Assessing Library Space for Learning

With the surge in electronic access to the library’s resources, there has been an ongoing discussion about the need for a physical library building. On a college or university campus, the library is a destination for its users. Students, faculty and staff go to the library for various reasons. Their usage makes the academic library a valuable learning space on campus. However, not much is known about how the library space contributes to user learning. In Assessing Library Space for Learning, chapters discuss library usage at academic institutions and how that usage is an integral part of the student learning experience. Included are the perspectives of an architect who is tasked with designing library spaces with learning in mind, a psychologist whose professional research focuses on the concept of place, and a dynamic group of academic librarians who are dedicated to making the library conducive to the needs of their learners. This book is a combination of theory, practical and research based chapters with an overall focus on the intersection of library space and learning. The authors demonstrate the importance of the library space in our users’ lives. In addition, the authors discuss the importance of determining ways to learn how library space contributes to user learning. Readers will gain an understanding of the library space as a valuable learning space and the steps librarians need to take to assess learning in the academic library.

Montgomery has gathered an impressive group of authors to address the many facets of space design and assessment of library learning spaces. . . . Highly recommended for any academic library that will be renovating, repurposing, or redesigning space, whether it is building a brand new building or merely shifting furniture. In other words, highly recommended for all academic libraries., A valuable contribution to the rapidly evolving field of academic library space assessment, this collection of engaging, practice-centered scholarship discusses space analysis through the wider lenses of learning theory and behavioral and environmental psychology. Equally important is the extensive coverage given to effective, informed methodological approaches to assessing the impact of the spaces we have created, and informing the design of those we envision.

Susan E. Montgomery is an Associate Professor/Public Services Librarian at Rollins College in Winter Park, FL. She received her MS in Library and Information Studies from Florida State University and holds a BA from Knox College and an MA in Latin American Studies from the University of New Mexico.