7 Things You Should Know About the Modern Learning Commons

I am delighted to be a contributor to the latest in the ELI 7 things series, 7 Things You Should Know About the Modern Learning Commons. I really enjoyed working with the ELI staff and contributors, and it was especially cool to work with learning commons expert Joan Lippincott.

What do you see as the future of learning commons?

Recent Commons News

My new job and school have kept me away from posting in quite some time. Recently I've noticed a few things I'd like to share:

The Information Commons Discussion Group will be meeting again at the ALA Annual Conference. I don't usually attend ALA, but when I have, this is a must-attend event. Rudy Leon, this year's convener, is collecting ideas for the topic, so please share your suggestions.

Catherine Lavallée-Welch, a friend and fellow SLA member, has recently posted some good ideas about future learning spaces on the SLA 365 blog. She is planning a learning commons at the University of South Florida Polytechnic Library, and I'm looking forward to hearing more about it.

I don't have time to report much news anymore--there are renovations and new openings galore--but David Murray at Infocommons and Beyond is great about keeping us up to date on commons-related news. Check it out!

Hubbub Party: The Best for Last

The last Hubbub party I coordinated was probably the best one. For the fourth year, UK Libraries and UK IT welcomed students to the Hub, the information commons in the Young Library. This event is part of K Week, our new student welcome week. We had a killer time slot, though our crowd was somewhat smaller than years past. Every year there are multiple activities going on at the same time, and this year was no different. Some of us speculated that the students might be a bit worn out; one student even told me that he'd had enough free pizza. Who knew.

Our activities went off without a hitch: the Amazing Palm Reading Librarian, the photo booth, video games, board games, and coloring pages were back again. This year IT added a couple of "Minute to Win IT" games which were quite popular. One of the games involved throwing as many floppy disks as you could across the computer lab into a trash can. When asked how much a floppy would hold, one student rather authoritatively said "1 GB!"

In years past (2007, 2008, 2009), this recap post described what didn't work and what we would do differently. This year I am actually stumped at that one. Yes, we ran out of cups again, but our friends at Canteen vending found some in the truck, so no one even knew. Yes, due to the lack of snafus, I had too many volunteers, but most of us got to watch the party and interact with students more than ever.

What will I suggest for future planners? Bring back Gilbert the balloon artist. Street Fighter for Dreamcast is more popular than any modern game. You can't have enough coloring pages and crayons. Some of our simple, initial ideas remain the best ones--the Amazing Palm Reading Librarian and the photo booth are still huge hits.

Thank you to all the staff who have helped over the years to make the Hubbub a successful and memorable student event. We could not have done it without you.

This terrific little video is a great way to end this post:
https://stream.uky.edu/bbstream/WilliamTYoung/TheHubbub2010/index.html

Changes for the Uncommon Commons

This month I was appointed the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Research at the University of Kentucky Libraries. This is an exciting new position which includes administrative responsibility for all of the public services based in the William T. Young Library as well as nine branch locations. I will have significant planning, budgeting, and development responsibilities, as well as the opportunity to develop new partnerships and initiatives and create an overall vision for library public services with a terrific team.

As a result, I am no longer managing the information commons, though it is a part of the Academic Affairs and Research division. My last hurrah in the Hub will be our annual Hubbub party next week (see 2009, 2008, 2007). At some point I will post a summary of Hubbub #4 with suggestions for future library welcome events.

What will happen to this blog? While I doubt that I will write very often, I do plan to continue sharing stories about library spaces and services, both commons-specific and beyond. I expect you will see me more often on Twitter, sharing articles and other tidbits of interest. But don't unsubscribe just yet. Thanks for reading!

Happy Birthday, Uncommon Commons!

This blog's third year begins today. I've enjoyed writing and have picked up a number of readers along the way (thank you!). Since I started taking classes and have some new responsibilities, I haven't had much time to write. In any case, I still enjoy writing and will continue sharing news and commentary on my own experience in a commons environment.

