Beyond tables and chairs: The Library as facilitating platform

April 20, 2018April 23, 2018 / Christian Lauersen / 1 Comment

Text of my talk at the LIBER LAG Conference in Vienna April 18 – 20 2018

Hi all, my name is Christian. I’m with The Royal Danish Library in Copenhagen and is head of Roskilde University Library, Faculty Library of Social Sciences and The Administrative Library. I’m really thrilled to be with you here in Vienna to talk about the library as a place.

I find it a bit ironic that I’m talking in a session called ‘Learning Centers’ when I, well hate is a strong word, but I really have some big issues about the term ‘learning center’ used in library context. To me libraries are very much about learning and about people meeting, collaboration and talking. The library is also about collections for sure but a collection in itself is not the goal, the goal is to support learning, education and research and libraries are great at that so let’s just call it a library.

This is a library architecture conference and I have heard many great talks on library architecture the last couple of days. but I am not gonna talk about library architecture. I am not gonna talk about buildings, refurbishment or where to pick the best tables and chairs. I am not gonna talk about the wonders of having a landmark architectural piece of eye candy of a library building. I am gonna talk about the library as a place for what is has always been about: Learning, education, research and enlightenment and how we can actively empower that through the library as a physical space. I will use our Data Lab at The Faculty Library as a case for this but it is important to say that the idea can be applied in many areas.

What makes a great place? And is a library without books still a library?

But first I like to ask you two questions.

Is a physical library without any physical books or journals still a library? Imagine your library and take away all the books and journals – is it still a library? Is it the books and journals that defines a building as a library. Or is it something else?

[this question gave spark to a lively discussion among the audience most pointing at, that the aim and value of a library building in 2018 were beyond the storage of a physical collection]

In a world that is becoming more and more digital this is not only a rhetorical or philosophical question. It is a crucial question – at least in Copenhagen. And actually also an essential question we should never stop asking ourselves – what is a library and what makes it significant and valuable. I don’t believe that a physical collection defines a library building, it is a big part of our legacy and identity as libraries but the scope and the meaning of the library has always been greater than a book collection.

Next question: What makes a great place? Try to think about a place that you were recently that just made you feel good and comfortable, that made you feel safe and welcome. That is a subjective feeling what defines what one find a great place but I find it really useful, whenever I’m in a place where I really feel good, where I feel that I belong, to think about what it is about that place that make me feel like that. And then I start thinking that about how to take some of that and maybe transfer it into the library space. Chances are that I’m not the only one who feel that way about that place.

[a lady among the audience shared a wonderful story about a pastry café she visited in Vienna the day before were the decor, the smell and the service just made her feel at home]

If we look at the library building historical it has been a place to storage and access information and knowledge bound to physical formats like books and journals. Many libraries don’t need that place for storage and access the same way anymore when our collections are highly digital so do we still need physical libraries? For sure we see students flocking to the library to work and study without using the core library services but does that require a library building? Couldn’t that just be any building on campus? A study hub or a campus learning common? Maybe a so called Learning Center? Personally I think that a library is not only defined by its collection – whether it be a physical or electronic collection. It is a very important part, but our main assignment in my opinion is to support research, education and learning, and it relies on other activities than just the collection. Libraries are a people business, not a book business.

In this talk I will, using Digital Social Science Lab at the Faculty Library of Social Sciences, try to demonstrate that a physical library building without books is still a very relevant library if we are true to the original purpose of a library and how an active facilitating use of the physical library room can create new forms of learning and a sense of belongingness among students. In this case the focus is on creating a platform for sharing knowledge and network within data handling and data analysis, digital methods and social sciences but I believe this way of active utilization of the library space can be applied to many areas.

We don’t have patent on these thoughts. Back in the late 1800s Justin Windsor, the first president of the American Library Association, pointed out that The Library both had to be “…a repository, a collection, but also a workshop, a place where you together could be informed and learn about the world“. I highly agree with Mr. Windsor.

Old white dude with some healthy perspectives on libraries

My context for talking about this is important and might differ from your context: At Copenhagen University Library we use around 10 million US dollars on electronic resources a year and a little over 300.000 US dollars on physical items. At the same time we remove physical collection from open stacks to remote stacks to make the handling of reservations faster and more efficient and to make more room for students in the open libraries. We are only a year or two away from having 100% bookless faculty libraries. We have been forced to ask ourselves what we should do to our open library spaces when the books are not there anymore. There are many answers to that. Digital Social Science Lab is one of the answers.

Case: Digital Social Science Lab

At The Faculty Library of Social Sciences, we opened Digital Social Science Lab on 18th of February 2016 as a reaction to some of the changes we saw around us. And I am not talking about the bookless libraries here. When the world changes, it often affects the institutions and people we serve and when they change, libraries should also take a good look at whether there is something they should change. What we were seeing was students and faculty members turning to other resources than books and journals when they wanted to get insights on the world and carry out studies and research. The started collecting digital data. Students and researchers of higher education has always used data in there work; Collecting rocks, doing interviews, observing human behavior is all collecting data. But we experienced that they also started to deal with other kinds of data; harvesting social media data and use open data sources like Airbnb location or digitalizes maps of Greenland. They also started asking us if we could help them, for instance visualization of data or analyzing of huge amounts of text. So we moved on that and created Digital Social Science Lab to support data literacy in social sciences.

