2015TR

TUSCARORA REVIEW 2016

2016 TUSCARORA REVIEW

Amitayus smiled. “Of course, Phil. Hop on my lotus cloud.”

Phil sat next to Amitayus on the lotus cloud and in an instant they disappeared.

Mia Barboza-Quesada,

Rumpelstiltskin

—Mixed Media

Interview with Mick O'Leary

FCC's Library Executive Director

Ryan Slicer and Paul Stark

rederick Community College’s library has opened this semester with a

completely renovated space and a new name to go along with it—the

“Learning Commons.” With the renovations come more study space, updated

technology, consolidation with the Tutoring & Writing Center, and the addition

of a digital Makerspace. The

Tuscarora Review

stood with Library Executive

Director Mick O’Leary at his standing desk, and talked about the changes and his

experiences at FCC over the course of his storied career.

Tuscarora Review:

Are you originally from Frederick?

Mick:

No, I’m from Pennsylvania. When I graduated from library school, I was

looking around for jobs and in that time—this was 1975—we were in a recession.

Sound familiar? Jobs were really, really hard, and this was available and I needed a

job, and the rest is history as they say.

Tuscarora Review:

As a librarian, what other sort of services is the library

now offering with these new renovations?

Mick:

A couple of things. First of all, it’s no longer called ‘the library.’ Now it’s

called the ‘Learning Commons’ and it is a merger of three areas that previously

were separate: the library, the Writing Center, and Tutorial Services. A year ago,

they were three unique departments all in different locations. What happened

over many years as we got more digital information, we bought fewer print books.

And as we weeded the print collection and it got smaller and smaller, about three

years ago I said, ‘The print collection is not going to disappear. It’s going to stay

about this size.’ That meant there was a lot of underutilized space, so we said,

‘Okay, what do we do with that space?’ We thought, ‘Of all the departments at

FCC, what was the one that was the closest to the library in terms of mission

and purpose?’ There was the Writing Center; amongst the folks that were

involved that just seemed self-evident, and that started a long planning process.

The Tutorial Department was also brought in and reorganized. The idea was

that these were the three administrative departments that worked directly with