The Arizona State University community gathered Friday, May 25 to celebrate the progressing transformation of its largest library at a groundbreaking ceremony, where ASU President Michael Crow and University Librarian Jim O'Donnell took a sledgehammer – literally – to old ideas about what a university library should be.
Speaking at the ceremony, Dr. Crow said the redesign of Hayden Library is one step in many to ensure that the library remains at the center of the ASU knowledge enterprise.
"There will always be at the heart of every great learning ogranization a library," said Crow. "In the core of the core of the core of this enterprise is the library – the place of mediated, articulated, verifiable and quantifiable knowledge, not random dither. You cannot have a core of a learning enterprise without that."