Virtual reality and smoothie bars: What’s in at Bay Area university libraries?

Academic Libraries | Library Design | User Experience

College students still need help finding and interpreting information.

By Emily DeRuy | ederuy@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News Group

PUBLISHED: July 10, 2017 at 6:00 am | UPDATED: July 10, 2017 at 11:03 am

Rodrigo Gris, a summer session student from Spain studying art history, works in one of the new study carrels in Moffitt Library at UC Berkeley in Berkeley, Calif. on Thursday, July 6, 2017. (Kristopher Skinner/Bay Area News Group)

Librarians at UC Berkeley are holding workshops for students on what to do with the information they collect using drones. At Stanford, they’re experimenting with virtual reality. And across the Bay Area, as more textbooks gather dust and coursework moves online, universities are reimagining their libraries.

“We’re like fish,” said Sonoma State University librarian Karen Schneider. “If we don’t keep swimming, we die.” 

University libraries used to warehouse knowledge, but they’re places where it’s created now. And that, students and school officials say, makes them more relevant than ever.

Numbers back up that notion. While book circulation is down at each of the libraries the Bay Area News Group surveyed, the number of students using library space is up.

Librarians say students are looking for places where they can take the work they do individually online and use it to collaborate as part of a team in the real world.

“The digital age has actually raised the importance of spaces for people to actually come together,” said Jeffrey MacKie-Mason, Cal’s librarian and chief digital scholarship officer. Read more...

Do We Need Libraries? - Forbes

Libraries everywhere are under threat. After all, who needs a library
today, when it is possible, without even getting out of bed, to find
and read almost any book or article that has ever been published? One is
tempted to recall the reaction by some to the recent news that Radio
Shack had gone bankrupt: “Radio Shack bankrupt? I didn’t know Radio
Shack still existed!”

I was asked to give the opening keynote at a combined meeting of the Library Leaders Summit and the Computers in Libraries
conference this week in Washington, D.C. In discussing the future of
libraries, the conference continues a long tradition of forward-looking
libraries exploring emerging technologies, hearing from bleeding edge
practitioners and sharing case studies of innovative libraries. My
thoughts on the future of libraries are equally applicable to many other
sectors that are facing the threat of extinction from massive
disruption to their businesses.

Library of Congress in Washington, DC, (Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images)

The scale and pervasiveness of the disruption that sectors like libraries face is amazing.

The disruption begins with products. The smartphone, as Larry Downes and Paul Nunes explain in their book, Big Bang Disruption, is resulting in a huge array of products becoming obsolete:

Address books, video cameras, pagers,
wristwatches, maps, books, travel games, flashlights, home telephones,
dictation recorders, cash registers, Walkmen, Day-Timers, alarm clocks,
answering machines, yellow pages, wallets, keys, phrase books,
transistor radios, personal digital assistants, dashboard navigation
systems, remote controls, airline ticket counters, newspapers and
magazines, directory assistance, travel and insurance agents, restaurant
guides and pocket calculators.

But the disruption isn’t limited to products. Whole sectors of commerce are under threat.  Read more...

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Study Reveals that a Trip to the Library Feels the same as a $2,282 pay raise. | Mapachili

AJSC – LONDON

A recent study commissioned in the UK has revealed that a trip to the library gives the same stimulational effect as a pay raise – a £1,359 ($ 2,282) raise, to be exact. The study, published by Daniel Fujiwara, Laura Kudrna, and Paul Dolan states that A significant association was “found between frequent library use  and reported wellbeing. Using libraries frequently was valued at £1,359 per person per year for library users, or £113 per person per month.”

The study also reveals that participation in the arts and activity in sport have similar effects.

“We identify statistically significant associations between cultural and sport engagement and individual wellbeing and a range of other social impacts. Holistic consideration of all identified impacts will help to build a broad narrative on the social impacts of culture and sport,” the authors go on to state.

Few would object to such a revelation. When one walks into a good library, it tends to reveal endless possibilities of depths to explore. Who hasn’t entered a library empty handed and then exited with upwards of 20 books?

It is certainly not a political issue. Libraries add significant value to many lives. Here’s to years of studying and infinite resources for the avid learner.

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Preparing for Technological Changes within Academic LIbraries

Preparing for Technological Changes within Academic Libraries

Preparing for Technological Changes within Academic Libraries from Rachel Vacek

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The Role of Libraries in Communities, The Global Street Concept and Civil Participation In Society | EngagingCities

The Role of Libraries in Communities, The Global Street Concept and Civil Participation In Society | EngagingCities

City of Flows Day Two Overview & Reflections

Article | August 1, 2012 - 1:00am | By Hans Pul

What's the role of libraries in the digital age, now that ever more information is available anywhere? How did the rise of the internet and smartphones affect this century old institution? What new opportunities for participation does technology offer and how does this affect local authorities? During my second day of the multidisciplinary City of Flows conference in Potsdam, Germany last month, these and other questions were addressed.

Libraries as a Place, Space & Relation

A first perspective on how libraries can still be relevant institutions in the digital age was offered by Knud Schulz , who has worked in the Aarhus library (Denmark) for over 20 years. Based on experiences with new library concepts and projects, his library is currently constructing a new building called the Aarhus Urban Mediascape. Schulz emphasized that a library should be seen as a place, as a space and as a relation. Developing the library as relation means to develop and present information in cooperation with other cultural institution, local civil society and residents. The library as a place relates to the library as a hub in a city's fabric, while the library as a space is constituted by the social aspect (meeting others, community center, concerts, platform for local debates, etc.) and the bodily aspect (comfy chair, great architecture, the library cafe, etc.). This concept puts the user (rather than books) at the center of the library and offers a bodily and social experience that virtual interaction cannot offer, at least not in the same way. [Read more...]


 

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The Bad, The Good, and The Great on Vimeo by R. David Lankes

The Bad, The Good, and The Great on Vimeo


The Bad, The Good, and The Great from R. David Lankes on Vimeo.


Bad libraries build collections; good libraries build services (after all a collection is only one type of service); great libraries build communities. In a time of great change and challenges to the very model of higher education, libraries must move beyond a focus on collections to a focus on communities. As new models of instruction (flipped classrooms, inquiry based instruction, etc.) and research emerge (interdisciplinary, large scale, collaborative, data driven), libraries find themselves well positioned – but only if they see their strongest assets as the librarians, not the materials librarians have organized. This talk will look to a new librarianship that moves past artifacts to knowledge and sets a new path.

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Lessons learned: How college students seek information in the Digital Age by Alison J. Head, Ph.D. and Michael B. Eisenberg, Ph.D.

PIL-ProgressReport_2_2009.pdf - By Nitro PDF Software

The Information School, University of Washington
Research sponsored by a gift from ProQuest

Abstract:  A report of findings from 2,318 respondents to a survey carried out among college students on six campuses distributed across the U.S. in the spring of 2009, as part of Project Information Literacy.  Respondents, while curious in the beginning stages of research, employed a consistent and predictable research strategy for finding information, whether they were conducting course-related or everyday life research.  Almost all of the respondents turned to the same set of tried and true information resources in the initial stages of research, regardless of their information goals.  Almost all students used course readings and Google first for course-related research and Google and Wikipedia for everyday life research.  Most students used library resources, especially scholarly databases for course-related research and far fewer, in comparison, used library services that required interacting with librarians.  The findings suggest that students conceptualize research, especially tasks associated with seeking information, as a competency learned by rote, rather than as an opportunity to learn, develop, or expand upon an information-gathering strategy which leverages the wide range of resources available to them in the digital age.