We are working on a library renovation and a topic that comes up is desktops. A number of these are necessary for specialized software, but what if all software applications flow to the cloud? Maybe what we really need to plan is for really nice monitors and a fast data connection?

Thinking beyond hardware… does software become similar to journal subscriptions in which users authenticate and proxy in? Will we provide campus-wide subscriptions to everyone or perhaps on-demand (use as you go) model? Will every computer everywhere become the “the media lab” rather than designated spots on campus? Do the software tools that we (the University) provide (via the cloud) become a recruiting asset? And what happens once students graduate?

Does this framework enable collaboration across organizations? For example, could I design something online with someone at Georgia Tech? Or could students enrolled in my school collaborative with students at other schools or with people from industry, government, or other countries? If the tools we use are fully networked then how might that enable the work we do to become more networked as well?

Obviously I have lots of questions. As I said, I’m still pondering the news. Adobe moving in this direction feels like something more just dabbling with the cloud—they are betting their business on it. It seems connected thematically to a larger transition of mediums (music, film, radio, books, etc) to a network rather than a hard drive or other physical artifact (print, DVD, CD, etc.) It is becoming less and less about “the stuff I own” and more and more about “the stuff I license or subscribe to.” There is something more significant here than just Photoshop moving to online-only. This is quite possibly a transformative moment in the history of software, computers, design, and human interaction… maybe? As Adobe says… it’s time for a change… not just with where the software lives but with how we use it, and perhaps even how we define “software” going forward.

Question: Is this the new “land-grant” university?

If the federal government  will fund online universities (via financial aid for tuition and fees) and accreditation organizations recognize these degrees as equivalent to other state-operated higher ed schools—is this the land-grant for the 21^st century? Is this the new environment that opens up affordable and diverse education to a larger audience? Is this a contemporary approach to acquiring and developing skills, insights, and experiences for professional development and personal enrichment?

One of the core objectives of the original land-grant program was to provide broader access to education. The federal government gave land to the states for schools based upon this mission. Fast-forward 150 years and now the government is endorsing virtual campuses.  Online learning can potentially magnify the initial effort, enabling many more citizens the opportunity to advance their learning. Land-grant universities were designed to help transition into an industrial society– are we experiencing a similar transition into a digital society?

Just trying to connect some dots. Where is higher education heading?

A big surprise was the development of The Startup Library. I wasn’t involved, but I’m glad that it happened. It’s nice to see that my paper influenced some entrepreneurial discussions.

Lately though I’ve noticed a new response: anger. Maybe disgruntlement is a better word. At conferences or online, some librarians are lamenting that they work in environments that are not innovative. And since I write and talk on that theme they expect me to have the answers for them. I don’t. I’m not a consultant. I’m an experimenter. The objective of my paper was to get people thinking, talking, and acting more entrepreneurially. It wasn’t designed as a blueprint, but as a conversation starter.

Changing culture is tough and I definitely have a lot to learn. But with so much changing all around us, we need to be able to change too. We need a framework that encourages this to happen. And I hear it from both sides at every conference I attend. Administrators wishing that their employees would embrace new roles. And staff or librarians wishing that their administrators would embrace new ideas. It seems there is a lot of disconnection in our libraries. Perhaps the first step is having a shared vision: why does your library exist?

This is why I think change requires a flexible label. Change needs a brand. It needs texture and context. Change without a wrapper is just chaos. The wrapper that I use is startup. It’s a temporary construct. It’s a guiding framework. It’s an operational vision. It’s a working draft waiting to be edited.

What I like about startup is the attitude. Perhaps everything is smooth sailing in your library, but everywhere I’ve worked has been undergoing tremendous transformation. There is a lot of uncertainty. There are a lot of unknowns. There are a lot of changes outside of our control: pedagogy, publishing, research requirements, technology, and so on.

Startup addresses this uncertainty with a group-bonding framework. We don’t know the future so let’s figure it out together. We’re going to explore new service models. We’re going to explore new audiences. We’re going to explore new user needs. We’re going to dabble with new technology and tools. We’re going to add new expertise. Things are going to change and then change again, but that’s okay, because we’re in startup mode– we’re expecting it.