To meet this change and development in higher education we established Digital Social Science Lab. DSSL is a physical space for education and instructions for data handling within social sciences, it’s software and hardware for harvesting, clearing, analyzing and visualizing various kinds of data, it’s a community but most of all it’s a reaction.

In DSSL we have initiated some activities in order to create a bridge between the students and the digital methods. The library teach and do workshops on various software and methods for handling and analyzing data within social sciences – for example Netvizz and TCAT for harvesting data, Open Refine for cleaning, NVivo, SPSS and Excel for analysis and Gephi for visualization. It is a very important part of DSSL, but that is not what is important in this context. What I want to focus on is the facilitating work we put into it our data lab: We are trying to create a platform for people to meet and learn from each other in relation to work with data, we are trying to create a community where the library serves as platform and the librarian as facilitator. Again, this is just context and is not really important to my actually points with this talk.

Digital Social Science Lab is a huge success, we do around 80 events on data wrangling a year and the space has been nominated to the University of Copenhagen’s Yearly Study Environmental Award. I give credit to these 4 things:

How to fail at fostering learning

I’ve seen many attempts at creating new spaces at libraries to facilitate learning; Fab Lab’s, Makers Spaces, Data Labs, Learning Commons. Some were great and some failed and I really love failures, we should embrace failures and learn from them. When we fail we take a room and fill it with some nice furniture and some state-of-the-art hardware and software and stand back, excitingly waiting for people to start learn something. What happens in those cases is that students come with there own lab-tops, sits down and stats working like they have always done.

The most valuable asset of any great library place is the library staff. We need to take ownership of the library space, we need to facilitate learning processes, we need to tell stories about the library and the learning that we want to support. Architects can do the buildings but it is our responsibility as library professionals to provide the content.

So one way we take ownership of the space and the learning we want to support is to facilitate education and events to support data literacy, we are not the experts, we set a scene where people meet and learn together. One of the specific activities we are doing is an event series we call Digital Methods Sessions. It is an event where we invite students in to present their work with digital methods and data management for their fellow students. We typically have three groups of 20 minutes’ duration for the purpose of inspiring there peer students and give insights on other methods than the traditional ones. Digital Methods Sessions is not about learning something hands-on, the purpose is to inspire and create networks and new relationships.

We do one or two session per semester and we simply use our campus network to get students to come and share there ideas: Talk to the students and researchers we know have an interest in digital methods to hear if they know anybody who would be interesting in presenting; make calls in the various Facebook-groups relevant for the faculty etc. The more sessions we do the easier it seems to get students to come and present there work. We always wrap a session up with some snacks and beverages to support the network part of the concept.

Another facilitating activity is Data Sprint’s. A data sprint is a time-limited research and coding workshop where people from different academic and non-academic communities convene physically on a set of data within a curtain topic. The two latest data sprint’s has been on crypto marked and just a month ago a all-day, week-long data sprint on fake news which we co-hosted with TANT-Lab, our sister data lab, from Aalborg University. The data sprint was open for everybody and it was extremely satisfying to see scholars from the different institutions work together with journalists and just regular people walking in from the street. The aim of data sprint’s like these are typical two-fold: 1) to raise awareness on how digital methods can be used on various subjects and a more concrete final result of working with the data. In this case the data sprint contributed to a global Field Guide to Fake News.

The last example on how the facilitating approach in the physical library space can be used is actually not an active move by the library – it’s more of a consequence of the work we do. We discovered that there was a lot of independent Stata workshops (Stata is a program for working statistical data) going on in Digital Social Science Lab. It was simply students who had been meeting each other at various DSSL events and now had started a study group sharing knowledge and collaborating on Stata. We building communities here, ladies and gentlemen. Creating spaces where we can meet, talk and share.

Peer-to-peer learning

Now I’m not a learning expect but I can see that something different is happening when we set the scene with peer-to-peer sessions instead of the regular instructor/expert-to-student setup.

First of all it gives us other opportunities to create different events and learning content than if we where to be the expert/teacher/instructor on every event. I only have a certain amount of library staff, resources and skills and we have no chance to cover the whole spectrum of relevant digital methods and tools. And sometimes a student simply looks different at a certain method or tool than a library worker be course they are more often to use it on tasks in their academic life and not only as an instructor.

Then there is the actually learning situation. What we are doing right now is a pretty traditional learning setup: I know something, I talk and you listen. Not much interaction going on. When we as library professionals teach we represent an institution and they come with some sought of authority. That is totally cool and I think and hope many students see the teaching librarian as someone who really want to make the students succeed which gives the librarian a pretty great role. But it’s different than a student who shares some knowledge and experience on a specific tool or method: The librarian is a professional and the student is a peer and I think that students who learn from other students are more likely to think “hey, if Joe from sociology can do this Gephi data visualization for his paper so can I”.

When we set up our facilitating events we want the participants to be as equal as possible, we want them to collaborate and to work together. We don’t want one person standing at a chalk board being the expert. We want them to talk to each other, learn from each other, challenge each other. Small thing, we always serves a glass of wine and some snacks at the end of our sessions because we want them to stay and talk and network. Peer-to-peer learning seems to be really great at that.

