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“It isn’t that
the library
is nowhere,
it’s that
the library
is everywhere.”
T
Architect Philip Laird ’74, president of Boston-based
Architectural Resources Cambridge says that STEM
and STEAM education are playing important roles
in how project-based learning is occurring in schools
and, therefore, the considerations institutions make
when designing and constructing new buildings.
“We are seeing a need or desire for more spaces to
accommodate small groups or teams,” says Laird. “A
realignment of classroom learning from lecture-based
to project or discussion-based is occurring at many
schools. SPS is way ahead on this trend.”
And a new design comes with new names, too.
Michigan’s all-digital learning center dubs its staffers
“informationists,” a kind of new-age librarian coined
by UM’s faculty as a way to
distinguish their duties from
a traditional librarian. “What
was once a traditional library,”
says the narrator of a Taub-
man Library promotional video,
“has been
transformed
into a
light-filled, technology-driven,
dynamic learning space.”
On a smaller scale, St. Paul’s
has begun to establish its own
Grand Space for Learning. Earlier
this year, the School announced a
new leadership gift that would, in
part, revamp Millville’s strategic
initiatives, including renovations
to the building that many once
considered the nicest spot on
campus. And most anyone who
visited Ohrstrom Library prior
to 2011, just before the erection
of the Lindsay Center – Millville’s
latest crown jewel – knows it to be true, not least by its
serene view of Lower School Pond. But as today’s world is
fast-paced and ever-changing, so is the model for libraries.
Over the last decade, St. Paul’s, like many schools,
has had to adjust to a world in which Internet is king.
Ohrstrom currently offers nearly 500,000 eBooks in
comparison with 65,000 print editions, plus millions of
digitized articles from academic journals, magazines, and
newspapers from around the world. The library boasts
streaming newsreels, millions of digital art images, and
history-specific digital archives (WWI, American West,
U.S. Revolution, to name some). The digital collection far
outstrips print, proving more powerful in both breadth
and accessibility; it’s 24/7 anywhere in the world so
long as you have an Internet connection. So much for
spending nights combing the library stacks for research
materials. Students can now access those resources
from literally any location.
he University of Michigan calls its newly remod-
eled Taubman Health Science Library a “Grand
Space for Learning.” The medical library, over-
hauled as part of a $55 million renovation project
that began back in 2013, has the makings of a pseudo
Apple Store: sleek sheets of metal, tall windows, slabs
of gray, indiscriminate concrete. The nearly all-glass
exterior features 18,000 feet of low e-glass, replacing
what were once windowless brick walls with windows
that radiate natural energy from the sun. But it’s what’s
inside that counts, or rather, what’s
not
.
Similar to recent developments at St. Paul’s, UM’s
highly touted medical library has implemented a
somewhat controversial, if not increasingly common,
practice by eliminating printed tomes
altogether and replacing them with
Steve Jobs-like goodies for the
Millennial Age: clinical simulation
rooms, for example, and expansive
areas for collaborative research.
This was all part of a carefully
plotted strategy. In its early stages,
Taubman administrators announced
that they were planning to dump
the status quo in favor of something
a little more Silicon Valley. The new
design called for a newer model for
a new world, including the installa-
tion of 67 miles-worth of data cable.
Just before the unveiling of the
building, ML Media Group, a local
publication in Michigan, quoted
Rajesh Mangrulkar, associate dean
for medical student education: “We
were focused on creating a building
for how learning will happen, not how it used to happen.
We thought about education from the beginning and we
let that influence how the design happened.”
As such, the Taubman Library is sprinkled with all sorts
of techie goodies – study pods, a clinical skills suite that
features 30 realistic patient-care rooms with simulated
technologies, and open working stations to pair with a
fully stocked caf
é
. A 3-D virtual cadaver is perhaps the
most popular attraction, a tool that allows students to
hone their skills using touch-screen capabilities.
There are no printed books in the Taubman Library;
a point that University of California Deputy Librarian
Donald Barclay, in an article for
Newsweek,
titled “Even
University Libraries Aren’t Keeping Hard Copy Books,”
said was even more extreme than other universities.
Like many schools and libraries that have prioritized
digital, the Taubman Library now houses its printed
books in an offsite storage facility. In the same article,
Barclay noted that nearly 75 high-density academic
storage facilities have been built in the U.S. since 2014,
enabling schools to house their printed volumes and
texts elsewhere, while making room for new spaces.
