2024 is a special year for the ECTC Collier Library, which celebrates not one, but two anniversaries. It is both 60 and 40 years old in September 2024. The Collier Library celebrates with a history display that includes old scrapbooks and yearbooks laid out for viewing. The display will stay up until October 11. 2024.
The library opened its doors to students on September 3, 1964. Betty Jane McFarland, the first librarian and one of the college's first hires, greeted the students that first day, She'd spent the summer preparing the library, acquiring, cataloging and shelving 700 books.
With a growing collection of books, journals, microfilm, AV equipment and resources, and comfortable places for students to lounge and study, the library, renamed the Media Center, became quite cramped. Plans for a new building were drawn up in the mid-70s but state budgets delayed approval. Groundbreaking for a new building took place in the spring of 1983. The new Media Center opened the new doors in early September of 1984.
The 1990s saw rapid changes in library technology. The Media Center acquired its first online catalog in 1990. Over the decade it acquired electronic article indexes and full-text article databases, using CD-ROM and the pre-web Internet. In 1999 most of the databases migrated to the web.
The library (as it called itself after 2000 - the new-but-old name took a while to catch on) underwent two renovations, one in 2019 and another in 2023. Today, at ages 60 and 40, the hoary Collier Library includes a Makerspace with 3D printers, button makers and more. It contains 5 study rooms, with large monitors for group video viewing and remote tutoring. It includes a Library of Things, a variety of comfortable seating areas for group and individual study, and much more.
A brief history and some photos follow
When Elizabethtown Community College opened its doors in September 1964 the single building contained a small library, located in the room that now contains the Morrison Gallery. Betty Jane McFarland was hired in May 1964 as the first librarian. Miss McFarland, a native of Hart County, received her library degree from Peabody College. She retired in December 2000, having worked at the college for 36 years.
Miss McFarland worked through the summer of 1964 to make ready the library for the first crop of students. 700 books greeted them; 5000 books waved them off at the end of that first year. The library also housed magazines, journals and newspapers for students to use for their research assignments and print indexes to allow them to locate articles in those magazines and journals.
Like many college libraries of the time, the ECC Library circulated audio-visual equipment and resources. It provided laboratory space and audio-visual equipment for the use of students enrolled in language, music, science and classes in other disciplines. Resources and equipment included film loops, film strips,16mm motion pictures, slides, vinyl LPs, overhead projectors, slide and film projectors, turntables, cassette players and headphones for music and language listening assignments, and much more.
The library became the Media Center in 1968. Professor Donald Wallace served as director from 1968 to 1973. Maurice Utley succeeded him as director until 1997. Ann Thompson served as Library Director from 1997 to 2016. Katie Meyer has held the position from 2017 to the present.
The Media Center quickly became very cramped, expanding into the area now occupied by the Early Childhood Education program. Approval for a new building came through in the early 80s. The groundbreaking for the new Learning Resource Center took place on April 7, 1983.
Groundbreaking for the new Learning Resource Center.. Left to right: UKCCS Chancellor Charles Wethington, Talton K. Stone, UK President Otis A. Singletary, Representative Allene Craddock and James M. Collier
The Media Center moved to the new Learning Resource Center in the summer, opening its doors in September 1984. The dedication took place a year later on September 30, 1985 – funding issues delayed the construction of the Learning Laboratory, also housed in the LRC. The Learning Resource Center was designated the James M. Collier Learning Resource Center in 1996. The occasion was marked with a dedication ceremony. Jim Collier, guest of honor, admired the plaque and portrait that still hang in the library wall of the lobby.
The new Media Center featured a soundproof music-listening room; a Kentucky Room; a faculty reading room; and a conference-preview room. The books and card catalogs, periodicals and periodical indexes, microfilm reels and microfilm readers, the AV resources and equipment were all packed up and brought to the new building in the summer of 1984.
Research in the 1980s was still paper-based. Students conducted library research just like college students of the early 1900s. But changes were coming…
The UK community colleges acquired their first electronic catalogs in 1990. ECC students could search the ECC book catalog, the catalogs of the other community colleges, and the University of Kentucky book catalog. Interlibrary loan requests shot up. The card catalog disappeared by the mid-90s.
Students could also use the catalog terminals to search electronic magazine indexes. These were so much easier to use than the heavy and cumbersome print indexes. These were also stored on the UK mainframe computer. Students didn’t realize it but they were using the pre-web Internet every time they searched the catalog or indexes.
Library personnel use one of the dumb terminals to search the new online library catalog. The old catalog is visible to the left
In 1994 the Media Center introduced its first full-text databases. Students could use designated desktops to read and print out complete journal and newspaper articles. Not very exciting in 2024, but full text databases were gamechangers in the mid-90s.