Change becomes something that people invest in because they are helping to drive it—they’re looking for it. We start talking about outcomes and aspirations. We have permission to be wrong, to pivot, to succeed, or to fail. We have permission to dream and follow unusual ideas. We have permission to seek new problems or to test new approaches. We have permission to work with different people. We have permission to stop doing things that no longer have an impact. We have permission to change our schedule and workloads.

In short, startup puts us into a mindset to be creative and innovative — that’s what I expect from my employees and what they expect from me. This becomes the fabric of our culture.

So there’s that— the attitude, but startup is also a methodology: build, measure, learn. Details here. This application is being used by government agencies and non-profits. It’s not just students in their dorms with billion dollar ideas– it’s a project management tool.

Startup isn’t about profits or IPOs or websites– it is ideation and implementation. How do we find new needs? How do we address these needs? What isn’t working that we should stop doing? How can we absorb this new role? What do our users need us to become? What does the library enable people to accomplish?

Maybe this framework doesn’t work for you or your organization. That’s cool. I’ve found it very helpful as I’ve moved into administration. Startup offers a change-oriented, collaborative, invent-the-future mindset, while also providing a functional toolset for evaluating, developing, designing, and delivering new stuff.

My advice — find a shared vision that works in your organization. Maybe it’s DIY, or Grassroots, or user experience, or whatever label you need. Talk about it. Name it. Use it. Build a brand. This helps everyone understand expectations and aspirations. This helps the culture.

I expect my employees to ask for time, money, support, advice, recommendations, partnerships, etc. And from them I expect a return on investment—a positive new impact on our users, a new service or teaching model, greater operational efficiency, a new web feature, a new capacity, or a case study of what went wrong. That’s the culture I’m developing around my employees.

More info about what we’re building at Virginia Tech: Hubs & Centers

Here is a piece from the intro:

Libraries of science and technology universities worldwide are adapting to a changing environment where cyberinfrastructure, eResearch, and new technology-intensive approaches to teaching and learning are transforming the very nature of universities. While many have adopted new technologies and the resources and expertise to manage them, this is only an initial step. Libraries are experimenting with organizational models that will transform their work capacity and expertise. The goal of these libraries is being an entity that feeds and produces collaborative synergies between faculty, students, information professionals, and technologists.

VT Libraries Strategic Thinking Dashboard

This is a key piece: “While many library leaders can see what their organizations need to become, the process of selecting methods, tools, and organizational theories that will transform their libraries remain unclear and challenging.”

Again, it is still early days for us, but we are experimenting with several models. We’ll be sharing more about this later in the year. Julie has some great ideas about the research side and here is more of my thinking about learning. Maybe we’ll try to put together a webinar if people are interested. Things are very much in the moment right now– but it’s helpful to document the process.

Download: (paper and presentation slides)

HUBS AND CENTERS AS TRANSITIONAL CHANGE STRATEGY FOR LIBRARY COLLABORATION

I was surprised by the attitude that the session generated. There was a lot of “damn the man” talk and being a library administrator I guess I’m part of the problem now. As I listened I kept contrasting their attitude with startup thinking. While both DIY and startup argue for change, they differ quite a bit. Here are a few quick notes:

Destruction vs. Disruption
Many of the DIYers mentioned the need for creative destruction. In startup the aim is for innovative disruption. DIY wants to rebuild from scratch whereas startup wants hack the code—redefine what something can do.

The biggest question I had: “what does an ideal DIYed Library look like?” Draw it out with images, not words. Show me what it looks like—mock-up it. What does it do differently? How does it operate? Who pays the bills? It’s a raw concept that needs some bones and vital organs.

There was a lot of talk on how the current “system is broken” — OK – so what should the system look like? Don’t all systems break eventually? Can you build an agile system? There didn’t seem to be a roadmap, just a lot of rhetoric. And maybe it’s too early for tangible plans, but that would be my advice: create a vision that people can understand, respond, adapt, remix, personalize, scale, and implement. Show us the change you desire.

