The continuing importance of place in library service.

HOW MANY SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS might feel comfortable saying publicly that college students no longer need a place on campus dedicated to gathering information? With the success of the digitization of library resources in the past twenty or so years, we can no longer dismiss that idea as ridiculous. The bibliographic resources that used to define on-site library service before the widespread use of the computer are now, for the most part, available to students anywhere and at any time. One of the less obvious consequences of this otherwise benign condition is the potential downgrading of the value of place in library service. Once a trip to the library is no longer a necessity, it is a simple extrapolation in the minds of some to the idea that the library itself may also no longer be necessary, or if it is still necessary, it may have to change what many think of as its traditional service philosophy to retain its value for current, let alone future, users. In fact, this change is already happening, and it affects everyone who uses the library, not just the patrons that have been saved from a library visit by off-site computer access. In order for as many users as possible to experience this change as an improvement in service, planners need to consider the distractions that the change implies, and design inviting study spaces that reduce or even eliminate them. Campus planners will disregard library users' need for quiet space at the risk of impairing an invaluable part of library service.

We should realize at this point that off-site computer access is changing, but will not destroy, the campus library. In addition to being a familiar access point to online information, the library is the sole owner of services that tend to retain their essential value in spite of changes to the way in which they are presented. Each is also crucial to the school's educational mission. One of these is professional reference service; another is hard-copy access, and especially access to books. A third is the public space the library provides its users. Of these services it is public space that is arguably most vulnerable to significant degradation through carelessness in facilities planning, and so we need to take a thoughtful look at it. With care, changes in library service can not only honor each of these important services but can increase their value to students.

Changes in service philosophy that are driven by a desire to recoup patrons presumably lost to off-site computer access lead library planners into a perilous area. They imply not only reduction of the space allocated to books and periodicals but the altering of library facilities to accommodate nontraditional services and even offices from other areas of the school. These changes will also likely affect the study environment. It is important to understand that people who need information access and nothing else are a subset of library users. Any broad service decision based on the supposed needs (or lack of them) of this group, taken separately from other patrons, is liable to affect other library users for the worse. Another important subset of library users are those who come to the library for the study environment it provides. Any reference librarian who has been working for more than a few years knows that they can be eager and vocal defenders of their prerogatives when they see--or perhaps more appropriately, hear--them being violated.

One of the members of my school's library advisory committee, an experienced academic, said that every first-rate institution he'd taught or studied at also had a first-rate library. First-rate library service gives students an environment that lets them study, an environment that is friendly both to solitary readers and groups. The quality of the study space that the library provides to its patrons reveals the school's attitude toward the scholarly values it theoretically supports. Library planners taking inevitable distractions into account when they design library space not only can improve service but can leave library users with the idea that the school cares enough about their academic success to provide them with good support for it. Distractions are not going to go away, but good planning and design can do much towards giving users the impression that the school Supports their academic pursuits.

The general tolerance of cell phone conversations, the increasing value students place on social networking to complete assignments, and the prevalence of what we may call "the cult of the snack" have already begun to affect library service philosophy. These conditions need to be considered by the designers of library space, as it is unlikely that library patrons will let go of their expectations of other public places while they are using the campus library. Many newly built libraries, as well as recently refurbished older ones, already have public space designed to take the library away from what some see as its traditional "shut up and read" model and towards one that encourages personal comfort and verbal collaboration among its users. These are not necessarily incompatible with good library service, but they can be, when planners take no credible effort to use design to compensate for the distractions we now accept generally in our environments. Soundproofing, and the segregation of quiet study areas away from areas of open group study and the noise of normal library service, will do much towards keeping the library responsive to all its users.

Many of the comments and outright complaints that academic librarians field from patrons find their roots in a lack of quiet places to study: This holds true for the lone student as well as for small study groups, who value privacy and quiet as much as any individual. This short essay will have accomplished something important if it leaves the reader with the idea that the quality of the library's study areas is now of primary importance in helping to brand the school in the minds of serious students and casual users alike as eager to accommodate their needs. The cost to the school of this level of service will seem more like an investment and less like an unrecoverable expense as administrators understand the value of the library's study environment.

By Richard McKay, director, South Campus Library, San Jacinto College (Calif.)