This summer brought many significant changes to the TBC library, under the leadership of library director Dr. John Lucy, who has been at TBC since the fall semester of 2011.

The library has been rearranged to provide more space for students to sit and study. Large shelves and bulky filing cabinets have been moved or downsized. Chairs and tables have been provided for students to sit and read a book, do homework, or work on a paper.

Another major change is the addition of an online library page. “When I arrived here, there was no internet presence at all, so the college library had no homepage; it was nonexistent,” Lucy said.

“The library had actually gone unchanged for twenty years,” Lucy said. As he sat in his office, legs crossed and hands tapping, it was apparent that this was an exciting topic for him to discuss. Talk to him for just a few minutes, and it will become clear that he is no average librarian. He has been a librarian for nineteen years and holds a Master of Science degree in Library Science. In just the past year, Lucy has been able to reorganize the library and add badly needed improvements to its environment.

The library’s new page includes links to the library catalog, the Library Information Resource Network (the online databases Trinity subscribes to), the Jacksonville Public Library system, and the Florida Electronic Library, as well as various writing aids such as the research paper guidelines and a Turabian quick reference guide. Students can find a large collection of links to theological sources. The site also contains Trinity’s first-ever “digital commons”, which is storage space for dissertations written by Trinity faculty. Also on the library page, students can find links to news and weather sites and a blog entitled, “The Professor’s Bookshelf,” a collection of faculty book recommendations.

Lucy takes inspiration for library projects from the students who use the library. He said, “[The changes] were really prompted by you students. You all needed more space to study. That was the main idea.”

Ever the optimist, Lucy has a list of new plans and projects. Comfortable furniture, such as large plush chairs and ottomans, are among these plans, with the goal to provide students with more comfortable seating. Having an area equipped with coffee and small snacks is also in the making, to create a coffee-shop environment. Lucy’s main objective is to make the library an area where students want to come and spend time. Plans are in the works to provide touchscreen eReaders, equipped with classic novels. “I want it to be an enjoyable experience, and make it fun for students. And I’ll be probably be hogging the eReaders myself,” Lucy joked.

Another big change will be shelving. The wooden shelves now holding the books are damaging to the exterior of the books. For that reason, metal bookshelves are a necessity in the near future. Lucy is also looking to add projectors to rooms L1 and L2, to provide additional classroom space.