Belonging

I believe the facilitating platform also brings another really important need to the table: A Sense of Belongingness. It is a human need that has a great interest with me. We all need to belong to something; a family, a job, a football team, a nation. If you tell me you don’t need to belong I’ll say you either a psychopath or a liar. Students and researchers at institutions of higher education are no different from that. For many students the study is a huge part of their life and I think it’s crucial for there wellbeing and ability to perform that they feel that they belong. Same go with researchers and teachers. As an open space, not focused on administration or grades, I think the library can help students belong in many ways. The community we have created with DSSL is bridging students with digital tool but it also makes a number of students feel like they belong to something. They will connect with peer students and scholars, they will form study groups, they will help each other, inspire each other, challenge each other. They will feel that they belong. And they will do good. In general I like academic libraries to be more aware of the social role they can play on campus.

Could we do this without a physical room. Maybe digital or just outside the library, somewhere on campus. I don’t think so or at least I’m sure it would not have the same impact. One of the reasons this is working so well is that we are doing in A Library. Sometimes as library professionals we seem to forget it but libraries are one of the most solid and trustworthy brands in the world. Both public and academic libraries are viewed as open spaces for enlightenment, collaboration, knowledge and experiences. A place where everybody is welcome. We make communities smarter (courtesy to library hero Jan Holmquist for the saying) by bringing people together. That is the library in the mind of many people with or without a physical collection. It’s important we remember this when we create and talk about libraries now and in the future.

Also, this is a picture from a regular reading hall at The Faculty Library of Social Sciences and some of you might remember me saying that we didn’t have any books no more. But what is that? Library shelves filled with books. That is true, we still have a great amount of books in the library space but they are all dead books that can’t be found in no catalog or be checked out. They are there because the book might be the single most significant symbol of what we are all about: Enlightenment, knowledge, education, research and learning. Everybody likes to be surrounded by books, it makes you feel good. And also they have a very excellent effect on the acoustics in a room.

Why do they come?

Storytelling and alternatives to the traditional learning setup

Some final notes on working with the actual room. We wanted the room to tell a story, a story about learning, a story about being curious, a story about travelling. So we went hunting for that story and stopped by our neighbor in Copenhagen, The Botanical Garden, the library itself is placed in the old Botanical Laboratory and we thought it was great that we were creating a Data Lab in a Botanical Lab. And it was a kind of magical place, like being in a Wes Anderson movie or something. And it was about things growing and people getting experiences and getting wiser. In a bit of a spooky way but still. So we tapped into that and created a story though the décor.

On practical note we wanted it to an alternative to the traditional learning environment on campus. This is what 90% of the learning spaces on our campus looks like. They are build for one-way communication and not for collaboration. The physical setting of the room is hindering your ability to learn in certain ways. So we made everything on wheels and mobile so we could have a traditional lecture but quickly turn it into a workshop setting.

Digital Social Science Lab two hours before the opening

I hope you all got some inspiration on how to use the library space for community building through a facilitating approach and to return to my opening question, is a Library without books still a library? If you believe that a library is not only defined by it’s collection but by the way it succeed to support learning, education and research then a library without books is still a library. Remember; A Library is not a goal in itself, it’s a mean to contain those very things. When stuff around us changes, like physical books disappearing from the library, let’s take up an active approach to continuously support and create values for our communities.

Libraries are a people business, not a book business

Slides

Do not be silenced. How opinion formers gives the library debate diversity and more voices

March 1, 2018March 9, 2018 / Christian Lauersen / 1 Comment

The Danish Union of Librarians has made a bold and important move, which I want to share with you. But first, let me tell you a story some of you might already know:

President John F. Kennedy was visiting NASA headquarters for the first time, in 1961. While touring the facility, he introduced himself to a janitor who was mopping the floor and asked him what he did at NASA. The janitor replied, “I’m helping put a man on the moon!”

I like this little story because it reminds me that we are all ambassadors for telling the purpose and value of our institutions, from top management to the janitor who mops the floor. However, it is not enough to know the vision and the value of libraries or whatever institutions you are a part of – it is crucial that we also got the skills and the tools to communicate it to the surrounding world. In the daily tsunami of information and a jungle of communication channels, that does not necessary come easy. It takes courage, awareness and a certain skill-set to stand up and communicate a case so people listen and understands your message.

The Danish Union of Librarians has taken responsibility for trying to bridge their members with methods and skills to influence the public debate by establishing an “Education for Opinion Formers” (sorry, no English version of the program available at this time that I can link to).

The Education for Opinion Formers is a three-day course aiming at giving librarians and library workers the skills, tools, insight and courage to participate and interact in the public debate on behalf of libraries. The Opinion Formers will learn to:

Write piece of debate to newspapers and other medias with clear points and language
Get tools to communicate to others from the standpoint at one’s own profession and values
Tell stories so people listen
Grow a network of peers who want to join the voice for libraries

The education is developed in collaboration with the Think Tank Cevea that also facilitates the program.

Being an Opinion Former: “… the discussions about where the library is heading needs more diversity and more voices”

The first Education for Opinion Formers launched by end of January 2018 and the first 11 Opinion Formers is ready to raise their voices and have already done so. I have talked to one of the new Opinion Formers, Marie Engberg Eiriksson, librarian at Gladsaxe Libraries, Denmark:

Why did you join the opinion formers?

I think that the discussions about where the library is heading needs more diversity and more voices.

