Over the summer, Pittsburg State University welcomed Dr. Eric Deatherage as the new Dean of Library Services. Deatherage is looking to bring more modern technology to learning such as three-dimensional learning. After getting his doctorate in adult and lifelong learning three years ago on top of his two master’s degrees, he felt it was time for “a transition to a larger institution, but not too large.”
When asked if there were any new services he wanted to bring to the library, Deatherage explained that he wanted to introduce three-dimensional learning.
“The idea is to immerse a student into a 3D environment that they would not normally have access to in order to enhance their learning and enhance the opportunity for them to encode information into their long-term memory,” Deatherage said.
An example of this would be for a history class; they are learning about the Civil War and are able to use this resource to walk through the battlefields of various battles they have learned about in class to really cement the information with a semi-tangible experience. It is called experiential learning, “it gives you an experience with which your brain will tie the new information that you’re learning into a class into that experience.” It develops neural pathways that make it far more likely that the information will be encoded into long-term memory and enhance your ability to learn.
The position entails more than most people may think. The Dean of Library Services is tasked with “managing and maintaining all the finances, the physical space,” and “making sure that services are appropriate.” While there are people in charge of collection and development, he works and collaborates with all of them. Due to the position being as demanding as it is, he said he would be doing “some adjunct work here and there,” but not as much as before.
In terms of services that Deatherage is hoping to implement, he is hoping to develop a few technological enhancements. This ranges from making sure that there are multiple kinds of studying environments available, plenty of whiteboards for students to use, and using his experience in teaching and teaching theory to kit out the library to the best of his ability. He sees the library as “the largest action-based classroom at campus,” saying that he wants to enhance what students already have and to provide the knowledge, support, and resources they need to get from their freshman year through to graduation.
Some new immediate changes to the library will be that Room 202, a computer lab, will be changed from being available to the public to being a student-only lab and community members will be allowed to access almost any other computers in the library.
Before accepting the position of Dean of Library Services, he was a professor at Crowder College in Neosho for 15 years, 13 of those years being spent as Director of the Library, and about 10 of those years as their Lead Philosophy Instructor. He taught several subjects ranging from philosophy, ethics and law enforcement, and criminal justice. Before that, he was in law enforcement as a police officer and a canine handler in the Air Force, giving him wide and diverse background.
The library has a service that is not spoken about often: Students can call in and set an appointment to have a one-on-one consultation with a librarian to help with research. Students also have access to several databases that can assist with this research. On top of this, there are resources available to teach students how to research effectively so they can find all the credible sources needed for just about any research topic.
Deatherage looks forward to working with the library to maintain their programs and resources while also introducing upgrades to the communal learning environment.