Class 8: Planning Library Spaces & Advocacy

In our last class before break, we were able to have Peg Sullivan (a consultant for planning library spaces) join us via the internet for a talk about school library design. During her talk, she discussed the A.E.I.O.U method (Activities, Environment, Interactions, Objects and Users). I liked her point about how physical spaces send signals about what types of learning takes place in them. Related to this, one of her most interesting tips was to think about "logical adjacencies"--what do you want the public to see? Displaying collaborative and creative activities near the entrance/windows to the library is a great way to showcase what the library does. This can also be a form of advocacy. Another advantage to having great things happening in very public spaces is that it may drawn in some reluctant library users.

Peg also recommended privileging function over form--after all, you need to understand what will be happening in the library before you start designing it. Finally, designing for different personality types (introvert/extrovert) was also discussed. While I thought this was an interesting topic, I'm not sure I understood exactly how it to implement different design ideas based on personality type--in terms of actual color choices, furniture options, library features, and use of physical space. It would be necessary to incorporate diverse elements to accommodate different types of students and library users.

Back to the advocacy issue, the idea of the librarian as a martyr was brought up. It's difficult to appreciate what a school librarian does because, as was pointed our in class, it's more quality than quantity, in terms of results. Many public service professions seem to suffer from this, yet so many of these jobs provide a great service (!) to the community. Ultimately, I still think librarians shouldn't have to necessarily "advocate" themselves and their profession. Instead, I think it's important to strive to meet standards and provide meaningful services to your community, and then let the community speak for itself.

Class members also talked about their library redesigns and what they would add/remove from the physical school library space. A lot of good points and creative solutions were brought up, and I definitely would change a few elements of my library plan knowing what I do now!