Lindenwood University is a growing, dynamic institution serving 15,600-students in St. Charles, Mo., and committed to educational excellence for nearly 200 years, since it was founded in 1827.
When it came time to update the student library, Lindenwood wanted to create an inviting, technology-rich environment with amenities and resources to help students succeed. To this end, they announced construction of a new 100,000-square-foot building called the Lindenwood Library and Academic Resources Center (LARC).
“In this day and age, libraries are shifting significantly,” explains TJ Rains, Lindenwood’s Vice President for Information Technology and CIO. “Print materials have gone down significantly. In its place, we’re pushing a lot of digital subscription services for content, areas for students to study, and collaboration spaces within the facility to encourage student, faculty and staff to work together on projects.”
In addition to a variety of academic support services, the LARC would include student community spaces, a multi-media lab, gaming spaces, a theater, group study rooms, classroom spaces, a Starbucks location and more inside the gorgeously designed, open-concept building.
For the collaboration spaces, Lindenwood added 20 general-use classrooms for teaching spaces to gather and work together when needed.
Since the LARC was designed as a state-of-the-art facility, the Lindenwood team was looking for the latest and greatest screen technology for these rooms. One major challenge, however, was that they had to contend with all the bright, natural light in the building.
To help bring their technology-rich library to life, Lindenwood worked with Mike Chitwood, Systems Sales Manager and audio-visual designer at Schillers, their preferred AV partner for many years.
For the classroom spaces, Lindenwood looked to Schillers to find a projection solution that provided a crisp, bright image in areas with an abundance of light.
The original wish list of the client would have included large flat panel displays in each classroom. However, based on viewing distances and cost constraints, Chitwood knew he had to bring another option to the table. He, saw Da-Lite’s ambient light rejecting (ALR) screen Parallax at InfoComm; Parallax blocks up to 96% of ambient light while offering extremely wide viewing angles. After further exploration of all options, the Schillers team implemented Parallax 0.8 in all 20 classroom spaces
According to the Schillers team, installing the Parallax screens in the community spaces was a breeze, and the solutions performed exactly as expected.
“The feedback has been very positive,” Rains shared. “Often times I hear that it’s better than an LCD or LED display. The crispness and vibrancy of the image is top notch.”
