FAST FACTS
WHO: The Knowledge and Discovery Center
WHERE: New private / public real estate development in downtown Carson City. Located on about six acres of land owned by the Mae B. Adams Trust, roughly between Robinson, Musser, Carson & Stewart streets.
WHY: Nationwide, recently-built libraries are offering spaces and services that are transforming communities. In cities such as Durango, Colorado; Bozeman, Montana; and Cheyenne, Wyoming, public libraries buzz with constant activity, ring cash registers in nearby, areas and host family and community-focused activities and events. In fact, new public libraries are seen by urban planners as true economic catalysts.
The role of new libraries is wedded to the changing economic landscape, both locally and globally. The shift of the last two decades to a global information economy demands different, non-routine, interactive and analytic skills, and lifetime learning, for the 21st century workforce. Libraries offer rich and authentic content, modern libraries add immediate accessibility to the latest knowledge. Staff foster lifelong learning, as well as help people build and keep marketable skills. To that end, libraries and the people they serve are becoming more purposeful and intentional in addressing the learning needs of the new economy.
Technology and media literacy skills, communications skills, cross-disciplinary thinking skills, health literacy skills, financial and business skills … all … and more, can be acquired in the library setting as part of self-directed lifelong learning. Of course, libraries will never replace institutions of formal learning, but the reality is that people today, youth as well as adults, spend much of their lives learning outside the walls of formal classrooms. In modern libraries, teenagers as well as adults can participate in out-of-school programs that enhance formal education and better prepare them for the workforce.
Input from community-wide surveys, focus groups and suggestions recognize a new library facility in downtown would become even more valuable, and an indispensible part of the fabric of community life. In November 2009, the Mae B. Adams Trust opened the door for turning what was formerly a dream for a new library, into an attainable reality.
The Mae B. Adams Trust’s mission guided its proposal to facilitate the construction of a new library. With mission in mind, the Trust determined that a new Knowledge and Discovery Center in the heart of downtown would be pivotal to strengthening the skills of teenagers, and could be the anchor of a project aimed to provide an economic boost to the entire community.
The Carson City Knowledge + Discovery Center project is a result of years of planning that has fostered a cooperative venture to promote economic diversity, learning and sustainability. It combines community investment with private philanthropic resources to create a vibrant economic and civic core in Nevada's State Capital.
