Academic Library = Student Center?

Not a day goes by where I don't read (or hear) about how the academic library is outdated. No matter how many coffee shops, group study rooms, and laptop computers you put in, it's still a library, and apparently that's outdated. That's certainly how the president of Goucher College in Baltimore, MD saw it. When the old library was due for renovation, he scratched that and set up plans to build a multi-million dollar student center, with a library in it. The Athenaeum, named for the ancient Greek central gathering point where people came for a variety of purposes—serious, frivolous, cultural, artistic, and social, houses a restaurant, workout room, bathroom complete with shower, commuter lounge with a full kitchen, an art gallery, classrooms, a forum, and a library. All classic library features including circulation and reference desks, open stacks, and quiet study areas are included; however, the president felt that students needed a student center more than they needed a serious separate library.

On one level, I find that this makes a lot of sense. From what I can gather, Goucher College is a small school with a large chunk of commuting students. Commuting students often have trouble fitting in to a campus community and creating a more student-friendly space where they can hang out as well as study does make sense. Goucher College is also very small and it is doubtful that much major research takes place there. However, I feel like lumping a library in with a student center lessens the library's importance. Academic libraries have been undergoing major transformations over the last decade from traditional book warehouses to more technology-friendly "information centers", but this is the first time I've ever heard of adding work-out equipment and a restaurant to a library. It appears to me that the president of Goucher College does not appreciate nor understand what truly happens in an academic library. Yes, the library should be a central gathering place on campus for students, so it should have amenities to make spending large quantities of time there better, but it's main focus should be academic not social.

Is Goucher College taking the concept of a comfortable library a little too far? Should the academic library and the student center be merged? And when does the library cease being a library and just become a mere room in the student center?

Little Things Here and There

School starts back today and I'm feeling the same thing I always do; a little sad that summer is ending and real work has to begin, but excited about all the things the fall brings, new classes, meeting new people, and of course football season. This semester I'm also feeling a little nostalgic because it's my last semester of school. (That is if I don't get my Ph.D. or a second masters.) I've been in school for 18 years straight and I'm not entirely certain what to do without it. It's one of the most constant things in my life. But maybe it's time to move on and grow up.

I haven't been blogging regularly because there hasn't been all that much going on, but I did come across two interesting postings on other blogs that I wanted to share.

I follow Library Journal on Twitter to stay up-to-date on library news and I came across this interesting article on the importance of academic libraries. Several quotes really stood out to me.

Talking about students' use of the library, "They may not want to be there, they may not have any real curiosity about the topic they are researching, but the library is a gateway to the kinds of sources they need, and for at least some students the librarians are "saviors" who help them take an assignment and locate sources that will match."

"...libraries embody principles that go beyond collections and beyond local needs. We stand for the importance of knowledge: not just information, but what we do with information. We stand for access: not just getting stuff conveniently, but making sure that information isn't censored or suppressed or distributed selectively so that only the elite have it."

"We stand for the individual's right to ask their own questions, no matter how dangerous or disruptive they may seem. And we stand for the idea that pursuing questions is a valuable human endeavor...Fortunately for academic libraries, they tend to be entirely consistent with the academic enterprise and its core beliefs."

These quotes really stuck out to me and helped remind me that academic libraries do matter. It's not just the books that are important, or our digital collections, or even the new coffee shop and "meeting area" that matter; it's the students and their ability to find and access the information they need. We are not here to judge or to question, but to provide information to enhance the learning opportunities of students enrolled in higher education. I'm glad to see that there are librarians out there who remember their students and just how important they are to the library and how important the library is to the students.

I've talked a good deal about Twitter, but I've never really discussed it as a type of mini-blog. It seems that plenty of librarians are using Twitter not just to give news bites but to share valuable information to other librarians. This article lists the 100 Best Twitter Feeds for Librarians of the Future. If you use Twitter, check out some of these librarians. Also listed are job listings, library news, and librarian resources, all good sources for the library student or the librarian looking to stay connected in today's rapidly changing digital world.

Do you have any library news you would like to see featured? Leave me a comment or send me an email!