New Look for the Learning Commons

By Tiye Bracy | Published by September 24th, 219 

In case students are wondering what’s new in the Nancy Thompson Learning Commons (NTLC), many of the computers have been spread out.

“On all three floors, we created computer clusters because students wanted to have computers in different areas with printing abilities,” said Director of Digital Information Resources Muhammad Hassan. 

In addition, Grammarly has been installed on all desktop computers in the NTLC. Grammarly is a device that helps students spot mistakes such as word choice or spelling when writing. 

The amount of physical books located in the library has also been reduced, focusing more on ebooks.

“We’ve subscribed to another database that provides 155,000 ebooks to all students at a given time,” Hassan said. 

The customer service that students receive now was adopted from Apple with the director’s idea originating from his visit to the Apple store.

The NTLC workers now use IPads to better assist students by creating tickets. 

When a student needs help they can ask any NTLC Student Assistant sitting at the front desk. If the student can answer the question, the request does not need to be ticketed. However, if the student does not know the answer, then a ticket will be created. 

The tickets get assigned to the librarians or administrative staff. These tickets are accessible to the staff and person needing help on any of their devices. Once the ticket is received, the staff member will typically respond within five minutes.

“Here at Kean, we like to listen to what students are requesting,” Hassan said. “Students wanted a quiet study area, cubicles, new carpet, and to have an interaction with the library staff.”

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