The new Kentucky Virtual Library brought a new set of databases in 1999. The EBSCO collection was an amazing suite of full-text databases, and the library’s first set of web-based databases. The library’s existing databases, SearchBank and NewsBank, both joined the new ones, moving to the web in 1999.
The Community Colleges acquired a new library catalog system in 1999. The Voyager public catalog was the Media Center’s first web-based catalog, accessible anywhere through the library’s website. This may not sound very exciting now, but patrons, at that time, were happy to be able to search the catalog at home..
The Media Center switched back to the designation “library” in the early 2000s. It offered its first e-book collection, NetLibrary, in 2003. The database contained 11,000 books. Today the EBSCO eBook collections boast hundreds of thousands of books.
Some major reference books became web-based databases. Students were able to search the databases away from campus by obtaining passwords at the library. They were happy in 2006 when they no longer had to ask for passwords. They did not realize that it was the introduction of EZProxy, and the hard work of the campus IT department that made this change possible. So much happens behind the scenes.
2005 brought 27 workstations into the library for student use. Students could now use the Internet for fun as well as for research. They could use chat rooms and eBay, play games and watch videos, work on their MySpace and Facebook profiles, as well as use Office products for assignments and conduct research using library resources. Just no pornography, please!
Between 1999 and 2005 there were only a few workstations for student use. That changed in 2005. Photo taken 2006
The library added some new electronic resources, such as the Oxford English Dictionary, Opposing Viewpoints, the Washington Post. An important addition was Films on Demand, a database of instructional films and documentaries, acquired in 2012.
The library acquired its most recent catalog software in 2018. ALMA, a web-based system, allows students to search the catalogs and databases all at once. ALMA was the fourth library automation system used by the community and technical colleges.
The library went through two renovations/refurbishments, one in 2019 and one in 2023. New paint, carpeting and furnishings has given the library an open, well-lit, up-to-date look. The library offers 5 study rooms with large-screen computers for group viewing and remote access tutoring. Students can choose to study in comfortable nooks, hives and study carrels; they can recline on sofas and bean bags. They can use the desktops and WiFi. They can use the 3D printers, button makers and other equipment in the Makerspace, and they can check out cordless drills and drums from the Library of Things. They can still search the library databases, at home or in the library, and they can check out both academic books and popular fiction.
The library officially became the Collier Library in 2019.
Students looking for titles in a card catalog. Old ECC Library/Media Center, Administration Building
B.J. McFarland at the circulation desk of the old library, located in what is now the Morrison Gallery
Students lounging near the current periodicals (magazines and journals. This part of the Media Center was located in what is now the Morrison Gallery. The opening in the wall shows stacks of books in the room beyond. Those bookshelves were located in the rooms now occupied by the IECE program. The ECC bookstore was located in that room between 1984 and 2002.
Workroom and general shelving area of the old Media Center
Dr. Bernard T. Bishop, pastor at First Baptist, delivers the invocation for the ceremonies prior to the groundbreaking for the Learning Resource Center, April 30, 1983
UK President Otis A. Singletary, left, and lawyer/visionary/collegemaker James M. Collier, after the groundbreaking ceremonies
B.J. McFarland, left, and Georgia Keen, right, pack up the old Media Center for the move to the new LRD
This area served as the Circulation Desk from 1984 to 2019. It now serves as the Tech Cafe. Note the orange carpet. popular for 80s libraries
B.J. McFarland and library worker in the LRC Media Center. This photo was likely taken in 1993. The heavy wooden furniture was finally removed in 2019; the metal shelving removed in the summer of 2023. The photo here shows a number of microfilm readers in the back - students would use article indexes, bound in heavy books, to look up articles on specific topics. They would write down the information, go to the microfilm drawers, find the boxes with the needed magazine or journal, look at the years printed on the boxes, locate the correct year, load the reel onto one of these machines, scroll to the right issue and pages numbers, read the article and print it out for later. A dumb terminal is visible on the reference desk. This was used to search the library's book catalog. By 1994 students could use these terminals to search electronic magazine and journal indexes as well. That made their job somewhat easier but they still had to use the microfilm.
This photo was taken in 2006. It shows the reference shelves and book shelves of the ECTC Library. The red books on the left are print indexes, and some instructors wanted students to use them, even in 2006.
2009. View of study carrels, study tables, newspaper table, computing area. The windows in the back form part of the AV room, which has since been converted to a Makerspace
Study tables. print index on the left. The colorful magazine holders on the shelves hold back issues of some periodicals. On the wall is a flat-screen TV, used for library classes. By 2006 most classrooms were set up with computers and projectors, and library classes were held in those classrooms.. The room next to the wall monitor was the Faculty Reading Room until 2001, when it served briefly as temporary headquarters for the new Dental Hygiene program, and then as a instruction technology center, equipped with digital sound and videorecording setups. It is currently one of the study rooms. This photo was taken in 2009.