Startup works both sides of change: continuous and discontinuous. Work is done to improve current operations (needs) while breakout / game-changing ideas are explored as well.

I/WE vs. THE USERS
DIYers talked a lot about “I” and “We.” Here is what I think. Here is what we need to do. I don’t believe I heard anyone advocate for the users. Here is what users need and hence we need to change. It felt more librarian-centered rather than user-centered. Maybe their focus is on changing the profession not the performance of libraries– but that all seems interconnected.

Entrepreneurship is closely aligned with niche creation—find a need and fill it. It’s the pursuit of filling in gaps or adopting new tools and creating new behaviors. The outcome is helping users with whatever their task or job-to-be-done involves.

DIY seemed concerned with personal expression and less so with connecting with user needs.

Independence vs. Partnerships
DIY relishes the self-made. Independence is a critical attribute. One of the panelists argued for building our own software tools, such as platform-agnostic e-readers or a Mendeley-like service.

While startups share this inventive spirit—they either want to get bought by “the man” or to “become the man.” The objective though, is addressing problems with creative ideas and then shipping the solution widely. Sometimes this involves working with competitors. Helping Eliseiver develop a better product is better than doing nothing and just complaining about Eliseiver. Which helps users more in the end?

Startup tends to want a large user base, while DIY tends to prefer a more narrow audience. Mass appeal vs. artisan appreciation?

$$$
DIY relishes self-funded—in fact, it is a point of pride.

Startup begins self-funded but then gains prestige or legitimacy when external partners invest: the idea is validated.

Angry vs. Optimistic
During the DIY session there was a lot of “traditional libraries are dead,” “down with the system,” and “subversion of bureaucracy.”

I could not tell if this was part of a hipster aesthetic or genuine frustration. Was it that people didn’t like their bosses or their colleagues or their libraries or even libraries in general? I don’t know, but I do know that no one stood up and said: a faculty member had a particular need, so I went around “the system” and developed a something for them. That would have impressed me. A critical part of being a librarian is looking for backdoors, loopholes, ways-around, and doing whatever it takes to deliver the solution.

In contrast—every startup entrepreneur I’ve met has been wildly (naively) optimistic and excited about what they are doing. That’s the attitude I want to hire: someone who believes that everything is possible. Someone committed to pushing the boundaries. Someone who makes changes from within the system. Use whatever label you want but people who makeithappen

Granted, this session focused on org culture and not necessary on job performance or DIY practices, but all and all it felt more like a vent session rather than one about empowerment.

Survival vs. Reshaping
One of the panelists posted:

“DIY culture in libraries is less about creativity and more about basic survival. A traditional library is a dead library. We know this: if libraries don’t change they will fade away, eclipsed by the free, the instant, and the easy.”

While Library DIY is focused on survival, Library Startup is about shaping or reshaping the delivery of services. Startup isn’t focused on sustaining libraries– it is focused on helping libraries evolve. When you take the long view — some roles of the library today might end of being distributed around our campuses. The entrepreneurial concern is on finding the best service models and practices to advance the needs of users.

Closing Thoughts
If I had to sum it up, based on the conversation of the session, DIY seems focused on “rebellion” whereas I see startup is focused on “programming” or “reprogramming.”

Both movements, if we can use that word, are traveling in similar directions, but they have different destinations and ultimately different ways of getting there.

Both are useful for getting librarians and staff (and others) to think and talk about change. Both are calls to action. Both are trendy right now.

DIY feels more like a political statement than an innovation statement. Maybe it will take shape.  Or maybe its leaders prefer the vagueness? Regardless, I wish the Lead Pipe well but encourage them to draw it out. If DIY was an operating system, what would it look like? And what might it look like if Library DIY and Library Startup came together?

I was invited to present a paper at ACRL based upon my entrepreneurial writings. I decided to write about the pursuit of good problems, which has become a guiding philosophy in my work. I think it’s going to be a good talk. I’m having fun putting the content together and it addresses a different piece of the innovation discussion.

