So you've inherited an academic library: promotion through physical space

Abstract

A new academic library director inherits the library building, its infrastructure, its people, and its previous reputation and role within its parent institution. From an academic library administrative perspective, the power to change or enhance all these things may also be inherited. This chapter examines the particular challenges to the new director as well as the construction of the academic library, both literally and figuratively, in respect to concepts of proactive marketing. The new library director needs to create anticipatory planning that will effect real change - not merely restructuring for the sake of restructuring. This chapter therefore includes examples of successful methods of promoting physical space.

Keywords

furniture

infrastructure

isolation

learning commons

library faculty

New academic library directors almost always inherit older buildings that come with issues, as well as an already determined physical and technological layout. While marketing proactively, they encounter issues informed by building infrastructures; these factors can lead to or hinder success. This chapter considers the academic library as a space for planning marketing opportunities to meet the challenges of establishing identity and relevance. It also considers the new academic library director's inheritance of people. The last part of the chapter focuses on the big picture: bringing together the library's physical space, exercising understanding and compassion for its faculty and staff, and achieving long-term goals. When they first take charge, new academic library directors should work with administration towards big-picture goals, which can include many of the following:

■ enriching academic experiences

■ increasing awareness and thus improving the status of the library on campus

■ motivating library faculty to be more engaged at the parent institution through participation on faculty committees

■ motivating library faculty to delve into the supply side of scholarly communications, via presentations at conferences and publications.

Unless the library's previous situation, conditions, and practices were extraordinarily ideal, the library building itself as well as its furniture, layout, equipment, and even supplies are highly likely to be old and in need of repair when a new director takes charge. Some variables may also make inheriting an academic library challenging. Examples include, among countless others:

■ the library building, furniture, and equipment are connected to a theme, concept, fad, or historical appearance

■ there are issues with mold, dust, or insects

■ there are ongoing grants being administered in rooms that have brought in specialized equipment (technology) and supplies that target particular users

■ there are departments from elsewhere on campus that have brought in their own furnishings, equipment, and supplies.

New director visions and the academic library as a building

Sometimes new directors are asked for their vision to include their thoughts on updating the library's physical space. This may be the first time new directors become aware that academic library buildings have shorter lives than other kinds of academic buildings. According to Christopher Stewart's (2010: 78-9) The Academic Library Building in the Digital Age: A Study of Construction, Planning, and Design of New Library Space, academic libraries are now being replaced when the building is on average 25-49 years old. This practice contrasts to other academic buildings that are over a hundred years old and have needed modern updates only to continue serving their purposes. When the building has not been replaced, everyone engaged in that library experiences stress: librarians, staff, teaching faculty, and students need more appropriate spaces to work, teach, learn, or study. They may also wish the academic library was more welcoming.

Discussing the physical outlay of an academic library is a way for prospective new directors to market themselves during the interview process. Describing how that physical outlay can be used for marketing that addresses ongoing and potential infrastructure problems demonstrates that the would-be director has studied the library and its parent institution (to whatever extent possible) and understands from experience the difference between a thriving physical work environment and one that needs to change. Eventually, after the new director takes charge, these inherited aspects should be identified as helpful or hurtful to the academic library's marketing - past, present, and future.

The learning commons is not the universal answer

From their own previous work experience, new academic library directors will likely have some preliminary ideas about their inherited libraries. At the moment, the once-believed magic bullet, the learning commons, is getting a reality check. It is becoming increasingly apparent that effective iterations are not created from repurposing the same old furniture, equipment, and technology that the library already has. The old dormitory trick - moving furniture about to change users' perspective - will not fool anyone with intelligence. Not just library users, but also staff and library faculty who move the furniture, will quickly become aware that a room of relocated furniture with no clear purpose is just a room of moved furniture. The potential problem with the academic library's attempting to market the old as new is that doing so will create a "boy who cried wolf" effect and diminish returns from library advocates and users. The mistake occurs when library directors blindly react to perceived desires to add more physical areas conducive to group study or collaborative learning, without thinking about outcomes or appropriateness. Stewart's study (ibid.: 70) reminds us that these additions may run counter to the mission of the library:

Interestingly, there is nothing that could necessarily be considered exclusive to the library in group studies and classrooms. These spaces, while they truly add value to the library, are not unique to the library in the way that book stacks, reading rooms, and reference desks are unique (and have, for centuries, visually and functionally defined the library's physical space) to the library.

Traditional spaces, however, can be put to better use within nontraditional spaces, thereby retaining the characteristics of the library as a library. Chapter 10 discusses how a collaborative learning space successfully incorporated materials that had been hidden in the general book stacks, as well as reference support. In such a model where a traditional space permits teaching or user instruction, reading rooms can double as reserved classrooms.

Repurposing furniture and proactive marketing

New directors who think creatively about furniture will initially examine the added value of repurposing old material to suit new needs. At our previous institution, for example, one of us accepted an atlas podium that was about to be placed into surplus by the current director. What he rendered as "garbage" was repurposed to contain on its sliding shelves information that drew library users into the department and helped student workers and staff to understand its resources better. The stand displayed lists, Excel worksheets, photos, and descriptions giving details about the department's film collection and the realia in the collection; it also contained a student-oriented guide to using the department - solving the lack of signage or visible information tables problem. The small change made a large impact, solving numerous issues for all using the library. For example, the head of the department contacted teaching faculty and they passed on the information to students, who then came in looking to use the old atlas stand as their starting point. Strategically relocated, it was placed near the circulation desk, giving its users the option to find their materials and ask for help when needed.

Another example of thinking through the large impact of a small detail occurred at Virginia Wesleyan College, a private liberal arts institution with an FTE (full-time equivalent) of about 1,400. Its library uses furniture on lockable wheels, making it movable and instantly repurpose friendly. This small detail not only accommodates students' needs for comfort and accessibility; it also enables academic librarians and teaching faculty to create teaching areas within the library that better serve the needs of hands-on teaching and learning experiences for students. Going further, should some unplanned need arise, the furniture can be rearranged in such a way as to adapt and accommodate. Having movable furniture in a large space also enhances visual, aural, and kinesthetic learning - the kind of learning that libraries with fixed furniture and locked-in infrastructures cannot usually support within their own buildings. The movable furniture is useful to marketing, since the academic...