I feel like the public debate over the last few months has painted a picture of crisis in the public libraries, and working in a public library, I do not recognize that picture at all. The library is changing with society and is more relevant than ever. I want to contribute to a more diverse picture of what libraries do by being an active voice in the public debate.

What tools did you get from the education and have you used them yet?

The education so far has contained three parts. Inspiration and brainstorming, writing and feedback, and knowing the different publications or types of media.

I think some of what I took away from this part, was that you do not always get to the same conclusion because you have the same facts. In this genre it’s ok to say, this is my opinion and it is formed by my experiences as a librarian. I also took away tools to build a good piece and a compelling argument, based on personal experiences from my work life and how to angle a piece to hook on to a current event, debate or existing discussion.

It was helpful to get an idea of what formats are available in the relevant publications and how to adjust your piece if it get’s rejected and send it to another publication. It seems trivial when I am writing it, but I don’t think I would have thought about doing that.

Finally, there were different presentations about challenges that libraries face in 2018.

The goal after the first weekend workshop was that everybody had a piece ready to send before we left.

The workshop was a month ago. About 60% of the first pieces, including mine, were accepted by a publication and most of them to national newspapers.

One participant got invited to do a radio show and another to be part of a panel at a conference, based on the pieces they wrote. So, I think we are off to a really good start.

Any advice to peers who want to engage in public debates about libraries?

First of all, I was amazed that so many of us got our first piece accepted. And it certainly made it less daunting to write the next one. I want to say it’s because we are all brilliant, but maybe it’s just not as hard to get a piece accepted as I thought.

The training was good, but the essential part for me, was having the conversations and the feedback with the rest of the group while I was writing.

My best advice would be to try to find someone to work with. It doesn’t have to be somebody you agree with or somebody with the same interests, just somebody who would be willing to read your things and give you their opinion.

We live far apart, so we started a Facebook group and are talking about starting a blog to try and keep each other engaged and productive. The feedback and inspiration and the encouragement from the rest of the group is really a motivator for me.

MarieNy
An Opinion Former. Marie Engberg Eiriksson

Impact and perspectives

7 pieces has been published in the first two months after the 11 Opinion Formers ended there education. 5 of them in national newspapers. The subject being covered has been on the value and purpose of the public library, the danish law of libraries, the library as catalyst for social balance, the importance of well-staffed libraries, librarians in the literary debate and libraries importance in helping citizens with reading difficulties. Following the pieces some of the Opinion Formers has been invited to participate in radio and conferences.

The impact has been significant in the first few months. The range of subject covered has been diverse and the quality of pieces has been high. The voice of libraries in Denmark has grown stronger.

Some people are born to be an opinion former but many are not. It takes courage and specific skills to engage in a debate and communicate your views so people understand them. It’s not about winning the debate by proving you are right – it’s about making sure your viewpoints are understood. In general and in times where libraries are under pressure (at least in Denmark) we need voices who can engage in the debate of the value and purpose of libraries. Who has viewpoints and opinions and are able to communicate them in a public forum. The Education for Opinion Formers give people those tools and methods and not least, it gives the courage and belief that it is possible to engage and affect the public debate.

I hope many unions, organisations and library advocates across the world will get inspired by the concept of The Opinion Formers and will do something on their own. The library needs voices to raise a sound and constructive debate on libraries now and in the future. And remember, we all have a voice and we all have an obligation of being an ambassador and opinion maker for libraries, anywhere, all the time.

Cheers

Christian

Meningsdanner07 The 11 opinion formers. Photo by Heidi Lundsgaard

The Library is everywhere! How Linkoping University Library went pop-up

January 16, 2018January 16, 2018 / Christian Lauersen / 2 Comments

This blog post is written by Library Lab friends and fellows Anneli Friberg and Maria Svenningsson from Linkoping University Library, Sweden.

Linkoping University Library is working with communication and outreach in diverse ways. One way to interact with users can be the pop-up library. The pop-up concept is nothing new, it has been used for quite a while, by stores, coffee shops and libraries (mostly public libraries, though). At Linkoping University Library we’ve been talking about pop-up for a while and during 2017 we finally realized it.

The main reason for starting with pop-up was that we wanted to be present where our users are, to offer new touch points for them to interact with us at places where they didn’t really expect to find the library. Furthermore, we wanted to be more visible and relevant for new students, employees and for non-users who don’t actively use the library. The closing of one of our libraries at the University’s main campus may have influenced us to start the project, since many students feel that the remaining library is too far away from their natural study areas.

The planning phase – spring 2017

In spring 2017, after we were given a go-ahead and resources from library management, a project group started. We were five colleagues from different working areas, with different skills and perspectives. One of the group members works as a coordinator between the University’s IT department and the library and the other four are librarians. We also encouraged more library staff to join the project because it is important to involve as many as possible when starting a new way to work. We started to brainstorm to find out where to start, when and how.

We wanted to work with Student Library Ambassadors because we thought that student-student learning would be a good idea. Therefore, we tried to engage students that are working at the library as student helpers. This turned out to be easier said than done, since most of them didn’t have that much time to get involved. Luckily there was one student who wanted to be part of the pop-up concept. From her, we learnt a lot about how to book places at campus and where to be at which times. We also got a better understanding for the student organizations at Linkoping University. This was very valuable, and we will cooperate with them more in the continued planning and work with the pop-up library.

