There was a day when not much was possible in the library. Falling asleep was very possible, and, I recall a certain amount of surreptitious eying of female students back at college. Off-curricular study was my specialty though. I remember wading through shelves of books on architecture, fashion, parapsychology and history. My degree was business admin, so none of those contributed much to my grades...One of the challenges librarians face is assessing the validity of the library as a physical space - not just a collection of data. Hey, why come to the library, when you can kick back in your dorm with your ipod on, your friends dropping by and a can of beer right there?
I've blogged before on the concept that we are different people in different spaces, and we're surely different in a library from our lounge.
In October we're launching a complete reinvention of the library space with the BL. We're doing the software, but it's the re-imagination of the physical space that will really blow people away. More when it goes live, but there's some stuff here.
Thanks to umjanedoan for the photo licensed under creative commons.
