| The Learning Commons
Model: Determining Best Practices for Design, Implementation, and Service |
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Information Commons and Learning Commons Site Visits
Overview Mt. Holyoke College is a highly selective, liberal arts college for women in South Hadley, Massachusetts with a FTE of 2100. The Library and Information Technology Services have been merged since 1996. Information about LITS, including mission and goals, strategic plan, annual reports, and staffing, can be found at http://www.mtholyoke.edu/lits/7628.shtml. They have 66 full-time integrated library, information and technology services positions. An organizational chart is available at http://www.mtholyoke.edu/lits/assets/lits/org_chart2006.pdf. Librarians and Instructional Technologists work side by side in a shared office space. Each staff office has one librarian and one instructional technologist. LITS consists of 3 buildings: Williston, Miles-Smith, and Dwight Hall. The Williston and Miles-Smith buildings house the Library's collections, Circulation and Reserves, the Reference and reading areas, library instruction rooms, staff offices, the Library Courtyard and Rao's Cafe. Adjoining these two buildings is Dwight Hall. Dwight is home to the Learning Commons, Digitization Services, the Faculty Resource Center, Video Resource Center, Special Projects Lab, and administrative offices. A complete description of these joined buildings is available at http://www.mtholyoke.edu/lits/7726.shtml The Learning Common environment has been in place at Mount Holyoke since 2003. It began as a result of a planned LITS building renovation project. Although most of the Learning Commons technology is centrally located in Dwight Hall, they have included features of the commons environment throughout their buildings -- a courtyard for socializing, a cafe, the Writing Center, group study rooms with media, technology, and whiteboard, two wired library instruction classrooms and intimate reading alcoves throughout. Description of Services and Facilities Upon entering the Library, one is introduced to a large courtyard area that is open to the floors above. Off to one side is Rao's Cafe. This is a highly popular area for both students, faculty and staff to meet and socialize. The entrance to the Courtyard has a large screen plasma television that is usually set to CNN news. One side of the Courtyard area opens into the Circulation area. 20 Laptops are available to circulate within the LITS buildings. Walking through the Courtyard, one enters the Reference area and Reading room.
The Reference Desk is staffed by professional staff librarians and operates as a traditional reference service point. It is totally separate from the Learning Commons area but there are plenty of computers located near the reference desk for librarians to help students with research in this area. It is interesting to note that the Reference Desk, which was previously a large counter height furniture barricade, was cut down in both height and length to make it more approachable. In this area you will also find display shelving for the current periodical collection. Off from the reading room area, there are two library classrooms. One is set up as a seminar room and operates as an open space teaching room for a variety of classes and the other is more suitable for group library instruction. A portable laptop cart is brought into this library classroom to provide computer access during instruction sessions. The tables and chairs can easily be rearranged to accommodate instruction needs. Both classrooms have full projection capabilities. Off from the main reading room area is a lovely circular room for small groups to meet or individuals to study. Throughout the Williston and Miles-Smith buildings, users can enjoy quiet reading nooks with comfortable soft seating and bookcases of new books or book displays. The Writing Center is just up the stairs from the Reading Room and is an important collaborative partner with LITS.
Tucked in behind the collections are several rooms for group study. This was an excellent use of space that was available at the back of the stacks. These rooms are located on two floors and have been a very popular for both individual and group study. The rooms are equipped with laptop ports, a whiteboard, table and chairs. Some include more comfortable seating and media viewing equipment. All have windows!
Proceeding into the Learning Commons Area located in Dwight Hall, the user can choose from a variety of workstation options. There are computers arranged around a column designed for quick reference look-up. The design of this kiosk type area allows for the computers to be lowered from counter height to seating height if so desired in the future. There is one large area of Macintosh (25%) and PC computers (75%) set up in rows for individual work and there are peninsular tables with large shared monitors for collaborative group work. They have even provided long work tables off to one side of the Commons so that staff and students can work together to solve a problem or students can layout their projects and have space to work on them. The Commons area can be left open after the rest of the building closes at 2 a.m. during the final two weeks of the semester.
The Technology Support Desk with a staff office is located in the Learning Commons. Referrals for research and reference questions are made to the Reference Desk in the Reading Area. This area also contains the print workstations and has a Diagnostic Center to help students and faculty with computer hardware issues.
