LibQUAL+® and the Evolution of “Library as Place” at Radford University,
2001-2007
Eric Ackermann (Radford University)

Using Evidence for Space Planning
Kathryn Crowe (University of North Carolina at Greensboro)
Michael A. Crumpton (University of North Carolina at Greensboro)

Wayfinding Revisited: Improved Techniques for Solving Usability Problems in Physical
Spaces
Agnes Tatarka (University of Chicago)
David K. Larsen (University of Chicago)

...and more at: http://libraryassessment.org/schedule/index.shtml

Photo courtesy of ALA American Libraries Direct

Best Library in the East Bay Express' "Best of the East Bay 2008" and Best Family-Friendly Library in Diablo Magazine's "Best of the East Bay 2008"!!!

What I find most striking about both of the write-ups is that the focus is really on the library as place......both as a good place in itself to be and as a good place within the larger community center area in which we're located. There is brief mention about our collections and no mention about our staff or other services/programs we provide (other than a mention of wireless access and public computers). I am okay with this, as I figure that if our staff and services weren't good - people wouldn't want to visit regardless of how nice the space is!

But, really - the focus is on the library as a nice, comfortable, pleasant place to be and to work. And - the bigger picture - the art gallery outside the library, the water fountains in the Plaza, meeting rooms, the park next door - and, yes, both mention the Cafe downstairs.

Its really about the library and the way we're integrated into the community space. I commend the planners who had the vision when they relocated the Library here in 2001 and I also see this trend playing out in new library projects throughout the county and throughout the nation.

We really are part of a bigger story in people's lives - what they look to from their neighborhoods, from their community, from their cities.

They're crossing boundaries other libraries only dream of, and they're situated in such a way that makes this possible.

Being the 10th UC campus, they have access to the impressive California Digital Library (CDL) - 20,000 full text electronic journals - as well as quick access the extensive print collection throughout the system. While their own print holdings are minimal, the loan system among the UC Libraries is fast and very active, getting all local materials to library users within 48 hours of request. Their acquisition philosophy is "tell us what you want" - meaning they primarily (if not only) buy what is specifically asked for by students, faculty & staff. That is their priority and built into their budget.

The library building has only a handful of desktop computers, but they have about 200 laptops being circulated at any given time. Their first year circulation stats showed that laptops were checked-out far more often than print materials.

There is one service point in the 4 story library, and it is staffed primarily by student workers. That's right. While other libraries are struggling to make the case for pulling librarians from the desk, UC Merced isn't even scheduling staff members let alone professional librarians.

Donald Barclay, the Deputy Director, wants to get rid of 4 things in libraries - reference, instruction, the OPAC, and the website. Say what? While this freaks people out (and for good reason as this sounds like the core of many of our jobs!), the idea is to not ask "how do I do X" but to ask the bigger question, "what do you want to do?" This can open your eyes to the bigger picture of what services we're ultimately trying to provide, and exploring the most effective means of doing so.

So is this the example of what research libraries will be in the future? Could be. If nothing else, perhaps this library can inspire us to take those risks, ask those tough questions, and move forward with passion, creativity, and vision.

I know it will all be back in August, better and shinier for having been cleaned, reorganized, had new HVAC and windows installed, with a fresh crop of students to populate the space... but for now, this just feels like a shell of my workplace, and a shell of my work. If there are no students while we're closed for three months, who are we? The daily presence of our users really keeps me focused on why I do what I do, and this is an odd moment for me. I may have to start working some afternoons in the Student Union Food Court, if only to remind myself of the community I serve. (Also, they have pizza.)

Given that I just finished assembling a Pecha Kucha style presentation on the current relationship of the College Libraries to a Learning Commons, and our future therein, this shell of a building, devoid of users, feels really hollow. We don't exist to be a library; we exist to serve our community of learners. Without the learners, is there a library?

This summer the answer is a forcible "yes, of course there is". But I may have to lean on that pizza to remind myself that the ideas that sparkle with brilliance from the futon in my home office may not shine so bright when held up to the light of our libraries and our users.

For that less-than-three man-hours, what an amazing return.

