IMPORTANT LINKS TO OUTSTANDING RESOURCES
This is an exciting time for academic libraries. We are developing the 21st century academic library. Key concepts include:
• Information Commons
• Learning Commons
• Library 2.0
• Discovery to Delivery (D2D)
• Net Generation
My Connotea site provides links to important writing and work in the field. Please see www.connotea.org/user/dbilyeu
Below are quotations from the articles linked in Connotea.
Learning
Commons & Information Commons Concepts
The Learning Commons
recognizes the library as place, an environment that enhances social interaction
and cross disciplinary learning outside the classroom.
The Information Commons provides
the Learning Commons environment with technology and support services merged to
assist in the research to production cycle.
Quotations
Information Commons
While there
is no one widely accepted definition of an information commons, generally it is
a physical space, not always in the library, that incorporates many
workstations equipped with software supporting a variety of uses, offers
workspace for individuals and groups, provides comfortable furniture, and has
staff that can support activities related to access to information and use of
technology to develop new products. While information commons are usually
developed for student use, some incorporate centers for teaching excellence or
instructional technology support services for faculty.
--Joan
Lippincott
Students…expect
library and information-technology operations to work cooperatively, to provide
effective student-support services.
Combining
social and study space, an information commons includes areas for students who
want to work in group or need to use digital technology, either alone or with
classmates.
--W. Lee Hisle, Reference Questions in the Library of the Future. CHE September 30,
2005 [This article is not on the connotea site.]
What we
want to do with our libraries is make students comfortable with this strange,
hybrid print and digital world of ours by incorporating some of the traditional
messages of past libraries - the ones Barnes and Nobles has used to such great
effect in their bookstores - with the technology our students need, We want to
do it in a way that says to students: this is a place you want to be. This is
yours. You have citizenship in the realm of knowledge.
Fundamentally,
learning isn't about use of tools, it's a social experience. We should make it
easier for our students to conceptualize research as a social act, not simply
manipulating inert bits of information and documenting where those bits came
from. It's important when we draw them into research that we don't send the
wrong message - e.g. that research is transcription - because they will take
the message to heart.
--Barbara
Fister
By now the
broad strokes of the information commons have been identified for most
librarians—lots of computers, collaborative space, comfortable furniture, and
usually some kind of café, lounge, or other suitably social area nearby. At the
University of Arizona
in Tucson, the
information commons is a giant ramplike locale, offering students 24-hour
access to computers, support specialists, meeting places, classrooms, and an
array of private and group seating.
--Andrew
Richard Albanese
Library Design
Classroom
and office space design typically underscores the authority of the teacher,
just as library space often reinforces the authority of library staff. Domestic
spaces, by contrast, affirm a view that holds knowledge to ‘a community
project’.
[The
library’s core responsibilities] lie not in the efficiencies of its operations
but rather in the effectiveness with which students learn.
--Scott
Bennet
The Learning Centered
Campus and Library
One area that should undergo
significant internal restructuring—as well as assignment to a more prominent
role in educational delivery—is the library. Rather than operating as a separate
unit that provides access to locally owned information resources, the academic
library is rapidly becoming part of an elaborate network of information
provision and an essential portal for students and faculty to access global
information
resources. The library of the future
will need to become a true learning center for students and faculty, where
available information-technology resources are centrally and efficiently integrated
to further student learning and to facilitate faculty and staff transformation.
A transformed library will constitute both the symbolic and concrete heart of a
learning-centered campus.
--Guskin
and Marcy
It may be
that as scholarship becomes more interdisciplinary and classrooms become more
virtual, colleges and universities will need more high-quality, library-like
space for student interaction, peer learning, collaboration, and similar
functions.
--Jerry
Campbell
The Net Generation
To summarize, Net Gen
information environments will:
- Provide individual and group learning spaces
- Support access to and creation of information resources
- Offer staff and faculty development and training
- Provide staff with a range of technology and
information skills
- Effectively market services to all groups of potential
users
- Integrate physical spaces and services with virtual
spaces and services
- Build community
Developing
library content, services, and environments that are responsive to Net Gen
students can be achieved by examining the characteristics of those students and
making a conscious effort to address deficiencies and transform the current
situation in libraries. Why should libraries and librarians adapt their
well-structured organizations and systems to the needs of students rather than
insist that students learn about and adapt to existing library systems? The
answer is that students have grown up in and will live in a society rich in
technology and digital information. By blending the technology skills and
mindset that students have developed all their lives with the fruits of the
academy, libraries can offer environments that resonate with Net Gen students
while enriching their college education and lifelong learning capabilities.
--Joan
Lippincott