Week Six Reading

Week Six Reading

Baule, S. (2005) Planning considerations for library media center facilities. Library media connection 24(3), 14-15.

"What this means for library media centers is the need to have flexible spaces and utilize space more efficiently than in the past. Any new facility or renovation project must also be friendly to the two technology imperatives of ubiquitousness and mobility."

Baule statements about flexibility of space are interesting. The future use of libraries is rather unknown and will be different from school to school. Designing a library that allows for multiple ways to access to different types of media is important to consider.

I'm intrigued by the concept of providing an outside entrance to the school library. In some smaller communities it would make a lot of sense to have the school library play the role of a community library. Problems with this would be roles, staffing, funding and access, but what a service to the community this would be.

Ahh, technology. We will never know what the future holds, but we should be flexible in our efforts to promote and obtain new technologies, while still considering what will add true value to our program versus what will just take up space and eat away at limited budgets.

Lighting can be a problem in some library spaces, but I don't perceive that it is a major issue that can't be addressed by just turning off the lights. Ahh, but many existing libraries have large windows and skylights:(

Lines of sight are extremely important. The library space is so different from the classroom space, classrooms have full lines of sight, while most libraries have views of sight blocked by shelving. No matter what the age, students know were they can go in a library to not be seen and to "mess around".

I agree that we cannot "future proof" the library space, but we can make it so it is flexible and can adjust to the different and changes needs of its school.

Hart, T.L. (2005). Library media center facilities access: Do you really want your library media center used? Library media connection 24(3), 16-19.

Hart’s comparison of the school media center to Barnes and Noble is timely after my SI 620 group’s meeting with Mike Chmura, Media Specialist at Forsythe Middle School. She stressed again and again the need for weeding her existing collection to make it not only relevant, but visually more appealing to students and her efforts were quite visible. Sections that had been effectively weeded were more enticing with features such as face-outs “advertising” the section, bright spine titles of newer books, using only 2/3 of the shelf, not using the bottom shelf if possible and prominently displaying books with stands on top of the bookshelves. She mentioned that the sections that had been weeded tended to have more circulation than those that she had not weeded yet. Now they only need a coffee bar.

Sullivan, M. (2011). Divine Design: How to Create the School Library of Your Dreams. School Library Journal. April 1. Retrieved January 4, 2012, fromhttp://www.slj.com/slj/home/889642-312/ divine_design_how_to_create.html.csp.

Specific design ideas I gained from this article based on the five design considerations expressed:

1. Make sure your space is flexible- allow for different technology use with varying group sizes- think mobility and modularity
2. Remember, you're not running a book warehouse- think about product placement- what do you want students to be drawn to?
3. Insist on a strong infrastructure- outlets, outlets, outlets!
4. Don't sacrifice livability for beauty- is the space just inviting- or does it invite collaborative learning?
5. And finally, whatever happened to the great outdoors?- this can be achieved in indoor spaces too with color, lighting and texture

Todd, R.J. (2009). There is knowledge to be gained. School library media activities monthly 25:10.

Focusing on the Standards for the 21st-Century Learner in regards to planning or redesigning a media center makes a lot of sense. The challenge, again, is to make sure that facilities are not designed to a specific set of standards, but have the ability to be flexible and adaptive to new directions and technologies in education as they arise.

In using the framework of Standards for the 21st-Century Learner “Kuhlthau, Maniotes, and Caspari state that at the heart of preparing students for a global information environment, the focus is on inquiry, where students can ‘draw on the knowledge and wisdom of the past while using the technology of the present to advance new discoveries for the future’ (2007). I like that statement, but how can we use it to design a learning space that achieves this?

We need to consider how we allow for students to access knowledge versus information. How can they engage with the information they are retrieving to gain knowledge from it. A good example of this is incorporating web-based search services with the library’s catalog so that students can find relevant print resources or e-resources as they learn about concepts and ideas online.

I’d like to see some direct relationships to library design based on the four fundamental principles for quality teaching and learning: Intellectual Quality, Relevance, Supportive Environment, and Recognition of Difference, to understand better how physical aspects of a library can promote these concepts.

Woolls, Chapter 6

Do we get to pull out the graph paper now?