When I came up from the basement today at 6, having eaten my quick microwaved dinner before my reference shift, I stepped out of the elevator to a library full of stress being busted. Four students were gathered around the table by the printer, armed with colored pencils, collaborating on several Sudoku. Six others were pulled up around the center lobby table, playing with a barrel o' monkeys and coloring pictures with crayons. Two girls were sitting on the carpeted bench, playing with tinker toys. A student had pulled a stool over to the standing-height table and was thoroughly engrossed in the jigsaw puzzle. Two other students were dropping their backpacks and picking up the mini-putter and golf balls.

Things may get worse in the next ten days. Craziness may ensue as final paper deadlines loom and exams begin and graduation sneaks up on us and grades firm up and dreams get too heavy to bear. But tonight, this building is full of students, working hard, and playing, too. And I like it.

(Even if Holly did report to me that one student needed to be told "the whiffle ball and bat are for use outside on the quad.")

Gayton contends that creating social spaces in the library is the wrong response to this problem. He argues that it is a mistake for libraries to conflate library space with social space, because that is not the original design and intent behind the academic library. He says that students value the library not as a social space, but as a communal space. A communal space, as described by Gayton, allows library users to engage in solitary study and to see others doing the same.

The problem is that the social model undermines something that is highly valued in academic libraries: the communal nature of quiet, serious study. Communal activity in academic libraries is a solitary activity: it is studious, contemplative, and quiet. Social activity is a group activity: it is sometimes studious, not always contemplative, and certainly not quiet.

I had not really given much thought to the distinction between communal and social space before, so Gayton's take on this topic was very thought-provoking. I vacillate between valuing social spaces in the library, because they help create a pleasant and welcoming atmosphere, and being critical of social spaces, because I think they can enable unrealistic expectations of what passes as acceptable behavior. (Students want to eat in the library and balk at being asked to take their cell phone calls elsewhere. They are permitted to do these sorts of things in just about any other social space, so why not the library?) I want to preserve and encourage the welcoming, safe atmosphere of the academic library, but not at the expense of discouraging studiousness.

However, I found myself questioning his privileging of solitary study space over group study space or social spaces. Certainly there is a need for quiet space where students can work alone in peace, but I don't think that this need is more important than space were students can work together and, yes, socialize while they are at it. There is value in collaborative study. Group study rooms in our library are very popular, especially during the last few weeks of the semester, and these spaces allow students to talk openly and work together while still faciliating studious activity. Gayton cites a study that examines academic library construction and renovation, and according to this study:

The only kind of study space singled out [for study] is group study space, and it was found "that there was no demonstrable relationship between the number of group study rooms and facility use." This suggests that even with the rise of social models of knowledge and learning, and greater reliance on group projects in higher education, students do not greatly value collaborative spaces.

My response to that was: Really? Seriously? I would like to invite these researchers to the Indiana University Southeast library, especially near the end of the semester. There were times this past semester when every single group study room was reserved simultaneously. I would argue that the use of, and the demand for, group study rooms in our library contradicts these research findings.

Ultimately, while I concur with Gayton about the importance of solitary study space, I do not think that this kind of space is more important than other kinds. I think if we provide equal amounts of both communal and social study place, we are doing our best to provide students with as many options as possible. The academic library is the intellectual center of the campus community, and given that our campus community is composed of a diverse group of people with equally diverse needs and desires, we should try to offer something that will appeal to as many library users as possible. So please: come to our library and enjoy some coffee and our cozy, soft furnishings. Please enjoy our quiet zone on the lower level of the library, or reserve a group study room if that's your thing. Whatever it is you need, please just come, and we hope that you feel both welcome and supported while you are here.

Every semester we open for 24 hours for three weeks, and every year students move in. They bring coffee makers and popcorn poppers, pillows and blankets, and all manner of controlled (and uncontrolled) substances. And every year we librarians gather about and condemn: They're moving in! But is this such a terrible thing? Does it just mean that we're succeeding in our efforts to provide a safe and welcoming environment for scholarship?

When relocating from your home to somewhere like Las Vegas, you stop and think about Place in a new way. For example, from his office window he sees a pyramid, and from his library’s top floor you see a 10 story banner of Barry Manilow. What does that mean about his library as place, or our libraries as place?