Some of the most popular posts over the last three years:

• Unusual Service Desks
• Hubbub 2009
• Hubbub 2008
• Hubbub 2007
• The Hub Video
• Saving Student Brian
• Projected Floor Signs
• Video Windows
• New Thinking on Desk Signage

Thanks for reading!

Georgia Tech Visit

Earlier this month while at EDUCUASE Southeast Regional, I had the opportunity to visit Georgia Tech, one of the libraries that inspired the Hub. When I visited last summer, the West Commons was still undergoing renovations. I was delighted this time to see the the finished project which is known as 2 West. While I took a number of pictures during the quiet of summer with a pretty lousy camera, you'll really want to check out their website on 2 West which includes a number of images, concepts, presentations, and process documents related to the project.

What particularly captured my attention are the partitions which create somewhat private spaces yet let light flow through. In our own research commons project, we've been pondering how to create the personal spaces that graduate students crave while avoiding any construction or messing too much with the architectural integrity of our building. I was really impressed by this particular design which included copious outlets and whiteboards, another request from our graduate student survey and focus groups.

If you have the opportunity, I urge you to check out their commons--they have always been so user focused and remain one of the most innovative places around.

What an Honor

I hesitated to post this video, but it includes some terrific footage of the Hub and features a number of friends and colleagues. I am truly honored to be the recipient of the SLA 2010 Dow Jones Leadership Award, described in this video:

New Thinking on Commons Signage

So I was wrong.

Labeled with our signature "help help help" sign, our commons desk offers library and IT assistance as well as any kind of directional assistance you might imagine. In addition to the "traditional" things, we've helped students find their advisors, parents find good restaurants, community members find where to print on transparencies, and so on. You know how it goes, and we're delighted to do it. Anyway, I envisioned this desk as the one desk to rule them all: we'll help you with anything, we'll refer you anywhere, just consider us your first stop when you have a question.

So with that line of thinking, I was adamant that we not define the desk with a bunch of signs. If we start describing what we do, inevitably we leave out something. We also make our users choose--is it an IT question or a library question? it's an IT problem, but it's with a library thing, so where do I go? or maybe I shouldn't even bother asking this person since it's neither (here's a rant from last summer about this very topic). So despite the occasional staff suggestion for something more descriptive at each desk, I insisted that we keep it simple.

And what happens when you keep it simple?

Generally I think it works, but I can't count the number of times we've gotten "I'm not sure if you can help me with this..." or "what kind of help?" or even, "do you work here?" While there is a 20 ft sign labeled "help help help" above our heads, I can see where these patrons are coming from. Is this a library help desk to help me with library things, or is it a desk more like the information desks you see in the hospital? You can give me a room number, but you can't actually diagnose anything? Despite a lot of publicity and frequent mention in orientations, tours, and a variety of campus events, until someone is right in front of us with a need, they don't think about what exactly it is that we do.

So I relented. Let's be more specific on our signs.

That's where the fun begins. What do you call it? Reference, research, information, library, Hub, help, assistance...then there's IT, Information Technology, Customer Support, Customer Service, technology, help...We talked about it at length, as I'm sure you have too, and kept struggling with how to label without limiting and yet be descriptive. We hit upon what I think will be the perfect solution with some simple icons (thank you, Jennifer!).

After settling on "Library Help" and "IT Help," we focused our efforts on a few icons to suggest what these terms might mean. We have a terrific graphics group on campus, and I worked with them to come up with a series of concepts (thank you, Kathryn!). Once we had a few possibilities, I showed them to staff and students and asked for feedback. There was some discussion about using which icons on which signs, and particularly if we should use the old-school library icon, but it seemed right. We tweaked the design a few times, and finally settled on our new look which was just installed last week.

Like the "help help help" sign, the new upper signs are visible from the front and back. In addition, the new design gives us the opportunity to lose all those plastic frames lining the desk--ugh--as the lower signs includes space to post hours and announcements as well as hide the impossible-to-hide cords and cables in our very open desk design.


What do you think?