At the academic crossroads of campus and attached to the Georgia Tech Library, the G. Wayne Clough Undergraduate Learning Commons (clough.gatech.edu) is Tech’s visible commitment to its undergraduate students. Clough Commons, which is open 24 hours a day (virtually every day of the year), offers 220,000 square feet of classrooms, science labs and learning spaces. With more than 2,000 seats in common areas, two large auditoria, classrooms and group study rooms that can be reserved for any day and time, the search for a functional place to study is much easier. Clough Commons contains 41 classrooms, most with state-of-the-art technology, as well as studios for students to practice presentations. The variety of learning environments includes traditional and not-so-traditional classrooms, sunlit open seating areas, art exhibit space, Starbucks and a roof garden complete with trees and benches. Plus, the rooms can be reconfigured to suit a particular project or teaching style.

But Clough Commons is much more than aesthetics and technology. The building is designed to be an active place in which students get help with all things academic in one central location. Clough Commons houses many essential student services such as tutoring, communications support and academic advising. The Office of Information Technology is also onsite to provide computing and technology support.

The Georgia Tech Library, which is physically connected to Clough Commons on two floors, provides research and advising assistance, scholarly resources and a variety of services. The Library is open 24 hours almost every day of the week (closing on Friday and Saturday evenings and Sunday mornings). Many users utilize the Library’s outstanding research tools, expansive journal collection, print and electronic books, databases and state-of-art computer resources. However, students may not be aware that they have a personal librarian at Georgia Tech! Subject librarians are paired with every major at Georgia Tech, and students can contact their subject expert for individualized research assistance to help finish those projects and papers successfully.

In addition, library faculty and staff also teach numerous “drop in” classes on a wide array of subjects including: writing literature reviews, data visualization, avoiding plagiarism, finding accurate data and statistics, multimedia software such as Photoshop and InDesign, and much more! These classes are free of charge and offered throughout the academic year.

Library staff and faculty are available to assist Georgia Tech students in a variety of ways. For example, students can now easily set up a chat session with library staff anytime of the day or night, email their question, call, or drop by the building and get one-on-one research help from expert library employees.

The Georgia Tech Library and Clough Commons complex is the 24/7 academic crossroads of campus. Students will undoubtedly utilize the many spaces for studying but we hope they will also engage with the many academic support services at the Clough Commons, as well as get to know their personal subject librarians and the many services and resources provided by the Library.