Collaboration and Paradigm Shifts
Several us from the “Systems Team” Chris Hayes, Dara Middleton, and myself attended a meeting in Indianapolis sponsored by PALNI, on Friday, December 14th. PALNI put this meeting together due to funding by a grant from Eli Lilly, specifically called “Lilly Planning Grant for Academic Library Collaboration”. My personal expectations of the meeting were low, but believe it or not, it was actually a pretty interesting get together.
Representatives from about a dozen different libraries attended, however we were the only group representing a “Systems” point of view. The first half of the meeting was dedicated to discussing trends in teaching, learning, and research. Lots of excellent discussion ensued with technology topics near the top to the chart.
Later in the day we focused on collaborative initiatives in higher education libraries throughout the state. Unfortunately this was a tougher subject, and the discussion was much less interesting. Considering that the state funded “SULAN” Libraries used to have a strong unified presence in Indiana, it is a shame that this group seems to have fallen from it’s past height.
The handout from previous meetings had some interesting topics for all of us to ponder. The comments were mainly about the paradigm shift in the use of academic libraries. These comments were specifically citing that gate counts are level or down, reference counts are down in some cases dramatically down, but instruction is up. Libraries and faculty alike report less interest in books and other print resources. Additionally there is almost exclusive reliance on the web, with the Library becoming a last resort for their information needs.
Some of the ideas brought forth to combat these issues were the need for more group study areas, collaborative learning tools, Library web portals, and theme-based reading rooms.
It is clear academic Libraries need to be much more proactive than in the past. I believe the coffee shop concept, theme-based reading rooms, and group study areas are prime initiatives we should consider here at CML. Some of the other areas, which may be worth considering, are laptop friendly study areas, and a student multimedia lab for video creation.
Just imagine walking into the Library that has five different themed study areas, the Coffee Plaza, the Technology Center, the Art Intensive, Quiet Study, and the Multimedia Studio. So as the conversation from the student to the professor goes, “hey, will you send us on an assignment to the Library”!