Shhhhh… Quiet Please

College kids today don’t know the Dewey Decimal System from the card catalog… and they’re happy about it. As modern college libraries evolve into learning centers, group activities and multi-person projects rule. Technology supports this new learning style, as do new furniture configurations, and yes, even on-site coffee shops. What does your school’s library need to keep pace?

“Today’s libraries are the central nerve center for the academics on campus as well as an important social environment,” said Alison Morgan, assistant director for the information resources center at Cincinnati’s Xavier University. “Students still use the space to conduct research, but they prepare presentations as well, and they do these activities in groups.”
 
Books Take a Back Seat
“The traditional stacks of books are growing more and more secondary,” agreed Joe Tattoni, principal, Ikon.5 Architects. “Silent, single scholarship still happens, but on a smaller scale. The new model is more of a learning commons with lots of people working intently in groups. Low speaking tones are acceptable, as are coffee and snacks.”

There are plenty of other places on a college campus to get food and drink, but offering a cafe in this venue speaks to the new collaborative/social nature of the library. As does the way students prepare a presentation. It starts right when they come in and check out a net book or laptop computer.

“Yes students come to college with their own computer, but they are cumbersome to lug around campus,” explained Dr. John Stemmer, director of the library at Bellarmine University in Louisville, KY. “They prefer to just borrow one from the library while they are there.”

“Librarians love the portability of a laptop,” Tattoni concurred. “Five years ago we would install lots of hardware in the reference room, but it turns out that that was taxing on the library staff. Now when users have a question, they can take the laptop to the librarian instead of the librarian running all over the facility.” Yes, laptops are more delicate than desktops, but as the price has come down over the years, users have become savvier about their use.

Wireless technology keeps information flowing throughout the learning space, but supplying power still remains an issue. Yet the trade off of lots of power outlets for flexibility is proving a valuable one. “Elaborate computer stations have become obsolete,” said Tattoni, “except in basic computer/bibliographic instruction rooms, or in a medical library, where you need the speed to download large, detailed files.”
 
People Working Cooperatively
Group projects demand a place to conduct group work. Today’s students don’t want to huddle around a single, small computer screen to prepare PowerPoint, Excel, or video presentations. “We did a prototype of a collaborative learning zone that featured five big plasma screens,” said Morgan. “Students could check out a cable that allowed them to project their work on the screen. Flexible furniture made the work area even more effective.”
 
Morgan and a team of designers watched how students used the space and the furniture in this prototype. The users were not shy about moving the furnishings around to suit their needs. They even went so far as to gather movable white boards and create private study areas. “This let us know that we needed to provide smaller study nooks in large social learning areas,” said Morgan.

Tattoni is seeing a similar trend. “We are installing dual workstations with two flat screens along with small, four- to five-person rooms with a built-in monitor in each room,” he said. A more complete use of media has also made its way into the library as more students use video and audio to learn, present, and communicate. “I’m not sure where this is heading, but along with film and media centers we may see streaming videos and live broadcasts make their way into the library,” continued Tattoni.

What Tattoni and the rest are assuredly seeing is an inclusion of campus-wide, non-traditional library functions being housed on library grounds. “It’s where we keep our service and help desk,” reported Morgan. Her school, Xavier University, will unveil their Learning Commons in 2010. Physically attached to the library, it will contain a digital media lab along with campus department offices and advisors.

“Often all of the school’s technology resources are located in the library right when you walk in,” continued Tattoni. “But it’s more than the information hub. Tutoring, testing, and advising offices are there too.” By putting these functions in the library, they become more available to students. “Someone who may not want to see an advisor before now may go because the library is in a culturally accepted place to be,” Tattoni concluded.
 
Information Central
Putting the social and collaborative aspects aside, the library still is a repository of information — usually in book form. Yet these books themselves are changing. With technology like the Kindle and other hand-held devices, along with services like Google books and Sony Reader, will bound paper books go the way of the card catalog?

“Princeton University did a study where they gave their students a Kindle DX instead of textbooks one year,” reported Stemmer. “Ultimately the students didn’t like them because they couldn’t mark up the text with highlighters and sticky notes, and there were no images to help solidify the information in their minds. However, this might be because these students didn’t grow up in a digital environment.”

Will paper books be replaced with an e-version? Only time will tell, but Stemmer is quick to point out that if they were, it would only be an upgrade. “Books are technology,” he said. “They are just 500-year-old technology. Ultimately it’s the content that rules.”

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