Digital Literacy Redesign Ideas for the Evergreen Library
From booktorrent
Redesign Ideas for the Interior Space
- MORE ELECTRICAL OUTLETS. It's true we talk about it too much, but in the area of the library by the stained glass window there are only 10 outlets with only 22 sockets available. It would be nice to have electrical outlet strips on the floor situated next to the tables and the sofas and stuffed chairs.
- Move all periodicals and microfilm out of the area with the stained glass, as well as the shelves and drawers that hold them to the back of the library where the maps were. This open space will allow for more study tables and chairs and sofas for students to meet and work on group work.
- Lamps create intimate space and the illusion of privacy and comfort. They also serve to delineate space creating little study "pods" in a large open space.
- Move the rare book room upstairs in the space that the Writing Center inhabits. It is one of the special things about the library and should be on prominent display. It will be good for tours, recruiting, and fund raising. Plus no one ever goes there and it's a shame.
- Put the Writing Center/Quasr in the space by the Reference Section. Having it in an open space may also help it not seem so intimidating too. With the right furniture arrangement it could still be a somewhat separate space.
- Coffee Bar ya'll. Barnes and Noble got one for a reason.
- Put the Information Desk where the Reference Desk is and the Reference Desk where the Information Desk is. Having the Information Desk right at the entrance will help our Reference Librarians not have to answer a whole bunch of boring questions about where the bathroom is and how to get to the media rooms and stuff. The second floor just has a more academic "vibe." Plus, just by being upstairs it will help filter out all the easy to answer questions and hopefully will make their jobs more interesting.
- Move all media downstairs to the basement. Have some of those study rooms be media viewing rooms. Move the TV down there too. All of it. I think the basement of the library would be best space for more loud activities. Like movie viewing nights and games and stuff. Plus all the sound tech and music students work closer to the basement then the main floor, so it's closer to their department. And I think it would make more people in general go down there.
- Third Floor: dedicated to quiet study, meetings with research librarians, the stacks of course and the administrative offices, and quiet study rooms.
- Second Floor: moderate noise, computer lab, copy machine, writing center, information desk, Quasr, check out
- Basement: Media Library, media viewing rooms, couches, chess, movie nights, board games, talking and chilling with your fellow students, you know gabbing about Foucault and the French Revolution and shit. Long study tables, couches, round tables, comfy chairs, LAMPS
“If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.” -Albert Einstein
I am totally there right now, but bear with me. Sometimes you just have to talk it out.
Redesign Ideas for Library Usage
Okay this is rough and I simply don't have the vocabulary or computer programming skills to know how to do this at all, but I think it could be really cool. A collective, student edited open source bibliographic management application, where students can share various sources with one another on an unlimited amount of topics. From scholarly journals, books, news articles, blogs, videos, sound clips, whatever. Something specifically for Evergreen students. They can pick topics of interest or topics they are studying and share all the data that they find about them. Plus it would be a way for people with similar interests and people working on similar projects to be able to find one another and create collaborative relationships. When outdated, incorrect, or inappropriate sources come about they could collectively be reviewed and removed. And it would be really helpful for research papers, research anything, because you could draw from previous research done by previous students who worked on similar topics to your area of research. And everyone could have a little profile with some way to contact them so if people wanted they could meet and discuss their academic interests. Maybe they would even want to meet in the swanky new library? I realize I am not exactly inventing the wheel or anything, but I think this could be really beneficial to the student body. It would create community and make information sharing among students so much easier. People could find each other easily to create group contracts. There could be like a craigslist type message board for contract ideas. And also there should be a way if a student did want to compile a private database of sources they could do that too. And as Jean and Betsy suggested it would be great to be able to publish student work on the site as well.
