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Presents the development of the Information Commons in the new Lied Library at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, from conceptualization to realization. Discusses the goals of the facility, including the need to create a space that simultaneously supports access, collaboration, and production in scholarly endeavors. Also addresses the impact of the Information Commons concept on patterns of service, and illustrates the challenges in designing Information Commons workstations, including such considerations as user authentication and resources for those with disabilities.

The issues involved in the planning for Research and Information Services at the Lied Library are discussed. Planning took place over an 11‐year period and required ongoing flexibility and adaptability to change during the extended time between initial planning and opening day. Some decisions regarding technology were made so late in the process that their full impact on services was not known until they were experienced when the building opened for use.

To provide an overview of building use in Lied Library at UNLV from the Library's opening in 2001 through early 2004 and to provide and update on the implications of the ramifications of that use for staff and users.

Use and visitation statistics are highlighted and factors associated with the use, such as overall design, policy changes, new services and resources as well as campus context are presented.

The experiences at UNLV's Lied Library indicate that the concept of “library as place” still matters; that an awe‐inspiring and esthetically pleasing design can produce a very functional building and that still matters; that continually evolving user‐focused services still matter; and that, for the library to continue to matter in the lives of its users, it must continue to adapt to its campus context, to collaborate successfully with campus partners and to respond effectively to the constantly changing context of information delivery and knowledge promotion.

It is important that librarians working in new libraries take time to review the successes and possible unintended consequences or shortcomings that result from their building projects, to identify the toll that success may take, and to appreciate the value and necessity of continued evolution even in a new building.

The observations presented may prove useful to librarians preparing for and assessing post‐move‐in experiences in their new libraries. Practical tips on preparing for and handling national and international visitors are also provided and suggestions for future action are given.

To provide an introduction to a two‐volume special issue on Lied Library at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas that focuses on major changes, new services, and technology issues four years after the opening of the new main library.

A total of 18 articles are featured, including a graphical time line of events, post‐construction thoughts, web site redesign, organizational change, the automated storage and retrieval system (LASR), and a virtual branch library, among other topics. Nine articles each will be published in Vol. 23, No. 1 and Vol. 23, No. 3 (2005). Readers should also access articles written three years previously in Vol. 20, No. 1 (2002) of Library Hi Tech titled “The New Lied Library at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas: focus on the planning and implementation of technology and change”.

Technology and change in the construction of a new main library can assist and guide others contemplating similar library construction, reorganization projects, and technology and digital implementations.

An introduction to the two‐part special issue.

This paper summarizes the changes in the organization and services of the Research and Information Department since moving into Lied Library.

Includes a description of reorganization and strategic planning efforts of the department, along with possible future direction for the evolution of services, space utilization and staffing.

The reality of living in the new facility, Lied Library, proved to require changes not envisioned during the planning phase. Lied Library is not a static environment. Allocation of space and the way services are provided to customers continue to evolve.

This paper will be helpful to others planning a new academic library, and highlights the need for ongoing planning and evaluation of services after the building project is completed. It also describes successful and less successful strategic planning efforts for an academic reference department.

Stuart Scheingold's path-breaking The Politics of Rights ignited scholarly interest in the political mobilization of rights. The book was a challenge to the reigning popular and scholarly common sense regarding the supposedly self-executing nature of rights (what Scheingold called the “myth of rights”). Rights, Scheingold argued, could be resources for the pursuit of social change; but their realization in court doctrine and legislative output was not itself tantamount to meaningful social change. Thus embedded in The Politics of Rights is skepticism (or at least ambivalence) about the utility of rights politics for social movements. Scheingold was not ambivalent about the moral or normative value of rights themselves, although he did argue that the realization of rights was not by itself enough to overcome the manifold inequalities that structure modern life. The Politics of Rights, accordingly, is clear-eyed, but not cynical about rights advocacy. It is thus surprising, and keenly revealing, that Scheingold's final work – The Political Novel, which is ostensibly not about rights at all – points to mass cynicism, alienation, and the collapse of faith in governing institutions and logics as the animating elements of modern liberal democracies, including especially the United States. That rights are a vital part of the civic mythology whose collapse defines modern times suggests that the civil rights context of aspiration and struggle in which Scheingold, and nearly all of his followers (this author included), have conceived rights may be unnecessarily narrow. Rights may also be embedded, that is, in the modern condition of alienation, despair, and felt powerlessness. Inspired by Scheingold's investigation of how literature points to this modern condition of political estrangement, I offer an alternative backdrop for The Politics of Rights that is rooted in the bleak renderings of the American character found in much 1970's American popular and intellectual culture. Such a contextualization, I will argue, suggests that we envision The Political Novel as a companion piece to The Politics of Rights; together they illuminate both the mobilizing and demobilizing potential of the myth of rights.