Spaced Out in the Library

	Fall 2008, the library is different now. It was a long, hot summer for Lynn library staff as they worked quickly to transform the 1st floor to make it a little more open, inviting and convenient for students and faculty. The front door is familiar but inside the look and feel are different. These recent pics help show some of the new spaces we created.
Service Desk The old Circulation Desk is now the Information/Reference desk too, call it what you will; the Help Desk, the Main Service Desk, the Front Desk or just the Desk.
	All library staff offices and work areas are now located near the main service area so there will always be someone available to assist faculty and students with all library related matters. Lowering a wall at the front desk brought our new staff area into view.
Group Collaboration Rooms Some really cool spaces that were once well-hidden library offices and a meeting room have been transformed into Group Collaboration Rooms. In these “walk-in and use” rooms, two or more students can gather around a computer and exchange thoughts and get creative.
	There are four rooms that accommodate groups of two to six. The large room that used to be for staff meetings is now open for student groups who need to prepare presentations with a wall screen and projector.
E-Resources This summer the library staff continued to push the transition to the E-Library. We now provide access to over 30,000 magazines, newspapers, journals and other periodical publications through our website. We also have about 85,000 E-book titles in the catalog. With so many e-resources available 24 hours a day online, it was clearly time to remove unused and out of date bound volumes and open up valuable people space.
	Periodicals and Reading Area By removing bound periodical shelving and condensing the remaining print periodical collection, we created an attractive well-lighted space where students and faculty can discover the joys of reading current issues of their favorite popular and academic magazines.
Reference Area Printed reference books are diminishing in number every day. The Information Revolution might have been called the “Reference Information Revolution” because this type of information is naturally suited to online delivery and it was the first to make the transition from P to E.
	So again, we decided it was time to retire a large part of the “Reference” collection and redeploy the remaining books in an area where they could be more easily seen and perhaps used. Now, the encyclopedias, dictionaries, and other wonderful soon-to-be curiosity books have a prime location in the center of the action. The former Reference Area is now the Video/DVD area.
Video/DVD Collections The library has two groups of videos and DVDs (one focused on curriculum the other a little more entertaining); now they are both easy to find with a viewing area between the two collections.
	The Music Library The library has a large collection of resources that support the Lynn Conservatory of Music, but who knew? Before this summer, it was scattered about the building and the Music Librarian’s office was not so logically located to help our faculty and students.
With space opened by the old Reference Desk, we’ve gathered all the Music Scores, CDs, Music periodicals, books and reference books and created a bone fide Music Library with its own service desk for those wonderful Lynn musicians who are the most serious users of library materials.
	University Archives Lynn University has an archive unit that is located in the library too. The archive of Lynn’s documentary history is a valuable asset for fund raising and community development. So why not get it off the 3rd floor and bring it right down on to the main floor where students and faculty can become aware of its collections and services.
So.. in the old microfilm area, (BTW, we dropped all microfilm a couple of years ago, nobody uses that anymore) we have our newly-outfitted-with-compact-shelving archive, with an adjacent quiet reading area where those students and faculty who require silence can still find it.
	Study Areas become Social/Work Areas Students today are multi-tasking experts who combine social and study behaviors into a motion filled day. When visiting the library, these students need a variety of spaces that can be changed to suit the task of the moment.
All of the changes we made to the library this summer were accomplished with existing furniture and computing resources. Lynn library was created and furnished at a time when the service model was based on individuals reading books in quietude. For the majority of our students, that model does not adequately serve their needs.
	This year we want to study our newly re-assigned floor spaces and develop a master plan to re-furnish and re-outfit spaces for more active learners, who thrive in group situations with technology tools and support staff close by.