Friday, April 12, 1:30PM, Wabash 2-3, Indianapolis Convention Center

Here is the closing thought that sums it all up:

Our intention should never be to give people what they want. Rather, through the art of problem discovery, we can design and develop the capacities, service models, and solutions necessary to deliver what people need in order to accomplish the outcomes they desire.  (more)

 

]]> http://chronicle.com/blognetwork/theubiquitouslibrarian/2013/04/02/the-art-of-problem-discovery-invited-paper-acrl-2013/feed/ 0 http://chronicle.com/blognetwork/theubiquitouslibrarian/2013/03/23/so-im-editing-this-journal-issue-and/ http://chronicle.com/blognetwork/theubiquitouslibrarian/2013/03/23/so-im-editing-this-journal-issue-and/#comments Sat, 23 Mar 2013 20:03:49 +0000 Brian Mathews http://chronicle.com/blognetwork/theubiquitouslibrarian/?p=1211 I have been looking for an opportunity to work with Damon Jaggars for several years now. Last October we caught up at the Library Assessment Conference (here is the paper I presented) and worked out a plan for me to be a guest editor for a special issue of The Journal of Library Administration. For me, blog posts and whitepapers are the perfect vehicles of expression; however, I do like to dip into the more formal side of publishing every so often.

Here is a taste of the framework:

Imagine academic libraries fifteen years from now or at some other inflection point. How do we define the academic library in this future? Where does the library begin and end relative to research and academic computing, and other campus and network services that will be available to faculty and students?  How will higher education change and how will the academic library align with that change? What will the curriculum look? How will scholarship be defined? Will current large-scale collaborative efforts (DPN, HathiTrust, shared single-copy repositories, etc.) create the efficiencies and preservation infrastructure they promise? How will we define collections? What will a globally networked library look like? How will we use information differently? What will learning and productivity spaces look like? What services might emerge? What aspects of collection building and service provision are no longer necessary?

This special issue explores the possibilities of what libraries might become or cease to be. Experts from different sectors of academia, publishing, technology, and design will share their thoughts, dreams, fears, and hopes about the future. The intention is to produce insights that ignite the imagination — to leapfrog the adjacencies of the coming years and land on a strategic plateau of the near future. This is an opportunity to speculate on the arriving advances as well as to warn of potential loss due to these changes.

I took my inspiration from J.J. Abrams when he guest edited an issue of Wired. It is a very personal project for me. I wanted to create an issue about libraries that I would want to read— one that I wished would show up in my inbox. It would cover ideas and topics that I get excited about — issues that library leaders will be dealing with for the next several decades.

Damon joked that this was shaping up to be the “science fiction” issue, but he believed in it. In fact, he scheduled it for August 2013.

I decided to make this invitation-only. There was a particular vision that I was striving to curate and so I targeted authors from specific sectors: librarians, academics, and industry. Here is the lineup:

Constance Malpas, OCLC
Theme: The Future of Large-Scale Collection Conversion and Collaboration

Daniel Russell, Google
Theme: The Future of Research Skills & MOOCology

Frank Menchaca, Gale Cengage
Theme: The Future of Assessment & Metrics

Gardner Campbell, Virginia Tech
Theme: The Future of Learning

Kelly Miller, UCLA
Theme: The Future of Library Instruction

Lennie Scott-Webber, Steelcase
Theme: The Future of Educational Environments

Michael Levine-Clark, University of Denver
Theme: The Future of Content

Steven Bell, Temple University
Theme: The Future of Library Experiences

There are lots of great voices here. I’m also contributing an essay that explores retailing and merchandizing principles and applies them to a future academic setting. So you’re excited right? Each paper is going to be fascinating on its own, but collectively, it’s an amazing package. The papers are due in May and I can’t wait to read and edit them.

PLOT TWIST
The sad truth is that we’ll never see this particular issue of the Journal of Library Administration. I received an email this morning from Damon announcing that he and the entire Editorial Board of JLA resigned their positions. Here is the gist:

“The Board believes that the licensing terms in the Taylor & Francis author agreement are too restrictive and out-of-step with the expectations of authors in the LIS community.”

