“The Library As Place” was a very practical article and offered good tips on how to plan and build new academic libraries. On page 2, he article talks about how at one point people thought libraries would die out with the advent of the internet and other technologies. Instead, students are using their libraries more than ever, and as freeman states on pages 2 and 4, this is in part due to the library’s ability to foster community building. As stated, the internet can have an isolating effect on people, but those effects are at least somewhat mitigated by being in a library. Personally, I usually feel more productive doing my work in a library on campus than in my apartment. It’s comforting for me to have the low conversations and sounds of keys clacking on the keyboards in the background. I do get puzzled by the people who seem to listen to their iPods while reading; that would be total overstimulation for me. But overall, being in a public place forces me to concentrate a little more. I guess I relate to the student who said that the library was a place to “get serious” (2).
Regarding some of the practical pointers Freeman offers, I wonder how many academic libraries are able to be open from 11 pm- 4 am (4). On our campus, only College Library is open 24 hours/day, and three other libraries are open until midnight or 1 am. Most of our libraries do not open until 7:30 or 8 am. I’m sure staffing libraries overnight is not easy, and can be a strain on the budget (an ever-present issue in the world of libraries). I liked how they talked about the importance of group study rooms in academic libraries; those have always been helpful for me.
I volunteered for the College Library House Party this year, and that was really fun. It was a good way to get students in to the library and possibly in to areas they wouldn’t have visited otherwise, as a way to let them know what’s available. It also created an atmosphere of joviality and merriment that I hope made students want to come to the library more often, even on non-house party nights.
“The Public Place of Central Libraries” describes libraries as attempting to be “successful public places” (331). Two qualities attributed to successful public places are “neutrality” and “equality” (332). This brings to mind our class discussion from the beginning of the semester about racial neutrality- if there is such a thing. It’s nice to have these ideals, and hopefully as both citizens and librarians we can continue to evaluate how well we are doing on living up to them as much as possible.
I was somewhat surprised by how infrequent problems associated with homeless individuals was reported in both of these large libraries (350). I actually used to live in British Columbia and visited Vancouver a few times. I did not visit the library the article is using for its research, but I do know that Vancouver has its share of societal problems. It was nice to hear that these problems don’t seem to be taking over these libraries to the point where non-homeless patrons don’t want to visit, as has been happening in some public libraries in the US, such as San Francisco.
I think the community aspect of libraries was apparent in this article too. I liked the comment from the elderly gentleman who can’t understand why more retirees and seniors don’t frequent their local library, even if it’s just to have the chance to get out of their isolated homes (349).
The article also touched on how libraries are being used as more than a place to read. Many patrons were there to study English or apply for jobs (354). This article pointed out the many uses libraries have, including information seeking, reading, the benefits of browsing, and so on. I thought that overall this article did an excellent job making the case for funding central libraries. Also, I found photos of the two libraries studied in this article, and they are quite striking looking!
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