University Libraries

By Maureen Schlangen

When University of Dayton secondary education graduate Linda Arvin Skuns ’63 was a student at UD, a collegiate library was a source for research and a place to study without interruption.

When she came back to campus in the mid-2000s after a long career as a high school English teacher, the University of Dayton Libraries were much more than that.

“It’s much more social, which is really how it should be, because that’s how education and business are done today,” says Skuns, who served six years on the Libraries Advisory Council, providing guidance and ideas for the Libraries’ continuous improvements to spaces, services, technology, programs and materials. “Businesses are run by people collaborating. The way the University Libraries are set up now, students can do that, too.”

The Libraries also do a lot more community outreach, she says — exhibits, lectures, films, dialogues and other public events.

“The programs are not just for the highbrow academic,” she says. “They encourage the citizens of the community to come in and benefit from what’s here, like the rare books, the 1913 flood exhibit and the baseball special collection.”