Designing for Uncertainty: Three Approaches1

Journal of Academic Librarianship

Volumn 33, Issue 2, 2007, Pages 165-179

  Bennett, Scott ^a  

^a YALE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 34047119144     PISSN: 00991333     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/j.acalib.2006.12.005     Document Type: Article

References (26)

1. ©Scott Bennett, 2006. Readers of this paper and librarians may copy it without the copyright owner's permission, if the author and publisher are acknowledged in the copy and the copy is used for educational, not-for-profit purposes. A version of this paper was first presented at "Towards a Learning Ecology: Canadian Learning Commons Conference [June] 2006" at the University of Guelph. For more information about the conference, see http://www.learningcommons.ca (20 July 2006).
2. See, for instance, Kevin Kelly, "Scan This Book!" New York Times, 14 May 2006; Section 6, Column 3, p. 43.
3. See Phillip D. Long and Stephen C. Ehrmann, "Future of the Learning Space: Breaking Out of the Box," EDUCAUSE review 40 (July/August 2005): 56, available: http://www.educause.edu/apps/er/erm05/erm054.asp (20 July 2006).
4. For the University of Iowa Information Arcade, see Carol Ann Hughes, "'Facework': A New Role for the Next Generation of Library-Based Information Technology Centers," Library Hi Tech. 16, no. 3-4 (1998): 27-35; and for the Leavey Library, see Deborah Holmes-Wong, Marianne Afifi, Shahla Bahavar, and Xiogang Liu, "If You Build It, They Will Come: Spaces, Values, and Services in the Digital Era," Library Administration and Management 11 (1997): 74-85.
5. A good entry point to this literature is the Web site, "Information Commons: A Directory of Innovative Services and Resources in Academic Libraries." Available: http://www.brookdale.cc.nj.us/library/infocommons/ic_home.html (20 July 2006).
6. One indicator of the timing of this change is the absence of any mention of student support staff as offering an opportunity for "strategic alignment" in Donald Beagle, "Conceptualizing an Information Commons," Journal of Academic Librarianship 25 (March 1999): 82-89.
7. The survey instrument appears in Appendix 1.
8. See http://jhenning.law.uvic.ca (20 July 2006); for the CNI/Dartmouth Web site, see http://www.dartmouth.edu/~collab/ (20 July 2006).
9. Bennett S. Libraries Designed for Learning (2003), Council on Library and Information Resources, Washington, DC 20-22. http://www.clir.org/pubs/abstract/pub122abst.html available: http://www.clir.org/pubs/abstract/pub122abst.html (20 July 2006)
10. See, for instance, Amy Friedlander, Dimensions and Use of the Scholarly Information Environment: Introduction to a Data Set Assembled by the Digital Library Federation and Outsell, Inc. (Washington, DC: Council on Library and Information Resources, 2002), available: http://www.clir.org/pubs/abstract/pub110abst.html (20 July 2006); Carol Tenopir, Use and Users of Electronic Library Resources: An Overview and Analysis of Recent Research Studies (Washington, DC: Council on Library and Information Resources, 2003), available: http://www.clir.org/pubs/abstract/pub120abst.html (20 July 2006); and Cathy De Rosa, The 2003 OCLC Environmental Scan: Pattern Recognition. A Report to the OCLC Membership (Dublin, OH: OCLC, 2004).
11. See, for instance, How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School, ed. John D. Bransford, Ann L. Brown, and Rodney R. Cocking (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1999); Kenneth A. Bruffee, Collaborative Learning: Higher Education, Interdependence, and the Authority of Knowledge, 2nd ed. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999); John Seely Brown, "Learning in the Digital Age," in The Internet and the University: 2001 Forum, edited by Maureen Devlin, Richard Larson and Joel Meyerson (Boulder, CO: EDUCAUSE. 2002), pp. 65-91, available: http://www.educause.edu/LibraryDetailPage/666?ID=PUB5007 (20 July 2006); Diana Oblinger, "Boomers, Gen-Exers, and Millennials: Understanding the New Students," EDUCAUSE review 38 (July/August, 2003): 36-43, available: http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0342.pdf (20 July 2006); Joan K. Lippincott, "Net Generation Students and Libraries," EDUCAUSE review 40 (March/April 2005): 56-66, available: http://www.educause.edu/er/erm05/erm0523.asp (20 July 2006); Steve Jones, "The Internet Goes to College: How students are living in the future with today's technology," a publication of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, September 2002, available: http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/71/report_display.asp (20 July 2006); George D. Kuh and Robert M. Gonyea, "The Role of the Academic Library in Promoting Student Engagement in Learning," College and Research Libraries 64 (July 2003): 256-282; and the National Survey of Student Engagement and the Faculty Survey of Student Engagement, both available at http://nsse.iub.edu/index.cfm (20 July 2006). For an extended consideration of how NSSE and FSSE data might be used in planning learning spaces, see Scott Bennett, "First Questions for Designing Higher Education Learning Spaces," published in the January 2007 issue of the Journal of Academic Librarianship.
