Facebook's Learning Commons

Brian at the Ubiquitous Librarian was on to something when he compared Facebook's employee working environment to a learning commons environment. This recruitment video (as well as these images) show their collaborative, colorful, creative environment:




What do you think? Reminds me of today's academic library.

Student Technology Forum

Last night the Hub was host once again to the second annual Student Technology Forum (last year I wrote quite a bit about the event). I think we had a bigger crowd this year; definitely IT offered more prizes--24 of them, including a Dell netbook! The purpose of the forum is to introduce students to IT staff (as well as Libraries and staff from the teaching and learning group) and solicit opinions on what works well, what doesn't, etc.

In my mind, it is primarily a nice student appreciation event, but I think we also get a lot of good information from the survey that students complete for the prize drawing. One very clever marketing move from IT was to offer a "second chance" drawing among the students who become fans of IT's Facebook page by the end of today. I bet they'll end up with a lot of fans.

I love hosting events in the Hub--great exposure for our space--and hope we'll plan another event together soon. This did remind me that Hubbub number four is only six months away!

Photos by Tony Jenkins

Learning Commons Expansion at UMass

Study aid...
Originally uploaded by learning_commons

The Learning Commons at the University of Massachusetts W.E.B. Du Bois Library has recently expanded to bring the commons' seating from 250 to 450, and 30,000 square feet of space, including eight new group study rooms.

Looks like a neat place--some photos of their space.

Fact sheet on the Learning Commons

Learning Commons Conference in Kingston, Ontario

The program and registration information are now available for the 5th Annual Canadian Learning Commons Conference. Titled A Journey in Progress: Been There! Done That! What's Next!, the conference will be held June 16-18, 2010 in Kingston, Ontario. This looks to be an excellent event--wish I could go!