Every place has its own features, functions, and challenges – this room would not work well for a conversation. It’s designed for a lecture. UNLV has a great learning commons in a relatively new building, with excellent furniture – which is all wired into the floor and bolted together. So the space was designed well, but not designed for flexibility. In part, this is linked to the fact that ten years ago future-oriented librarians and thinkers were predicting the end of the physical library – libraries would become ‘an abstraction’, virtual, or unnecessary. Five years ago future-oriented librarians and thinkers, having remained non-abstract, started thinking about the library as place in a new information environment.

Common characteristics of learning commons: Moveable furniture, wireless infrastructure, laptop support, group study options, multimedia production, rich application suite, laptop loans, large scale printers, white boards, smart boards, tutoring, writing services, vending machines, practice presentation suites. (All of these are designed in support of the need of the learner at any given point in time – not the need of the ‘library’ to be ‘a library’.)

Common Concepts: Flexibility that can be defined and implemented by the learner in a variety of spaces “If you have a tree and a wireless network, you have a classroom”, in support of collaboration, stimulation, and user-friendly human-centered interactions. Libraries interested in being a learning place need to bring together content, services, technology, and environment into one coherent and user-centered whole. Access is not enough; users can access information and teaching outside of the physical library, so the library must be more than access in order to stay relevant.

All of this is a response to the cognitive theory of constructivism – “active construction of knowledge by the learner” – learners construct knowledge by understanding new things and building on current understanding, by drawing on their environment and their trusted experts – which are often their friends.

4 assumptions: Space can hinder or facilitate learning. Environmental effects are moderated by other factors. Space should match teaching objectives, learning styles, and social setting. Space should be treated the same as materials and preparation.

(That last one is a seriously interesting statement. Great services plus great materials plus terrible physical environment = unsuccessful learning interaction. That’s a big idea to unpack in the context of underfunded and neglected physical plant resources. We, in MPOW, have gotten very good at thinking about space, particularly about our space and its strengths and weaknesses, but I don’t think we’ve ever prioritized it as highly as we do our materials and our services. Perhaps we need to be…)

Interesting question: “If our computers are not better than the laptop the students already own, why will they come to use ours? That’s why we include Adobe Creative Suite on our computers” (Value-added computing! Quick, get all those “for library use only” computers out of your libraries, and put in USEFUL stuff.)

Audience question: If you have a small budget and a mandate to make an information commons, what would you prioritize? Tom says flexible furniture and physical resources – move some furniture around, allow them to move furniture around, maybe buy some whiteboards on rollers. (I would add, “get wireless” to that, so the students can leverage the other things you can do.) Another audience member follows up with “leverage campus resources”, and bring the writing center into the library, bring in the tutoring services, etc, to create a learning one-stop shop.

(Awesome bunch of ideas and tips to consider. Lots of thinking for me/us to do on this issue... particularly in light of the whole "not likely to ever get a whole new library" perspective -- what can we do NOW?)

I hope your Vernal Equinox and your potential Easter celebrations went smooth and hopefully with much less snow than mine did.

(photo taken by Yenna, posted on Flickr with the tag "Winter sucks"...I agree)

But all this winter snow in Spring has given me some time to stew and grow more and more annoyed with this article:

Our Public Libraries Are Being Turned Into Video Arcades

and the fuddy duddy librarians who are rallying around it, as if this was a good point.

I would like to take one particular response to the article and break it down into it's ridiculous components. Why you ask? Because it's sad. And angering. And wrong.

Posted by anonymous in response to the LISNews blog about the article:

Wow. Just wow. That's right people. Librarians like that actually still exist. Sad, yes?Let's debunk that statement.

"this is just part of the problem with public libraries since they forgot what they were in the early nineties"

What is a library? According to the free online dictionary:

li·brar·y

(lbrr)

n. pl. li·brar·ies

1.

a. A place in which literary and artistic materials, such as books, periodicals, newspapers, pamphlets, prints, records, and tapes, are kept for reading, reference, or lending.

b. A collection of such materials, especially when systematically arranged.

c. A room in a private home for such a collection.

d. An institution or foundation maintaining such a collection.

2. A commercial establishment that lends books for a fee.

3. A series or set of books issued by a publisher.

4. A collection of recorded data or tapes arranged for ease of use.

5. A set of things similar to a library in appearance, function, or organization: a library of computer programs.

6. Genetics A collection of cloned DNA sequences whose location and identity can be established by mapping the genome of a particular organism.

