I love the ideas espoused in this article from George Mason University, The Learning Library in Context: Community, Integration, and Influence. While the college or university library is often described as the "heart of campus," the article describes how the arteries and veins of this heart can intertwine themselves with the entire campus and the academic curriculum.  The library "pumps blood" into the efforts to instill in students the critical thinking and lifelong learning skills that colleges and universities aim to help students develop.

Some pertinent quotes (emphases mine):

"Rather than an external "add on" to the educational experience, the library, as information resource and gateway, is a primary catalyst for cognitive, behavioral, and affective changes in students -- as they interact with information resources as directed by faculty, as they complete assignments and study with peers, [...] seeking connections and making meaning in more self-directed ways.  The learning library, rather than a repository of materials or a study hall, is therefore an agency of change in students' lives" (124).

"In the Vygotskian sense, the learning library is the constructivist laboratory for students to make their own meanings, but only by moving through a series of 'zones of proximal development' with research strategies and information sources and with the coaching and guidance of more knowledgeable others"(124).


"Because of the continually changing nature of information access[...] students need a conceptual foundation for research. This approach fosters the underlying processes, mainly critical thinking and problem solving, that allow them to adapt to new situations" (129).

It's a Library, not a "Commons"

This post, "Just don't call it a Commons: building the learning boutique model," from The Ubiquitous Librarian, a blog sponsored by the Chronicle of Higher Education Blog Network, harkens to the Project Information Literacy research report I posted recently.  In that study, which attempted to capture in real time how students were using their college or university library, students conveyed their view of the library as a place where they could both escape the distractions of their social lives, including in some cases their use of social technology devices, as well as be "inspired" by the sight of other students studying and being productive.  This latter concept forms the basis of University of California, Santa Barbara's remodeling of their library into a "learning boutique."

Some quotes:

"It’s really about cultivating scholarly behaviors and aligning academic outcomes to specific areas." [Emphasis mine.]  This is what students seem to want and expect from their college library.  I think many times libraries are quick to assume that the only thing students really want from the library is more technology.  It's true that students often are asking for more computers, but it is clear from these studies that what students are seeking is a type of academic experience that they feel is alluding them in other parts of campus -- and perhaps other parts of their lives.  I think this is heartening to those of us in academia.  But as libraries struggle to find their identity in this rapidly changing technological landscape, it is also a great opportunity for us to maintain and refresh our status as a place where learning happens; whether a computer is involved or not is a secondary-level question.

"The central question is how do we design an environment that is ideal for the experience we want to encourage? How do we amplify and optimize the use of library space? It’s easy to just buy nice tables and lots of computers, but it’s much more challenging to design a place for experiences."  I will once again invoke my idol Stephen Bell, who writes a lot about designing user experience in libraries. Personally, as an Instruction Librarian, I like thinking of myself as a designer -- a designer of instructional objectives, presentations, student exercises (i.e., learning experiences), worksheets, and online learning objects such as multimedia tutorials. Essentially, a designer of learning experiences.  But just about every experience in a library is about learning, and we design everything in our building -- our signage, our shelving, our furniture, our service desks, and our service itself -- with the intention to enhance those learning experiences. How well we are accomplishing this, however, is the question that I think will determine libraries' long-term success and relevance -- but I believe that we are on the right track!