Posthegemonic Comments
Liek the photo - our local library is now The Whitechapel Idea Store. It has fewer books than before.
T.
Heh. In our case, the difference between a library and a "learning center" seems to be that the latter has fewer librarians.
Our university library has just sent round a user survey to get readers' views on where the priorities for building refurbishments should lie. They ask you to rate which developments would be more important to you. Due to shortage of shelf space, there are many books sitting on overflow trolleys, out of sequence, and many important journals have been moved to stores (48 hours away).
Questions on the survey include: "Which is more important to you: more space for books, or having a cafe next to the library entrance?" (I wish I was joking).
Journals started to be moved to storage a few years ago. At that time, the Dean of Faculty's opinion on Ancient History journals was: "Well, anything published before 1980 probably isn't relevant anymore anyway."
Apparently, a major priority is expanding computer clusters to provide more space for undergraduates to browse MySpace and Facebook.
"Which is more important to you: more space for books, or having a cafe next to the library entrance?"
That is sad.
To be fair, things aren't so bad here. The new "learning centre" is indeed somewhere you might want to sit and read a book, unlike the cramped, low-ceilinged stacks of the old Main Library.
Still, I remain surprised every time at the almost total absence of librarians. You're encouraged to check your own books out, and students are paid to sit at the door to ensure nobody's stealing the stock. But that's about it.
I'm agree with Jon
The library at the institution where I teach (unlike the institution to which I pay tuition) has a "learning commons" within the library. The meaning of "learning" and "commons" seems to be reducible to "we hope to have a shorter wait time to get to a computer, printer or photocopier." The cafe - "Now proudly brewing Starbucks coffee!" (the best, sadly, on campus) - was put in years ago. The first library expansion in decades was to accommodate more computers.
However, I should note that a recent survey from the institution to which I pay tuition inquired whether the library presented an atmosphere in which learning to use "learning technologies" was valued. WTF!?
Jon, I have also been struck by the absence of librarians in the SBLC and by the use of the term 'learning centre' instead of library (which makes me think of how people here say 'animal hospital', which sounds so much cuter than veterinary centre). Apparently, the facility will be both 'revolutionary' and 'evolutionary', terms which I always thought were mutually exclusive. That said,comfy seats make it a pleasant place to post one's blogs.
Niall, indeed.
Meanwhile, I was remembering that the library in my undergraduate institution had a smoking room. Looking for proof of this fact (which seems to have been repressed in the collective consciousness), I came across this nice little quotation, from Stephen Leacock's My Discovery of England:
"If I were founding a university--and I say it with all the seriousness of which I am capable--I would found first a smoking room; then when I had a little more money in hand I would found a dormitory; then after that, or more probably with it, a decent reading room and a library. After that, if I still had money over that I couldn't use, I would hire a professor and get some text books."
it may be of interest to you that the university library's management changed this year and that two libraries are closing: Math and MacMillan.
you can read about the progression of these (and the lack of senate oversight of these important changes) on my blog:
http://ubcinsiders.blogspot.com/...-
libraries.html
http://ubcinsiders.blogspot.com
Gina, thanks for this. Also for drawing attention to your blog, which seems an interesting and useful forum.
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