Capital Campaign

The Media Center

Remember that book that stirred your imagination? That changed your view of the world? What you discover in a library - what you read - can challenge you, motivate and exhilarate you. It can awaken you to realities and possibilities.

The anchor of any academic institution is its library. In a school that values the life of the mind, the library should be prominently located, aesthetically inviting, and supportive of all the learning endeavors of students and faculty. It should be equipped to bring the world into focus through technology. It should be THE place to study, read, contemplate, and learn.

Manlius Pebble Hill’s library is currently located in the basement of the Amos Building, far from the flow of student activities and classrooms. The square footage of the library has not changed in recent decades, even though enrollment has more than doubled. The library must accommodate all grades in a single space, so a teacher may be reading aloud to a group of Second Graders in one area of the library while Juniors are researching constitutional law a few feet away. Without dedicated spaces for small group work, teachers and students feel the frustration of balancing the advantages of group work with the need of others for quiet study, research, and reading. In short, the existing library is poorly equipped to serve the current needs of students and faculty.

The new Media Center will be built at the back of McNeil, overlooking the Chappell athletic field. In addition to distinct spaces for the Lower School and Middle/Upper School libraries, the building will include a reading room, a variety of small spaces for teaching, group work, and individual research, a computer lab, and two additional classrooms. The new Media Center will allow the library’s book collection to grow from 11,000 to 20,000 volumes. Acknowledging that we now live in an age of instant information, the design provides for a technology infrastructure to integrate online and print resources seamlessly throughout the library.

The library should be a space that brings us all together while meeting our different needs - from First Graders gathered in a circle to hear a story and Model United Nations students researching global warming to a meeting space for the Board of Trustees and a quiet place for an alumnus to rekindle memories. The new Media Center will become just this space - a central meeting place for students and faculty, anchoring the School, telling the world what we value, and serving the entire school community.