12. The library that conducted this survey granted me permission to use its data on the condition that they be presented anonymously. The view taken here of this survey data is my own and does not necessarily reflect the views of the institution where the data were collected. The data on library usage relate to the main campus library only and do not reflect the use of discipline-specific branch libraries. The library's survey addressed issues beyond those discussed in this essay.
13. NSSE data for this college would confirm or contradict this observation. FSSE data for the college would reveal any disparities between the importance that students and faculty attach to group study. It is often the case that faculty regard group study as less important than do students and no doubt shape their assignments accordingly. One student services officer observed in informal conversation that she was not surprised by the high importance students attach to individual study. Such views reflect how they have been taught to be learners and what they are most frequently asked to do as learners.
14. The surveys are available: http://express.perseus.com/perseus/surveys/1734848031/14f92090.htm (the student survey; 20 July 2006), http://express.perseus.com/perseus/surveys/1734848031/4ad72d78.htm (the faculty survey; 20 July 2006), and available under the Current Projects tab of my Web sites http://www.libraryspaceplanning.com (20 July 2006).
15. The college that conducted these surveys granted me permission to use the data on the condition that they be presented anonymously. The view taken here of this survey data is my own and does not necessarily reflect the views of the institution where the data were collected.
16. Questions about the two learning behaviors not drawn from NSSE were not part of the survey instruments when they were used at the college reported on here.
17. Because the learning behaviors used in this inquiry come from the National Survey of Student Engagement, it is possible to consider responses to this survey about learning space in the context of national surveys of both student (NSSE) and faculty (FSSE) views. This college does not consistently lead or lag behind on any of the learning behaviors asked about in this survey, except that it lags on conversations with students who are very different in personal values [DIFFSTU2] and conversations with students of different race [DIVRSTUD].
18. Student Engagement. Pathways to Collegiate Success. 2004 Annual [NSSE] Survey Results (2004), National Survey of Student Engagement, Bloomington, IN 13. http://nsse.iub.edu/html/report-2004.cfm available: http://nsse.iub.edu/html/report-2004.cfm (20 July 2006)
19. Food is a great social equalizer. For an extended discussion of the difficulty of encouraging study/faculty exchanges outside of the classroom, see Bennett, "First Questions."
20. Students' favorable comments about the science complex at the college discussed in the previous section of this essay reinforce this view.
21. Schonfeld R.C. JSTOR. A History (2003), Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ 1
22. See Malcolm B. Brown and Joan K. Lippincott, "Learning Spaces: More than Meets the Eye," EDUCAUSE Quarterly, 38, no. 1 (2003); 14-16, available: http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/eqm0312.pdf (20 July 2006).
23. The architect Craig Hartman argues that "while there is a long tradition to draw on, there is no agreed-on paradigm for the library of the future. Getting to this paradigm is the task before us," in "Memory Palace, Place of Refuge, Coney Island of the Mind: The Evolving Roles of the Library in the Late 20th Century," Research Strategies 17 (2000): 107-121.
24. For a striking example of the latter, see "Welsh Medical Library [at Johns Hopkins University] Architectural Study," available at: http://cfweb.welch.jhmi.edu/welchweb/architecturalstudy/index.html (20 July 2006). See also Kathleen Burr Oliver, "The Johns Hopkins Welch Medical Library as Base: Information Professionals Working in Library User Environments" in Library as Place, pp. 66-75.
25. For a much-cited description of this paradigm shift, see Robert B. Barr and John Tagg, "From Teaching to Learning-A New Paradigm for Undergraduate Education," Change 27 (November/December 1995): 12-25.
26. "Building Communities: Asking the Right Questions," Available at: http://www.pkal.org/documents/BuildingCommunitiesAskingTheRightQuestions .cfm (20 July 2006).