So there's a definition. But truly, a library is what a community makes of it. A library can be as big, or as small, as the school, city, business or organization it serves provides it to be.

So libraries can be this:

But libraries can also be this:

(this picture was taken by The Shifted Librarian at DOK Delft, one of the hippest libraries in the world)

Needless to say a library, a building, an inanimate object, does not forget what it is. A community, a school....people change it when they see a need for change.

Back to the hater:

"and decided to become this hybrid amazon.com/barnes and noble/arcade/rec center ordeal that we have now"

This comment implies that a library cannot change to keep up to date with the times. That a book-store style of library, or a library catalog that has pictures and words that everyone understands in it....are bad things. Let me direct you back to a blog I posted about librarian stereotypes. If change does not occur, if keeping up to date with modern trends...not just in libraries but in the whole world

If these things do not occur, then it is logical that the entity will cease to exist. I recommend this poster reads a little something called The Origin of the Species by means of natural selection by Charles Darwin. Check out the bit on survivial of the fittest. Apply.

Let's continue:

"I am a young adult librarian"

Really? Well that's quite a surprise. Because most teen librarians that I know...totally rock.

"and soon we will be losing ref desks for kiosks so that we are encouraged to wander around and bother the patrons ala target employees"

First, Target employees certainly do not walk around bothering people...or even asking if you need help. They are few and far between. And would it really be so bad to get rid of those awful reference desks that scare the bejeezes out of most patrons? Wandering around and asking people for help...well that's just helpful. Not bothersome.

"this is sad. the video game aspect, while i don't agree with it, isn't the libraries fault. we have books here. we just have adult and children too stupid to read them now"

As soon as I read that sentence...well it took every bone in my librarian body to not pick up a volume of the OED and chuck it across the reference section.

And no, the typo in the sentence does not make it any better.

Talk about a total loss of hope.

Not just in libraries...or even librarians...but humanity as a whole.

It's sad.

So I suggest to reading this to cleanse your palate of that awful taste of bitter librarian:

Videogames and Martinis: 25 years later

It's much more useful than calling someone stupid....which as librarians we should all know....is just no excuse for poor service.

Have a lovely week, fair readers! And do yourself a favor, play some video games. :)

That's the eternal library computer lab question, isn't it? Libraries struggle with it more than plain-vanilla computer labs, I would guess, in that we have a history with computers in our libraries. When we got them eons ago, they were for our newly computerized catalogs, then for research using CD-ROM resources, and then for searching proprietary networked databases. Computers were few and far between (and sometimes still are), and therefore were hot commodities, and we had a tendency to want to 'protect' them for 'library' use. Signs and policies sprang up. "NO EMAIL ON THIS COMPUTER" and "ONE HOUR USE" and "RESEARCH USE ONLY". Librarians began to need to troubleshoot computers, and this only exacerbated the frustration about "real library work" and "the computers".

That's all changing (more slowly at times than I think is reasonable). Only slowly have libraries begun putting in fully-functional computer workstations, replete with office software, SPSS, image manipulation programs, and the much a-feared openly available web browser. Only slowly have librarians begun to accept that they needed to understand the hardware running the software that makes 'real library work' possible. Only slowly have libraries come to recognize that if they support academic work, they cannot define which academic tasks can be done at their workstations. And still the conversations persist, about how many students are wasting valuable seats (because there are never enough computers, frankly) by IMing, checking their email, and using Facebook rather than doing "real library work".

I have all the sympathy in the world for the student who just came to the desk, and as he asked his question a computer opened up, I pointed him to it, and the problem was solved. I also followed him, and as his computer booted up told him that if he ever has the same problem again he can tell the reference librarian, and whoever is working will make an announcement that the computers are in high demand, and request that anyone who can do their work later and/or elsewhere please do so in order to allow others to do research. It works better than you might expect. Our students are considerate of each others' needs, and are kind in their use of our resources. So I'm happy to make that request when we're packed, in an attempt to find a workstation for a student in need.

