and faculty can also access an academic Bloomberg terminal.

Business librarians teach small groups of students strategies and techniques for using electronic resources in the Library Seminar Room. This space accommodates up to 12 students. In all, there are more than fifty computer workstations available in the Foster Business Library, compared to just fifteen in the old library facility. These desktop stations, combined with the laptop access, offer library users a rich array of electronic business resources.