Library as a Place Resources--Online

Scott Bennett, Libraries Designed for Learning. (Council on Library and Information Resources, Washington, DC, 2003) http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub122/contents.html

This lengthy essay written by the Yale University Librarian Emeritus, Scott Bennett, is an important document. It examines the facility goals, structural features, and mistakes found in 250 new and renovated academic libraries (over $4.5 billion) during the 1990’s as seen through the eyes of their directors and top college administrators. The depressing conclusion is that most of the new construction was designed and built with little or no systematic consideration of how teachers teach and how students learn. Good annotated bibliography.

Library as Place: Rethinking Roles, Rethinking Space. (Council on Library and Information Resources, Washington, DC, February, 2005. 81 pp.).

This report is available with no charge as a PDF: http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub129/pub129.pdf

What is the role of a library when users can obtain information from any location? And what does this role change mean for the creation and design of library space? Six authors-an architect, four librarians, and a professor of art history and classics-explore these questions in

Library as Place: Rethinking Roles, Rethinking Space. In their essays, the authors challenge us to think about new potential for the place we call the library and underscore the growing importance of the library as a place for teaching, learning, and research in the digital age.

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