“A large and growing number of current and potential authors to JLA have pushed back on the licensing terms included in the Taylor & Francis author agreement. Several authors have refused to publish with the journal under the current licensing terms.”

 

“Authors find the author agreement unclear and too restrictive and have repeatedly requested some form of Creative Commons license in its place.”

 

“After much discussion, the only alternative presented by Taylor & Francis tied a less restrictive license to a $2995 per article fee to be paid by the author.  As you know, this is not a viable licensing option for authors from the LIS community who are generally not conducting research under large grants.”

 

“Thus, the Board came to the conclusion that it is not possible to produce a quality journal under the current licensing terms offered by Taylor & Francis and chose to collectively resign.”

So that’s my Saturday. I know that these political statements happen occasionally where boards step down to make a point. I just wish they would have waited until September. While I’m sure that these authors could easily publish elsewhere, the most exciting part for me was the cohesive package — that these individual papers (these aspirational ideas) would be bound together.

While I can understand and appreciate the stance of the Board, I personally try to stay clear these politics. I am a practitioner of open access but I would not call myself an advocate. Author rights and related matters are critical and I’m glad that our profession is taking a stand. But me, my strengths are ideation and so it’s on to new projects.

Update #1: Further Reflections

Several people have mentioned publishing this in an open access journal or even starting a new journal—I want to address that:

The reason I agreed to take on the guest editorship of this issue was specifically because it was in a traditional journal and distributed by a traditional publisher. I like the idea of taking disruptive content and baking it into a conventional platform. I’m a fan of OA but this was one instance where I was intentionally aiming for something with more confinement. You know, change from within, and all that.

Also—while I received a lot of positive feedback from the STARTUP paper, a few readers gave me a hard time by saying that it was “interesting but not scholarly enough.” I would agree with that assessment but they meant it as criticism whereas I saw that as a positive attribute. So this was my attempt to infiltrate the scholarly domain and bring along my style of expression.

I’m half tempted to add a few more authors and pitch this on kick starter as both an open web package AND a glossy collectable print booklet too. We’ll see where it all goes. Time to prep for ACRL.

Update #2: A Recruited Author Speaks Out

I had recruited Jason Griffey to contribute a piece on technology. We were both pretty excited about the theme, but the lingering issue of author rights was front and center and it just didn’t work out. He chronicles the story here.

Update #3: A Board Member Speaks Out

Chris Bourg was a Board member and shares more of the story here.

Update #4:  On being pro-choice

My oh my, what a polarizing issue this has become. I’ve heard from a handful of editors and publishers and I want to thank them for reaching out. They have given me a lot to think about. It’s nice to see a conversation from a conference reception turn into something meaningful.

I’ve also heard from some long time readers and I want to thank them too. People who follow my work know that I lean toward openness. So I was kind of shocked to be persecuted from my desire to publish in a traditional journal.

I get that librarians are passionate about OA and that OA definitely provides some high quality options—but I feel that a person should have the right to publish anywhere they want for whatever reason they want. If someone wants to publish in Super Traditional Journal, I’m OK with that. If someone wants to self-publish, that’s fine too. If someone wants to publish in an OA Journal (pick your color)—I’m OK with that as well. I guess you can say I’m pro-choice when it comes to publishing. I only care about the quality of the ideas expressed.

But here is the thing: no one was asking me for content. There were no OA editors calling, emailing, commenting, or chatting with me at conferences. It was Damon who asked me to curate a journal issue. It was JLA who embraced my concept.

I saw an opportunity to take what I do (fringe stuff) and bring it to a more conventional audience via a conventional platform. Sometimes you have to repackage your message in different formats in order to reach different audiences. You might not agree with that strategy and that’s cool, but it’s the opportunity that was presented to me and so I took it.

I’m kind of surprised that people thought I would simple let this content live behind a pay wall though. I thought I had established a better reputation by now. Surely I would have posted the pre-prints (designed with more style) in various IRs. Pre-prints and post-prints are allowed by this publisher and so that’s the option I would have used to enable everyone access.

And I advise everyone to take a closer look at the text when I said: “The sad truth is that we’ll never see this particular issue of the Journal of Library Administration.” I never said the content was dead, I simply stated that it would never be in JLA.

