We've got learning in common...

We've undergone some big changes at my workplace—Blume Library, St. Mary's University—since the beginning of the year.

The popular, welcoming, expertly-decorated (if we do say so ourselves) space that you see above is a complete transformation from what it looked liked last year at this time.

What you see is the Library's bottom floor, which used to house our print periodicals. It's now the Cotrell Learning Commons, named after our recently-retired President.

Now, it wasn't a terribly unpleasant place when filled with rows of historical Life magazines, Academy of Management Journals, etc. But it was completely different.

Open spaces where you can work together, mix studying and socializing (and eating and drinking), and have plenty of plugs for recharging your multitude of necessary electronic devices—this seems to be what many of today's college students want. (Although there also seem to be a lot of folks taking advantage of the quiet study spaces on the building's other two floors; where I would certainly have to be if I wanted to get anything academic done. But, then, I wasn't raised to be a multi-tasker like these kids were.)

We even provide some of the eating and drinking materials at our new in-library Starbucks (see above left), where our students are invited to spend [what seems to me, a non-coffee-drinker] exorbitant amounts of their parents' hard-earned cash on lattes and other mysterious beverages. But there is a lot of actual studying that goes on in the Commons, as I think you can see from these pictures.

In hopeful anticipation of the Commons' popularity (which anticipation has been proven wildly accurate!) we moved our Reference Desk from the second floor down to the new space, and renamed it the Research Desk. As you can see on the right. I spend 8 hours a week on the desk here, and get to witness daily the success of the work put into the transformation of this space. Here's the view from our swanky new Research counter:

The entire library staff did put in a lot of work to make this change happen, and so it's doubly satisfying to see the students take to it so enthusiastically. 

There was intellectual work—deciding what print periodicals and reference books we could do without, given the array of electronic resources we now have access to, as well as visualizing the best configurations for the new layout (an especially hard job for someone such as myself who's spatial-imaginatively-challenged)...

Emotional work—some wrenching decisions to eliminate long runs of journals that we were partial to, but that just weren't being used...and a lot of physical work—clearing the shelves, pushing books to the recycling dumpster, inventorying furniture that could be saved/refurbished, etc.

(We do still have print periodicals, btw; they are now on the second floor, where the reference books used to be. The pared-down print reference collection is in the Commons; you can see the shelves—with "antique" print-on-paper books—above on the right.)

One of the best things about the Commons is that it puts some of the University's technical support staff in a better location to help students and faculty (and occasionally-perplexed librarians). In addition to a tech help desk, there's a very nice classroom for holding workshops, meetings, and other gatherings requiring computer projections. (see this room on the left)

And all of this activity is right next door to our student center. In fact, our director's initial idea was to take advantage of this proximity by making a second entrance to the Library right off the University Center's patio. Here's a shot of these new doors, which connect us more conveniently with this busy campus corridor:

You'll notice the patio furniture, recently set up, that is particularly inviting on the nice fall days we're having right now (in the middle of summer, maybe not so much):

view from our patio to the University Center

our patio

looking down at our patio from the bridge to the UC

Not exactly the traditional picture of a library, but, like many other institutions in this day and age, we've got to adapt and change or die off. Hopefully the Learning Commons will postpone our demise at least for a little while.