Discusson on November 21, 2013
- Faye Chadwell (Unlicensed)
Agenda for meeting:
The agenda for our meeting about space tomorrow:
What is the vision for our space in the Valley Library?
What are the relevant goals in the strategic plan that relate to that vision?
Let's brainstorm about the obstacles or challenges we will face in terms of our planning.
What space(s) do we want to include in this plan? Obviously user space is a must. . .
What are the requirements or needs that take priority for the changes we want to see? (I.e., furnishings, technologies)
What data do we need or what assessment can we undertake to help improve our planning? What data do we already have on hand?
How can we undertake the analysis and planning?
What are costs?
How will we determine priorities and thus a timeline?
The Valley Library Space
Meeting of November 21, 2013
Faye A. Chadwell, Cheryl Middleton, Shan Sutton
Rhonda Hankins (taking notes)
Student engagement and student success are priorities of the campus. We want to design library space for the creation of knowledge; for instruction; and for classroom space. We are designing for flexibility, sustainability, and cost/space efficiency as well as for curation, for promotion, and for access of materials unique to OSU. Space should be easy to use and easy to navigate. The Valley Library should be a safe space for students in addition to home and classrooms.
Lots of changes have taken place since The Valley Library was renovated 13 years ago. Technology has changed and student enrollment has changed.
How to define engagement? Exploration? Discovery?
Visualization room/center for manipulating data could be a part of discovery.
Do we have the right to co-curricular activity spaces? Spaces must be designed in an intentional way.
We need to think about who comes into this building and who shares this building with us. How can we better integrate these other departments into the library services? Ideally, non-library units in The Valley Library will be student-focused and have a connection to the University’s concept of the core. We prefer to have departments here that we can work with.
Identify the goals in our strategic plan that relate to space planning. Goal 1 is clearly about our space. Goal 1.3 is explicitly connected and 1.1 and 1.5 directly connected as well. Support for instructional and research services is indirectly related to space planning for the building. Our space is taken up with work space so there is a connection to Goal 4.
Our strategic plan also drives the timeline for projects. Masterplan to increase space should be established by the end of 2014. Our goal will be to have projects in progress by 2017, at the end of our strategic plan.
What do we think our challenges will be? What other things will have an impact on our space planning?
Enrollment on campus. Higher density on campus has implications for cleaning and for capacity (ie we only have so many restrooms).
Space utilization, we’re off by 7-8% per ACRL guidelines and trying to redress that issue. Sharing The Valley Library with other departments on campus jeopardizes the space available for students. Our lack of control over which departments and how many people move in here also pose a serious challenge.
How might named spaces be affected? [ie the third floor named space, James R. Kuse & Michael J. Kuse Reference Area, that no longer is a reference area]
What about learning trends? How will classrooms change? Technology less intrusive in present-day classrooms and it’s easy to change. We’ll need robust wireless devices.
There are architectural considerations that we are not considering changing such as columns in the middle of floors and columns in the middle of Autzen. We have some built-in features that will be challenging to change or move.
Weeding and discarding print materials is labor-intensive and costly. Consortial agreements allow us to to eliminate some print materials, we need to identify what we can discard and when.
Best Place to Study so The Valley Library has student buy-in. New student buildings will have study spaces.
Do we have the staffing to do these projects we’re heavily engaged in?
Do we anticipate push-back from faculty?
What kind of spaces are talking about in terms of our space plan? Multifunctional room/event space/work space/classroom space/ meeting space/special-purpose space (makerspace)/childcare facilities/exhibit space/consultation space/study group rooms.
What are the underutilized spaces? What are the service points? What’s an ideal number of service points for us to have?
Priorities:
- Collaborative space
- Instructional space
- Special-use space
- Work space
- Collection space
What to do with existing service points and existing classrooms?
Do we need a computer lab in the future
Consider California State Fullerton’s floor-by-floor approach to evaluating space. Look at each floor and ask what would be appropriate on this floor?
What kind of data do we need to think about our space?
Should we think about where our heavy traffic is in terms of student use?
Data on space utilization. We have a process in place to count number of people using the building at night.
We would never redo our space without user input.
Would students benefit from exhibits?
Special-use: data visualization (some kind of multimedia lab); quiet space; SCARC; where could a room be multi-functional
Consider policies for spaces.
Could we rethink the use of the private study rooms?
Currently we have 22 group study rooms.
How many rooms are assigned to individuals?
What kind of flexibility do we have with the construction of study rooms? Glass enclosures?
Could we do something specifically for graduate students? Could we collaborate with graduate studies?
What could be here that would draw users here?
Cost estimates will be critical part of data collection.
What kind of technology?
How will we proceed?
What are other libraries doing
This plan will be a communication tool to be used internally, a living document. When the time comes, we can pull excerpts from this plan for other publications.
(Look at Cal Fullerton example and maybe borrow some of this language/UNLV also has good example.)
Action: Draft a vision statement.
Action: --Collection analysis piece. Identify (in theory) the amount of space that would be freed up. Steven’s group could go ahead and start on that analysis, start with the 5th floor.
--Underutilized space. What is currently underutilized and what is potentially going to be underutilized?
--Changing the current use of existing user/classroom/work space (count usage – people are working in a group; people are studying alone)
--Inventory of rooms and how they are used and adjust policies accordingly
Action: Who should be involved in doing this?
Victoria (oversee the headcount piece)
Laurel (do the analysis piece)
Action: Victoria and Laurie and Trevor and-or Lori (to provide space utilization scan): Tell them to tell us current state of use for each floor. They are welcome to suggest potential uses. Ask them to provide feedback by February 1.
Action: Ask JoLynn to Rotunda and classroom calendars and provide report on usage [for fall 2013].