Well designed spaces significantly enhance the delivery of library services to support learning and literacy outcomes in a school environment.  

image by the Shifted Librarian

Contents

What will tomorrow’s school libraries be like?
Concepts, scenarios and visions for school library spaces
What will be important elements of the design of school library space?
Who will be involved in imagining the scope and vision of the school library?
School Library as Learning Commons
Further reading

What will tomorrow’s school libraries be like?

In their article: School libraries building capacity for student learning in 21C (PDF) Lyn Hay and Collee Foley write: ” A school library that becomes a high-end production facility, builds capacity for student learning in the 21st century.” How that might that vision translate into library and learning spaces throughout the century ahead? There are many scenarios for future library learning spaces that are possible models for the future and there are certain concepts that will guide the development of visions for those spaces.

A primary goal of designing school libraries will be to maximise the educative value of available and emerging technologies, informed by the voices of learners and educators using human and other resources to create a place where real transformative learning takes place. How will we design such a space?

Concepts, scenarios and visions for school library spaces

In this area of the website we will be adding content, links and resources as well as case studies to stimulate thinking and discussion about the future design of school libraries. We’ll pose questions and links to help librarians, principals and other stakeholders to imagine new library spaces that achieve their goals as they work develop their services and space.

What will be important elements of the design of school library space?

• It will be underpinned by the goal of supporting transformative learning
• It will enable learning through engagement  with knowledge, guided by teachers, utilising tools and resources made available by library
• It will make good use of the freedom that ubiquitous wi-fi, mobile devices will deliver, allowing creativity in the design of physical space
• Flexible space that can be adapted for individual, small or large group use with acoustic considerations paramount to allow quiet individual as well as noisy collaborative work
• It will encourage active learning with formal and informal areas, comfortable seating for reading, reflecting, wireless device use, group areas with multi-media access for teaching/learning
• It will have well designed areas for collections that support literacy, life-long learning and the curriculum
• The allocation of space for differing functions will be aligned to amount of time spent on that function - e.g.: as technologies such as RFID become commonplace the traditional issues desk will become redundant
• Interiors will be designed using modular, flexible, multi-use furniture and power points will be installed everywhere

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Who will be involved in imagining the scope and vision of the school library?

• Students, teachers
• Principals, school librarians, boards of trustees
• Architects and designers
• Services to Schools

All the many and varied stakeholders will be involved in the early planning process, brainstorming possibilities and ideas that can then be collated and sifted and shaped into a scoping document to which all stakeholders will have access.

School Library as Learning Commons

As school libraries evolve, the term learning commons is being applied to reflect the participatory, collaborative learning environment where students and teachers are learning  together. The learning commons concept embodies both a physical and a virtual learning space.

Joan K. Lippincott In her paper, Linking the information commons to learning (PDF) explores the concept of the information commons, focusing on the links between information commons and learning. She looks at the characteristics of the information/learning commons and its philosophy ‘to provide users with a seamless work environment where they access, manage and produce information on the same workstation,’ providing for students to work in groups, and allowing for collaborative learning and social interaction.

If your school is considering building a new library or rennovating your existing one, please contact your local adviser or email us at:  servicestoschools@dia.govt.nz .

Further reading

• futurelab
• 21st Century Learning Environments OECD Department for education and skills
• 21st Century Libraries (PDF)
• 21st Century Libraries; Changing Forms, Changing Futures (PDF)
• Loertscher, D. (2009). If they build it, they will use it. School Libraries in Canada (17108535), 27(2), 22. Retrieved from MasterFILE Premier database

For practical information  and resources see the Managing your library section of this website.

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