IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - 14

Previous spread: The renovated reading room of UCLA’s Charles E. Young Research Library, by Perkins+Will; photography by Paul Turang. Right: The library’s research commons, featuring Steelcase’s Media:scape system, was designed with collaboration in mind; photography by Kyle Alexander.

Is the notion of community different for a university library than for a public one? It’s about connecting students and faculty. Like many universities, we sought to create a research commons. We wanted to design a place where faculty would stay and work, rather than just check out books and take them elsewhere. We don’t have enough librarians to embed them in the faculty; we need the faculty to come to us. Our strategy was to give students every amenity they could want, to make the space as comfortable to be in for as many hours as possible, and then we installed resources and equipment to entice the faculty. Now, students can see faculty teaching a class in a common space or working on a digital project in our graduate research lab. Which says to them, “You are going to be part of this.” Students have a sense of ownership—and of something bigger than themselves. I was always intimidated by libraries as an undergraduate. That’s a common experience for students. University libraries grew out of the clerical medieval times, so there’s always an overlay of holiness; they really are temples of learning. No matter how well prepared students are academically for college, they aren’t prepared for the enormity of a university. So the scaling down of space is important. Our research library was hugely intimidating until the renovation; we wanted to strip away some of that feeling. How are common spaces themselves changing? The idea of the library as a holy cathedral that you can’t make a sound in, that’s still there. The image of the single scholar working alone in a solitary space—we still offer that for the people who need and want it. But we’ve learned that a library can accommodate all these other things as well, that it’s actually what people are looking for. There’s much more public space devoted to both formal and informal meetings, and there’s a greater diversity of common space to support myriad ways of learning. Here, for instance, you might work in a lounge or the café and then meet with your graduate TA in one of our research commons. We also have technology-equipped study rooms for students to collaborate on group projects and practice their presentations; we have pods that let you plug in a computer and share a screen. Or you might head to the reading room, where everyone is very serious and quiet. We have a progression of spaces within the library, inviting people to explore and ﬁnd areas that are relevant to them. That echoes the metaphor of discovery—of knowledge—that happens in

the library. I think the evolution of common spaces reﬂects how teaching and learning are changing. How has that changed within the library walls? Libraries used to be at the end of the knowledgecreation process. A researcher or author would write a manuscript, an editor would help shape it, a book would be produced, and then we would collect it. Now libraries have the means and expertise to be involved in that process from start to ﬁnish. We can provide the space, the technology, and even the help of a graduate research assistant or another library staffer. For instance, a faculty member is temporarily using space in our library to create a digital version of ancient Rome, a virtual world that you can walk through to see and hear things as they existed at that point in time. What is the ﬁnished version of that project? How should it be preserved? Libraries will be holding that project on their servers, so we want to be involved from the beginning to help determine the data standards that will make preservation possible. The project is not so much a separately created entity as it is a collaborative piece that we want to assure long-term access to. In the future, I guess you’ll need less shelf space and more server space. So, what about books? Will a library always need more room for them, or does the burden of shelf space become lighter as stacks are moved off-site? That’s hugely in ﬂux now. UCLA, however, will maintain authoritative collections of print. Even if collections become completely digitized—which is not really possible—something published as a print book in its ﬁrst edition is the authoritative rendition of the book. If books are digitized, how do you know you’re looking at the actual copy? Authenticity is a big thing that libraries contribute to end users. Most libraries’ Web sites talk about providing an environment that inspires you, that provides you with space to contemplate. Books are a part of that for many of us; they kind of signal that— even if it’s just wallpaper with books on it! Perhaps, in the library of the future, bookcasepatterned wallpaper will be enough? It just might! Because some people go to the extreme of fetishizing books. But I’m a librarian, so I like the idea of working in a building with 3 million books that I can physically put my hands on. We are not getting rid of the print book, but we’re in collaboration with plenty of other libraries that are. Some are forming regional groups with shared copies, stored off-site. As more libraries divest themselves of print books or increasingly

14

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012

IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012
Contents
Contributors
From IIDA
Behind the Issue
Design Dialogue
Getting It, Together
What Clients Want: Product Manufacturers
Paths for the Protégé
Design Decoded
Resources
Behind the Design
Viewpoints
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - Cover2
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - 1
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - 2
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - Contents
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - 4
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - 5
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - Contributors
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - 7
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - From IIDA
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - 9
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - Behind the Issue
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - 11
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - Design Dialogue
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - 13
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - 14
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - 15
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - 16
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - 17
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - Getting It, Together
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - 19
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - 20
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - 21
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - 22
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - 23
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - 24
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - 25
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - What Clients Want: Product Manufacturers
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - 27
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - 28
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - 29
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - 30
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - 31
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - 32
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - 33
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - Paths for the Protégé
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - 35
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - 36
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - 37
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - 38
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - 39
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - Design Decoded
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - 41
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - 42
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - 43
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - 44
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - 45
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - 46
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - 47
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - 48
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - 49
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - Resources
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - 51
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - 52
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - 53
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - Behind the Design
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - 55
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - Viewpoints
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - Cover3
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2012 - Cover4
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