Let’s leave it there for now.

What’s the visual cue here?

Lauren got me thinking about visual cues. For example, does your reference desk invite people to linger-and-learn or does it promote short discussions? At VT we’re seeing fewer questions overall, but we’re investing more time per person on instructional topics. So the issue becomes: how might we reshape the “getting help experience” to signify and accommodate long conversations?

This applies to circulation too. Much of their activity consists of quick transactions: grab-and-go. But consider the difference between checking out a book on reserve vs. placing a book on reserve. These two encounters require different settings: one takes thirty seconds and the other several minutes.

What’s the visual cue here?

We’ve started a process of inventorying current and anticipated service interactions and are considering how the spaces we develop can promote particular behaviors. If the intention of the reference desk is teaching then it shouldn’t look like an airline ticket counter or a traditional hotel front desk. Teaching space looks and behaves differently than answering-your-quick-question space.

MERCHANDIZING
I wanted to share an interesting observation. I hosted an exercise reviewing a wide variety of service spaces—banks, hotels, trade shows, retail, etc— and we considered the visual cues of those different environments.

What’s the visual cue here?

One of the slides featured a jewelry store. What’s the visual cue here? Browsing! Maybe you know what you want and can point right to it. Or maybe you’re not sure and prefer to try several options. The point is that the items are in full view. This is a perfect solution for a growing development at our circulation desk.  We’ve recently started lending a handful of adaptors to accommodate SCALE-UP, media:scape, and other technology needs. Instead of keeping them locked away in a backroom it seems we could emulate the jewelry store experience by showcasing them. The expert user can point right to the item she needs, while the novice can try on different adaptors to find the right fit. It’s good for users, but also helpful for library staff may not understand the complexity of all the hardware and related accessories.

The lesson: put your stuff on display. Just like in a jewelry store or a bakery, seeing sells. Make it visible to the people who need it see it. Shape an encounter that encourages browsing. Show off the eBook readers and tablets, the GPS units, the Raspberry Pi, the calculators, the projectors, the adaptors and tools, and so on. Stimulate interest and curiosity designing a shopping experience. If you have something like this in operation, post links in comment– I’d like to see what others are doing.

Full Disclosure: I’ve been obsessed with visual merchandising techniques and practices for the past several months. I’m writing about it in a forthcoming paper. Excited to share my thoughts on this topic.

See also: Chicken Wings and Egg Rolls: The Library Menu Concept (a flashback from 2007)

Let’s back up. When I interviewed at Virginia Tech one of the duties presented was to lead massive renovations. Unlike others, we don’t have $105 – $115 million in the bank. The libraries that win design awards are always grand new constructions or sizeable renovations. There should be award for lean libraries, not just landmark ones. Our approach is pure bootstrapping, entrepreneurial, and startup: ideate a need, design a program, hustle the cash, implement, iterate, iterate, iterate.

The past year has been about ideation and program development around our second floor. We’re shaping and funding it bit by bit. The generosity of an alumnus has already given us a start but our students haven’t seen anything yet.

I’ve spoken about the concept with over 300 students, faculty, and alumni. I’ve given many of tours and invited people to dream about the change. We’ve done surveys, focus groups, interviews, ethnographic observations, and UX studies. We’ve investigated other places around campus and around town. We’ve visited other libraries, and more importantly, other non-library places like Google, Facebook, co-working offices, startup incubators, and the d school. We’ve had course projects explore components and we’ve employed a handful of interns to map things out.

In short, the last year has been an exhaustive search for what this space needs to become. The public space on this particular floor is growing from 7,000 sq. ft. to over 27,000 sq. ft. – a substantial change. If I do my job right it won’t look anything like it did when I arrived. This is our main floor so there’s a lot on the line.

I’ve thought about this project every day since I started. This week I turned all that over to Lord, Aeck & Sargent. They are working on schematics and doing a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of HVAC and electrical planning. Besides infrastructural upgrades though, this project aims to implement a new philosophy: what is a library?