What I'm not willing to do is go and solicit specific people to get off the computers -- insist that they be freed up for 'real library work' -- based on what they appear to be working on. That kid with Facebook front and center and several IM windows open might, for all I know, be working on a group project with classmates living off-campus, doing the research portion in the library while they put together the PowerPoint in their apartment, IMing about their progress. Or he might be organizing next week's chess club pizza social, using campus-provided computing resources to post it on Facebook and print posters. He might be studying for his next exam, asking his buddy for help over IM with a hard question on the review sheet, and checking Facebook as a break. Or might be talking to his girlfriend. I can't know which one's closer to the truth, and therefore I can't intervene. Not in good faith, because I also can't know if the kid asking for a computer to do 'real library work' just wants to send an email to his girlfriend. And I can't care. Just as it's not my job to decide which reference question is more important than any other, just as it's not my job to assess whose information need takes priority, it's not my job to make one patron's computing needs more important than another, even if one of them doesn't appear to be doing "real" library work.

Because what the hell is library work, anymore? If it's restricted to using databases, searching the local catalog, photocopying articles, and checking out books, we're dead in the water as a profession. It has to be more than that, be a synthesis of learning and doing and researching and working and talking and living in an information-rich technological age. We have to be more than we were if we want to continue to promote our core values, which means that 'real library work' is ... whatever the users want to do in the library.

And that's fine with me.

The rewards are unbelievable.

During the week of the semester when student tension runs high, the building is packed to the gills, and the number of visible and audible freak-outs skyrockets, it's utterly charming to see students coloring in snowmen with crayons, building houses out of lincoln logs, playing with trucks in a sandbox, and miniputting. Watching them play checkers, do Sudoku with their friends, and play with a Barrel O'Monkeys is equally cool. And the best part is knowing that maybe, just maybe, that opportunity to take ten minutes to just chill out before they go back to studying prevented them from being one of the freaking-out students, the crying students, or the utterly depressed students. We put out "tell us what you think" sheets with markers attached, and the comments are uniformly positive (though last semester they asked for easier jigsaw puzzles, because it wasn't stress relief if they were too hard... so we bought easier puzzles.).

Twenty dollars and a few hours to make our students' worklife a little nicer at the hardest part of the semester? Totally worth it.

----------------
Now playing: Traveling Wilburys - Not Alone Anymore
via FoxyTunes

As you may have noticed my blogging has trailed off a bit. Apologies abound.

The job search is certainly taking a toll, not only on my time but also a wee bit of my sanity.

Don't worry. We'll get through this.

In the meantime, I would love to share this video, created by library students, about library as place.

It's clever. It's well made. It's such a damn good point. It centers on the Harold Washington Library.

Plus, they use a really good Aphex Twin song at the end...which makes me oh so happy.

So soon I will be back to my regular opinionated self, blogging probably more than I should. Promise. Until then....voila

Check out what these library students are saying about designing a library, either signage, policies, physical place, or atomosphere.

There's been a lot of talk over the past decade or so about libraries taking successful retail models such as Barnes & Noble for inspiration in this regard, sometimes to unnecessary extremes.  Just a few months ago the Maricopa Library System in Arizona even proposed dismantling the DDC in favor of a bookstore-type classification system. 

Ironically, at the same time it seems that the bookstores themselves are feeling the economic repercussions of being too comfortable and considering returning to more traditional digs, sans the cushy couches where customers can use the merchandise without paying.  This is traditionally where the library steps in - more powerfully than ever now that we have learned important lessons about creating spaces where people choose to go, even if that means buying new furniture and allowing food and drinks.

Effective online library "places" are working to become more comfortable as well. Most OPACs are hindered by cumbersome text-only displays. While many of our patrons inhabit only our online places, this is something like the equivalent of a library consisting entirely of a card catalog. Maybe this is slowly changing. For example, Book Shelf View is an idea developed by Sandra Rotenberg of the Solano Community College Library in California. Basically, it is a visual keyword search where the results display as highlighted books on actual shelves in the stacks that can be browsed. Like browsing physical library shelves, the idea plays upon the benefits of collocation and serendipity. You could "pick up" the books and skim the contents by clicking on the spine. What a great idea!

Other musings on the subject of the improved ILS have saturated the literature of late, with some notable ideas such as Marshall Breedings' Next Generation Library Catalogs which discusses, among other things, web overlay functionality in detail.

While I may prefer to browse physical libraries and read physical books, I understand the desire of patrons to do both online, with (nearly) equal functionality. E-books have long been a reality, why not a true E-library? Why should online users be denied Library as Place (even if they have to provide their own cushy couches)?