We used an idea qualification technique to structure our discussions, by listing the following questions: What? Who? Why? and How? After processing the What? and Who? we started to think about Why and How? We discussed a lot about in which way the library is helpful for students. We wanted to show them what we can offer, for example course literature and lots of nice study areas, both for group studying and quiet reading. We also started to think about the desk we would use for pop-up; should we bring some kind of furniture with us, for example. After some discussions back and forth we ended up with a mobile desk designed from an old book trolley. We also ordered fake tattoos with the text: The Library is Everywhere.

Tatuering This should be a real tattoo

pop-up-disk From book trolley to pop-up library

The start – fall 2017

We started to pop-up at the beginning of the semester, in September. Two of our three campus libraries participated in the pilot project: the Valla Library and the library at Campus Norrköping. We found that lunchtime was the best time to pop-up because most students don’t have lectures at that time. They were waiting for food or friends or just hanging around, happy to talk to us. We were inspired by other libraries working with pop-up, especially by an article by James Barnett, Stephen Bull and Helen Cooper from University of Birmingham who tried the pop-up concept in 2014-2015. They experienced that less is more; in other words, don’t bring too many things. We brought the trolley, a laptop, a few books (fiction) and freebies. The tattoos were very attractive, and the students loved them! We also designed flyers with opening hours and gave away free pens and of course we had a fruit basket for hungry students. Very popular! We were thinking about having beach flags to be even more visible, but most times we skipped that. To enhance visibility, staff wore a library t-shirt and a name tag.
pop-up-C-huset The Library is everywhere – pop-up library in action

Insights and challenges

After testing a few times, we gathered and talked about our experiences. Almost everyone was enthusiastic and felt comfortable with the concept. Some felt a bit unaccustomed with the proactive part of the pop-up concept, that is approaching students. The project group told everyone that the best is to be yourselves, some think it’s easier than others to interact with people. It’s up to you to decide how to work with pop-up. We encountered one rather big practical problem, though. The plan was to roll the trolley outside, to be visible on the way from the library to the place we were going to pop-up. This turned out to be very difficult due to the wheels of the trolley, which weren’t really made for outdoor activities. We will have to change the wheels. Another thing was the laptop, which we had some trouble with in the beginning (difficulties to log in etc.) but we solved that along the way. Sometimes we didn’t even bring the laptop. A lesson learned: don’t forget to use social media to spread the word about what you do and where you are!

What’s next?

In December last year, management decided to prolong the project for a few months. So, the plan forward is during January 2018, we’re planning to pop-up almost every Wednesday at lunchtime. A schedule is prepared where library staff can book themselves. We’re hoping that colleagues, especially liaison librarians, will join the project. We think they will benefit, coming closer to their departments.

Linkoping University organizes so called Welcome Fairs to welcome and introduce new international students to the University. Naturally, we’ll use this opportunity to pop-up there, as well.

At the end of this semester, we will decide whether pop-up should be part of our regular library activities in the future or not. If we decide not to, then at least we’ve had a valuable learning experience.

pop-up-blå-havet The Library is everywhere – pop-up library in action

Why do they come? The Library as place and brand

October 17, 2017October 30, 2017 / Christian Lauersen / 12 Comments

You probably all know the scene: A library reading hall with endless rows of students working, studying, learning. Alone together. A nice view. Makes me happy every time I cross it. But we should never stop question our services and our users behavior (also when it’s a very positive behavior) and I often ask myself: “Why do they come? Why don’t they sit at home and study?”. Some of them for sure because they are gonna pick up a book or need library help or instruction and don’t get me wrong: I love a library filled with working students and I think we do an awesome job giving them good conditions but still, why do they come just to sit and work? I find the question important because it might be a window to both insights on the library and the people using them.

hum Why do they come? Students working at Faculty Library of Humanities, Copenhagen University Library

I think the questions holds several answers. Sometimes, when I ask the question out loud, I get the answer from library professionals that it’s because we, as libraries, are excellent at creating learning and study environments. I will not argue that is not a part of the answer but if we break that part down, what we do, are providing our libraries with tables and chairs so our users have places to work. Other institutions, for instance the universities themselves, can do that pretty well too I guess and I don’t believe it’s the only or most significant answer to the question

I think the answers should be found elsewhere but before I dig into that I like to tell you a story from one of my libraries.

Case: Thrashed campus, neat library

At the Faculty of Social Sciences at The University of Copenhagen we have two physical library sites: The Faculty Library and a smaller Study Library at the center of campus. The Study Library has a small reference desk that are staffed from 10 am to 3 pm on weekdays and 3 large reading halls which are open from 8 am to 10 pm which means, they are un-staffed every day for 9 hours. I meet with the provost at the faculty ones every month to deal with cases evolving the library. He often complains about the way the students treat campus; Trash everywhere, a trail of parties, broken stuff etc. For some reason we never experience this at the Study Library even though it’s un-staffed many hours everyday. Why is that? Why do they trash campus but cherish the library? I think the answer to the question “Why do they come?” could be found in this pattern of behavior and I think it has to come with both the library as brand, development of the library as place and the life of the student in 2017.