Once we hired LAS I asked them to skip over the file on “library trends” and focus instead on other environments where people collaborate, share, and build ideas. That’s what we want to emphasize on this floor.

So the emotional aspect that affected me yesterday was the awareness that the discovery and framing portion of the project is complete and that it’s now out of my hands. The floor is conceptually done. And sure there are months ahead of editing and revisiting and other adjustments, but the concept phase is over. We’ve done all we can.

I worry—did I tell them everything they need to know? Did I represent our students and staff well? Did they meet with enough people? Did I ask enough questions? Did they ask enough questions? Are we being too modern in terms of aesthetics? Are we being too much d school (extreme flexibility) and not enough Facebook (rows and rows of tables)? Are we being too bold or not bold enough?

I guess it’s the same doubts one feels when publishing a paper or giving a talk—or even broader, when you create something new. This project feels more like art than science to me. It has been a large evolving collaborative initiative and now it has shifted from ideation to pre-production. I feel responsible for delivering a good product to our students. I’m personally invested in the outcome – and yet find myself in an unexpected position of being unable to help anymore.

Reflecting further—it’s all about disruption. Changing the nature and character of the floor, the collections, and the services. This isn’t about electrical capacity, lighting grids, airflow, building codes, service desks, furniture, or signage. It isn’t about optimizing the space or other efficiencies. It isn’t about preferences or priorities. It is about change—changing what we do, changing how we are perceived, and most importantly, changing how users interact within the environment.

The tough part is that it’s out of our hands now. We’ve packaged this fragile idea, this bundle of possibility, and given it away. We have to trust that our architects can interpret all these thoughts, needs, dreams, and aspirations and turn this vision not just into an amazing space, but an amazing user experience. Their job is to build a framework that makes disruption possible and positive. The human side of renovations is far more fascinating than what is being built.

We’re opening our SCALE-UP classroom today. This is a joint venture between the Library and the College of Science. It was one of the first projects that my Dean gave me upon arrival. We already have two classrooms that are computer lab-based models, but like a lot of libraries, our instructional demands are increasing and we not only needed more space—but a different type of space. The College of Science was also looking for more instructional space so it was mutually beneficial. They already have a successful SCALE-UP classroom – so this is an extension of that effort.

I had my first meeting with them in January 2012—and now thirteen months later we have a great classroom. Not quite startup speed, but it was a complex project. Many people were involved with this—from financing (thanks Provost & COS) to collection reviews and shifting. Our facilities team also kept the building open over Winter break—which was above and beyond.

The real test has been showing it to students. I walked a group through last week and the key comment way “I wish my class was in here!” And that’s the point. We’re trying to raise the bar of the classroom experience. We wanted to create an environment that is exciting but also breaks away from lecture-based pedagogy.

The gist is that from 7AM – 7PM it will function as a classroom. We will have a near 50/50 split with College of Science. After 7PM it becomes student space. That was a very important component for me because I don’t like when classrooms are locked overnight – I prefer to give as much space as possible to users.

We’re really excited about our 50% share in the teaching time of this classroom. We’ve already started talking about experiments and a number of instructors have expressed interest in bringing in their classes. It’s a great way to boost librarian engagement. SCALE-UP moves us away from showing people how to use tools and gets into deeper conversations and activities.

This collaboration-based learning model is traditionally used within the sciences, but we intend to open that more widely. I want to get a creative writing course in there to workshop their poems. A marketing class to brainstorm campaigns. A design class to work through product ideation. All this with librarians embedding into the action. And of course we can stream in events like the local TEDx program or football games. (I’ve already received a request for the Bama game in August.)

Anyway, our first class starts in an hour so hopefully all goes well. We’ll enjoy this for one day, but then it’s onward to the seven other renovation projects in the queue.

Some quick stats:

• about 1,500 sq. feet
• eight round tables that each seat nine students (72 total)
• each table has a 70 inch monitor
• whiteboard walls
• dimming lights
• three wireless access points (accommodates 75)
• each table has six power outlets and three ethernet cables
• node chairs
• summer additions: card access to the room and Apple TV
• future phase: mics and cameras for online learning and related activities