Taubman Health Sciences Library reopens after $55M metamorphosis

The University of Michigan’s Taubman Health Sciences Library reopened as a transformed space for learning, teaching and gathering in August 2015.

After a $55 million renovation, the 35-year-old building on the U-M medical campus emerged from a metamorphosis that has made it into a new kind of library, and much more. The transformation turned the 143,400-square-foot facility into an all-digital, light-filled, dynamic learning space for future physicians, scientists and other health professionals.

It now serves as the central learning hub for U-M’s nearly 780 medical students. With dozens of classrooms and small-group meeting rooms, a realistic simulated clinic and advanced educational technology, it greatly expands and enhances students’ options to develop the knowledge and skills they’ll need as doctors, under a new curriculum now being phased in.

The building also provides lecture and advising space for the Medical School’s more than 1,100 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in biomedical sciences. U-M students studying public health, dentistry, pharmacy, social work, nursing and kinesiology can join medical students in many learning spaces specifically designed for new interprofessional education programs that emulate the health care teams they’ll find in their future careers.

“Today’s library can be anywhere, thanks to technology, yet there is still a desire for a physical location that facilitates collaboration, study and learning,” said Jane Blumenthal, associate university librarian and Taubman Library director. “We continue our 150-year tradition of medical information expertise to serve U-M and beyond.”