The Library: A trustworthy brand since 2600 BC

I would argue that a part of the answer to why students flock to academic libraries to work has to be found in the library as a brand. In my whole professional carrier I have been hearing voices inside the profession who calls libraries and librarians ‘traditional’ and ‘dusty’ and is arguing that we need to re-shape the brand of libraries. I don’t mind taking a discussion about re-shaping the brand but what if the library in the head of the users are just what they need? Thinking about it, libraries has been around for almost 5000 years and has since the introduction of public libraries during the Enlightenment era been associated with spaces for learning, education, research and cultural activity. Our values are openness, diversity, inclusion and accessibility (or at least that the values I like to be floating through my libraries). We are democratic institutions (but not neutral!). The book itself, which many link with libraries (for good reasons), are one of the strongest brands in the world. Looking at the example with The Study Library at Social Sciences I would not conclude that students love libraries but they for sure respect them.

Libraries don’t want people’s money – libraries want them to succeed, want them to learn, to explore, want to give them access to a bigger world.

In a highly commercial, capitalistic and digitized world, I think many students in higher education connects with that. So what if our brand is a bit traditional? It’s strong and it’s trustworthy and we should acknowledge that and use it in the future development of libraries.

19a8ff0760f0904dd9cb1a4e4e03226f--peterborough-the-library Peterborough, New Hampshire Town Library. First free public library supported by taxation founded April 9. 1833

Discipline, identity and belonging

The conditions for Danish students in higher education has changed pretty radical over the last couple of years: There are clear limits for your time of being a student, you got 5 years to finish your study or you are out. You can take on education and then decide to switch to another. The weekly hours students has access to there teachers and supervisors has been limited. It’s harder to get into most studies, the demands for good grades are bigger than before. I will not go into a discussion on how this development is good or bad in the bigger picture for higher education but I think it has forced our students to take on a more professional and disciplinary approach than before. They discipline themselves with going to the library to work. They make a work day of it: Waiting in front of the library in the morning till it opens, find a good spot to study and finish around 3 or 4. Couldn’t they just do that at home? Sure but we all know that you often rather do the dishes than reading Foucault. To many distractions at home. The library gives them an opportunity to separate their private life from there study so they can be more relaxed while at home.

It can be hard being a student. And lonesome. The social aspects of students life is crucial for there ability to be the best students and human beings they can be. Look at remote students: The drop-out rates are way higher than regular students studying at a physical university with other students. With the decreasing hours in class and supervision students are looking for other places to boost there academic identity as students, as learners. They probably find that in different places but one of the places are The Library. Alone together sure but every time they look up they see that they are not alone. That is important and closely connected with the last aspect of why students come to work at the library: Belonging.

Looking at disciplines, identity and belonging one could argue that the university or Starbucks could also created those aspects in student life. Maybe, but not so successful as the library I would say. Why is that then? Because the library, as I pointed out in the beginning, is a 100% awesome brand and place. It’s solid, it’s open, it’s there to help you not because it want you money but simply because that’s the job of the library, it’s a place for learning and enlightenment, it’s a space that want you to succeed and don’t give you grades or mark you as a good or bad student, it’s simply a wonderfully place and a very powerful brand. Let’s acknowledge that as library professionals and not try to make the library something it’s not.

Perspectives: Is a library without books still a library and the perfect jungle for social animals

So we have students flocking into our libraries and I’ve tried to answer why they come with different perspectives as outlined above. That’s nice but so what? Should we just sit back and be happy about our foot traffic stats?

No. First of all I strongly believe that the library as place is a potential cornerstone in students well being and success if we acknowledge that physical spaces is not getting less significant in a world that is getting more digitized – I believe we will experience the opposite. We are human beings and social animals. We need to be around other people to function, explore, develop, be challenged, have fun, be alive, learn, do good. ‘Online’ will not replace that. Ever. That goes in general and for higher education and research.

I want us to embrace this and actively use the critical mass of working learning minds in our spaces to create value, network, diversity and inclusion in higher education and research. I want us not just to focus on chairs and tables but to take on an active approach to the library as place and facilitate cross-disciplinary activities. When we bring people together from different backgrounds great things happens. People who thinks alike accomplish nothing. Let the library be the social and academic jungle for people of different race, gender, age, political views, cultural and economic capital and subjects of interest, study and research.

At a talk a while ago I asked the question “Is a library without books still a library” and my own answer was yes: If we . Link to blog post: “Is a library without books still a library? Some thoughts on The Library as place”.

I think personally that a library is not only defined by its collection – whether it be physical or electronic. It is a very important part, but our main assignment in my opinion is to support research, education and learning, and it relies on other activities than just the collection.

Let’s use that space that’s left when the books leave the library to make a jungle to make the wildlife and diversity of higher education flourish.

Final note: Track the behavior

In the above I’m kind of guessing on why students come to the library in 2017 if it’s not to get a book or get professional help. I don’t take a big swing in the dark, I take in what I see, observe and believe and make conclusions from that, but it’s not a study. I don’t have a quantitative or qualitative data set at hand.

It’s important that we don’t just take light swings in the dark when we talk about the use and non-use of libraries and the life of our users and non-users. So my Final note on asking ourselves questions on why and how users use (or not use) libraries is: Don’t just guess and don’t just ask them. If you ask them you only get an answer to what you ask and that might no be the whole picture. If I ask 10 students if they would like 24 hours access to the library they are likely to all answers “yes, sure” but it’s not the same as they would actually use it. User Experience (UX) methods and research holds an important key to understanding our users behavior and needs in the present and developing libraries for the future.

