Creating Collaborative Library Spaces Through Partnerships with Campus Organizations

Abstract

In 2018, the Merrill-Cazier Library at Utah State University tasked their Space Planning Committee with assessing if the Library was meeting user needs through physical spaces. Capitalizing on their existing relationship, the Committee initiated a joint space survey with Campus Information Technology to identify how they could cooperatively meet student needs to provide students with a more holistic experience in the Library. This article discusses the survey results and provides academic librarians a roadmap to establish valuable cross-campus collaborations that contribute to student success by using cooperative needs assessments. The process illuminated the possibilities and strengths with collaborative space design.

Keywords:

• Library spaces
• collaboration
• assessment

Notes

Notes

1 The term “programming” as opposed to “ownership” emphasizes the notion that all campus space, at its core, belongs to the students. A key understanding crucial to the collaborations that the authors will discuss is that they (the staff of all departments on campus) are employed to help students succeed and fulfill any national mandates imposed on us. Such an understanding helps all parties lower their defenses and be less “territorial” with physical space in favor of a higher concept. The authors do acknowledge, however, that sometimes such an understanding is not possible in certain environments.

2 This pre-defined list was compiled based on informal, ethnographic data collected by Campus IT’s student workers between 2016 and 2018 in which patrons request access to certain technology and amenities to IT desk staff.

3 The percentage of participants selecting any given option was calculated with the following equation where v = Count of Votes Per Option, n = Sample Size, and p = the percentage of participants who selected an option:

(v/n) × 100 = p

4 This is outside the scope of the Space Planning Committee and falls under the purview of the Head of Campus IT.

5 The Committee intentionally did not put office desk chairs into the survey because Campus IT very recently completed a survey in the library that identified the specific brand and model of office chair students prefer. As such, the Committee already had the intention of purchasing some of these chairs to accompany specific table styles and did not find it necessary to include these as an option in the survey.