Georgia Tech Library and Information Centre

This will be a two part report, as I am going to visit the place tomorrow, presumably in an armoured bus. Lori Gee from Herman Miller was at this, she was co author of the book I picked up in San Diego last year, the one that I loaned to Malcolm Todd after his D&S Learning Hub presentation.

4 years ago students were not using the Library, so they experimented with what they though was an information commons. They decided to talk to the IT folk, previously the mortal enemy, and what they ended up with was a Dilbert farm. The only people who went there were folk who wanted quiet, and definitely not interaction.

So they have been trying again, and this is what I get to see tomorrow. This time they talked to the students by running affinity focus groups to assist in the design. As they said, you don’t have to sit around trying to imagine the answers to what students want, you just have to ask them. These sessions were brainstorming sessions with post its, then participants group the post its into affinities ie groups or qualities, then give a literal title for each group, then give a metaphor. Last step is to give a metaphor for the whole thing, all their groups came up with the same metaphor - refreshment for mind and body.

Then it all got a bit far out, but it did manage to upset all the librarians in the room. Sample quotes:

• If library is a destination you have to keep my mind and body refreshed, if I have to go elsewhere I wont come back.
• Flexible furniture, take with them wherever they go in the building – our library is a stage so you collect what props you need on the way in.
• We are the intellectual museum showcase for the university
• We wanted exciting shocking micro exhibits in their midst.
• Student have started giving service staff tips.

Bryan Matthews, who works there, keeps a blog on all of this:

http://theubiquitouslibrarian.typepad.com/

They finished off with a picture of the time two female students actually put a tent up in the library to do some serious revision.

I have never heard an American harrumph! But the women next to me was getting there.