Huge shutout to UX heroes like Andy Priestner and Anneli Friberg and other #UXLibs folks who in theory and practice advocate, support and empower the library community with UX tools, methods and awareness. Keep it up.

An remember: “The need for connection and community is primal, as fundamental as the need for air, water, and food” – Dean Ornish

Comments on this matter is highly appreciated

Cheers

Christian

Towards Rubicon: Digital methods, Openness and Belonging

September 2, 2017January 10, 2018 / Christian Lauersen / Leave a comment

Text of my talk at the opening of Ångström Visualization Lab at Uppsala University Library. Ångström Visualization Lab is a creative learning environment where your can explore data, multimedia and visualisation techinques. It’s created by Linda Vidlund, Wolmar Nyberg Åkerström and Nino Dawod together with awesome people at Uppsala University Library and Uppsala University.

I like to tell you a story.

It’s not at story about libraries or Sweden or visualization methods. It’s a story about Julius Caesar, a story about a river and a story about the importance of making choices in life.

We are in the year 49 BC. It’s the 10th of January and we are in the Italian city, Ravenna. Here we find Julius Caesar. He is the General and Gouverneur of Gaul, the north Italian province. Caesar has a problem. The Senate in Rome has given him an ultimatum: either he give up his titles, his army and his land or he will be declared an enemy of the State. Like any man of power Caesar is not very happy about this. So how does he respond? Well, at nighttime Caesar lead a single legion of soldiers into the dark towards the River of Rubicon. Rubicon is the boarder river between his north Italian province and the State of Rome. Caesar reaches Rubicon in the early morning and stairs out on the water while the sun is breaking the horizon. He has to make a choice: If he don’t passes the river but returns to his province of Gaul, trying to maintain status quo, he will over time be marginalized in the Roman Empire and be defeated by the powers that is gathering around him. If he crosses the river there is no turning back. It will be like a declaration of war and he will put himself in great danger but will remain the initiative on his own hands.

As many of you know Caesar cast the dice, crossed Rubicon, and succeed with his mission and his empire lasted for another 500 years.

Today, with the opening of Ångström Visualization Lab, you are also crossing a river. And that is the point of the story. The conditions for Caesars empire changed. He looked at the situation, went over his options and he acted. He made a choice of action. So have you but obvious there is a difference from Caesars choice of crossing the river and yours; The Ångström Visualization Lab is not about survival or the remaining of power. This is about creating value to the academic community of researcher, teachers and students at Uppsala University.

You have looked at the landscape of education and research and seen that it’s not the same landscape as it was just a few years ago. Scholars and students use new ways and methods to investigate the world: they harvest digital born data, clean it, analyze it and visualized it. It’s not a movie, it’s happening and I think it’s important that we realize that the library and university of today might not fit the reality of tomorrow and that’s why it’s crucial that we don’t just do what we always has done, but continuously talk to students, teachers and researchers, look at there behavior and make choices to create value and relevant services in a ever-changing world.

Will Ångström Visualisation Lab succeed like Caesar? I don’t know but creating spaces and services that is in sync with the development of research and education is a sound move.

Crossing Rubicon

In Copenhagen, at the Faculty Library of Social Sciences, we crossed our Rubicon on February 18 last year with the opening of Digital Social Science Lab. Digital Social Science Lab can be compared with Ångström Visualization Lab in some ways; it is a collaborative and open platform for education and events on digital methods and work with data. It’s made an impact beyond our imagination and by crossing the river we have gained three things that I think a crucial for higher education and research: Digital methods, openness and belonging.

I think and hope, that after some time you will experience that you have gained the same with Ångström Visualization Lab.

Digital methods

The first one is obvious. That was our main target with opening Digital Social Science Lab. We do instructions, teaching and workshops on various digital methods, tools and programs for harvesting, cleaning, analyzing and visualization data. We don’t say it’s the best or only method. We simply want to show students and scholars at the faculty that there is other options than the traditional when you want to investigate the world. We want to bridge that gap and give them some skills so they can move on and we want to bring the together. An important part in doing this is to facilitate that students and scholars do peer-to-peer sessions on digital methods. As a library we don’t have to be the expert all the time. But we are excellent at creating an open space where people can meet, collaborate and create communities within the community. This brings me to aspect number two: Openness.

Openness

I believe that an open approach in any aspect is one of the keys to creating a better world. I don’t want to ruin your party but our world is not doing to good. We are struggling with poverty, refugee crisis, hunger, climate change and an extreme high degree of inequality when it comes to both gender and race issues. I strongly believe that research and education is one of the keys to beat that and create a democratic and more enlighten and equal world and the more open universities are in this context the better: open access, open data, open science – to me all important elements in moving our planet to a better place. We also need open spaces. What is one of the basic elements for development of ideas? For learning? For insight? That we talk to each other. Universities need spaces of inclusion and diversity where people can learn, challenge each others viewpoints and share ideas. Spaces where people across disciplines, gender, race, economic and political viewpoints can meet. I believe that libraries, and places like Digital Social Science Lab and Ångström Visualization Lab, is not only spaces for work on digital methods but also places for breaking down walls and silos. In University context that means places where students and scholars across disciplines can meet and do good things together. And this can also create a feeling of belonging which is the third takeaway.