On the second level of Dwight Hall, facilities supporting the Learning Commons are found. Currently this area consists of four purpose specific rooms arranged along a corridor -- the Digitization Center for processing e-Reserves, faculty projects, and slide conversion; the Faculty Resource Center with equipment for technology enhanced curriculum projects and staffed by an Instructional Technologist; A Video Resource Center that offers some drop-in hours for video editing; and a Special Projects Computer Lab for workshops and some classroom teaching. All the rooms shown below will be reformulated into the large Multi-media area during the second renovation phase beginning in Summer 2007. In the second phase of Mt. Holyoke's Learning Commons project, the space will be opened up and further repurposed to support faculty and students in multi-media and digitization and other technology-based projects. Whereas the first phase of the Learning Commons provided an open and lively space for both individual and group work, the second phase will offer high-end multi-media production capabilities.
The plans for Phase 2 are very exciting. This large space will use carpet color and a serpentine traffic flow to delineate spaces for video-editing and multi-media production, media teaching spaces, a mini lab with 3 workstations for faculty, a digitization center with staffing and service center, seating height computer kiosks, and 6 and 8 person glass walled group study rooms with large plasma computer monitors. Sprinkled throughout will be soft seating and table areas. Other features include scanners, a plotter for large scale printing, a copy stand, printers, a wireless lounge area, 5 large (36" to 50") plasma monitors, and stacking chairs for extra seating.
Organizationally, Mt. Holyoke has had a merged Library and Information Technology Systems since 1996. Librarians, technicians and instructional technologists work side by side. Both Librarians and Instructional Technologists are responsible for both collection development and web page development. They work as a team for the departmental liaison program. The LITS organizational structure is divided into ten different departments -- Administration, Access Services, Administrative Computing, Archives and Special Collections, Collection Development, Community Technical Support, Library Technical Services, Media Resources, Networking, and Research and Instructional Support. A description of the activities of each department is available at http://www.mtholyoke.edu/lits/8439.shtml and an organizational chart is available at http://www.mtholyoke.edu/lits/assets/lits/org_chart2006.pdf
The LITS strategic plan, available at http://www.mtholyoke.edu/lits/7801.shtml , gives the current environment, planning issues and five-year objectives. Collaboration and Partnerships As mentioned above, the Writing Center has their office in the LITS complex and provides one - to-one peer consultations. The Career Development Center also has staff hours in the library. Media, Technology, and Library services are totally integrated throughout the buildings. Staffing and Training Mt. Holyoke believes in continuous training opportunities for their staff. Because of these training opportunities, some staff members have actually transitioned between departments. As technology keeps changing, so do positions and job descriptions. Staff are continually updating their job skills. They would like to get more funding for advance training, such as specialized Microsoft training. When new staff come on board, they are paired with a mentor to help them learn different areas. Staff working for LITS enjoy learning and don't feel threatened by the changeable nature of their jobs. Impact on Collections Primarily they weeded the Indexes to make room for new facilities. They do have some off-site storage as well. Reference & Instruction Services Mt. Holyoke provides traditional reference services with professional librarians and Simmons GSLIS interns. They do a lot of research consultations and are responsible for working with a instructional technologist as a liaison to several departments. Information Literacy & Technological Literacy in the Commons Environment Staff believe that the Learning Commons has had a good impact on its Information Literacy program. They are taking new instructional initiatives and did about a hundred instruction sessions last year. Some classes are for library research and others are for technology instruction. There are eleven people in their Instruction Group. They also provide a Tech Mentors program for faculty in which a librarian and instructional technologist team up to provide web enhanced curriculum support for an individual faculty member and course. Intellectual/Cultural Center There is ample space in the courtyard for events and special exhibits. Assessment Because of the layout of their buildings, they find assessment a bit of a challenge. They have participated in both LibQual and the MISO (Merged Information Services Organizations) surveys. They also keep circulation and reference transactions. Lessons Learned Be flexible! Make sure nothing is permanent and everything is flexible and can be moved or reconfigured. Do not buy custom built furniture. Reorganization of staff within departments is sometimes necessary to meet user demand. When vacancy's occur, they always re-evaluate that position and decide how to fill that position based on current need. Although their organizational structure is by department, they often use task forces which pull people from a variety of different departments to work on special projects. It was necessary to cut the Library's Technical Service space in half to make room for more public spaces for users. Although it seemed difficult at first, everyone adjusted. Observations Informing Best Practices Using a building existing historic architecture can present challenges, but if carefully planned and renovated it can result in interesting new spaces. Use Flexible furniture and anticipate change. By using the spaces found in each of the three building LITS complex, Mount Holyoke has been able to build an effective Learning Commons Building incorporating both high-end technology and important spaces for social interaction, while at the same time preserving traditional library services. The interesting concept of teaming one librarian and one instructional technologist within the same office space has proved effective for LITS-faculty liaison efforts and for promoting the information literacy program. |