Belonging

We all need to belong to something; a family, a job, a football team, a nation. If you tell me you don’t need to belong I say you either a psychopath or a liar. Students and researchers at institutions of higher education are no different from that. For many students the study is a huge part of there life and I think it’s crucial for there well being and ability to perform that they feel that they belong. Same go with researchers and teachers. As an open space, not focused on administration or grades, I think the library can help students belong in many ways. I’m sure Ångström Visualization Lab will not only provide skills to the academic community – it will also make a number of students feel like they belong to something, e.g. a community around the lab and the library. They will connect with peer students and scholars, they will form study groups, they will help each other, inspire each other, challenge each other. They will feel that they belong. And they will do good. In general I like academic libraries and universities to be more aware of the social role they can play on campus.

Alea iacta est. The dice is cast. Congratulation on crossing the river and good luck. Like Caesar I’m sure you will succeed.

Opening of Ångström Visiualization Lab September 1 2017 at Uppsala University Library

Ångström Visualization Lab is a creative learning environment where your can explore data, multimedia and visualisation techinques

Ångström Visualization Lab (photo courtesy to Moa Hedbrant)

Slides from talk

“You know it’s bad when librarians rally”. Praise to a non-neutral profession

August 26, 2017 / Christian Lauersen / 2 Comments

Let me start to detach from the heading: “You know it’s bad when librarians rally”. I’ve heard it quiet a few times in different versions and sure it’s funny to some extend because it plays on the stereotypical view on librarians as quiet introvert people with cardigans, glasses and buns, driving round book trolley’s, never raises their voice or interfere in other peoples business (unless someone is to loud in the library and has to be shushed). I don’t find that to be true. Over the last couple years I been hearing a voice among the library community who has been more and more concerned about social justice, inclusion and diversity in society. Especially in North America. I like that voice. It’s an important voice. And that is because I believe that libraries – both public and academic – are important institutions in building an open, equal and diverse society. To fulfill that role we need to be active in our choices and take part in the debate. We need to take a stand and say it out loud when something is wrong. I don’t believe in such a thing as ‘neutral libraries’ or ‘neutral librarianship’. When public libraries do programs for homeless people in the community they are not neutral or indifferent – they act on a problem. When academic libraries advocate for open access to academic literature and research data they are not neutral – they take a stand that open access to information and data can help create a better world. When librarians march in protest because of budget cuts in higher education or closing of school libraries they are not neutral. They act.

I think librarians has been focusing on social justice issues for a long time but the voice I’ve been hearing is getting louder and louder. I hear it especially on Twitter and in Facebook groups but also out on the streets in various demonstrations and rallies around the world.

The Library – public, academic, special etc. – is a crucial institution in building a healthy democracy; libraries are open and inclusive spaces. They care about you, not your money. They educated people and bring them together. They create healthy and smart communities. They don’t flunk students, they focus on how they can help them succeed. Librarianship is the key to all that. It’s important that we are aware of this and that we take our responsibility as an institution and profession serious and act when things are not right.

So, let’s talk about this and let’s keep be that active institution that care about our communities and raises our voices when something isn’t right. And in the mean time I like to dedicate this blog post to all the badass librarians, library workers and library lovers who spent time and energy on advocating for social justice, inclusion and diversity by bringing the best librarian/archives rally sign I could find (I couldn’t find courtesy for all the photos so please write me if one of these are yours).

Enjoy and keep on believing that you can make a difference.

Cheers, Christian

Librarians against nazi shitheads. Gayle Lauren at the Boston Free Speech rally 2017. Photo courtesy: Gayle Lauren

Read and resist. The Women’s March in Washington 2017

Facts are real. Sincerely, your librarian. The Women’s March in Washington 2017

A school librarian is a right. Not at privilege. Rally to restore Illinois School Librarian 2017

Libraries gave us power. Cardiff Library cuts ‘read-in’ protest 2015

The Internet can’t replace a trained librarian. Save Carnegie Libraries rally 2016

I [heart] librarians and books. Librarians to be at Save Carnegie Libraries rally 2016

Z682.4.G39. Boston Pride Parade 2006. Photo courtesy: Lana Mariko Wood

What do we want? Evidence based science. When do we want it? After peer review. Women’s March in Washington 2017

Tales from The Library: A growing collection of library love stories

August 17, 2017August 21, 2017 / Christian Lauersen / Leave a comment

I love pictures. They often take me places and creates different kind of stories in my head. I like many different kinds of pictures but I really dig pictures of libraries and the people who work there and the people who uses them. Pictures of rows of books, students that are reading, kids learning to code and all the small and big sparks of the good things that libraries are.

I’ve visited many libraries in my life and had many great library experiences. Some of them I’ve captured in a photo. I thought it could be nice to find those photos, put ’em up somewhere so people can enjoy them (I don’t really know what I’m doing when I take pictures and it’s just iPhone pics but it’s pic’s of libraries so that secures 99% of the joy) and use them for websites, library marketing etc.

So here you go: Tales from The Library, a growing collection of quality library love stories from around the world: https://www.instagram.com/librarylovestoires

Cheers,

Christian

tales
Tales from The Library: https://www.instagram.com/librarylovestoires