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Ask Slashdot: How To Reimagine a Library?
dptalia writes "I'm part of a team tasked with re-imagining my local elementary school's library. Libraries, especially school libraries, are struggling to remain relevant in today's world, when so much reading and research can be done from home. But this school has mostly low-income students who don't have the sort of high-tech resources at home that we all take for granted. What ideas do you have to turn an elementary school library into an environment that fosters innovation and technology?"
We'll tell you to stock the shelves with Calvin and Hobbes, How Stuff Works type books, and dinosaur stuff. This may be some of what the boys want, but it can't hurt to actually ask all the students what they are interested in. Skip the card catalog, and encourage exploring.
Cheap desktop computers running free operating systems. You can install Ubuntu or some other *nix distro free on pretty much any old used computer.
WiFi access. I would imagine that your internet bill will likely be your biggest long-term expense. You can get some pretty awesome consumer routers, install DD-WRT on them or tomato USB or whatever) and get some pretty fancy functionality. I've been eyeing this one.
And maybe the most affordable ebook readers or tablets for checkout. You might get a sponsorship from Google or Amazon -- they are all too anxious to rope people into their ebook ecosystems. I would try to avoid these book ecosystems for cost reasons. You can also get all kinds of amazing old books through project gutenberg. Maybe OLPC would have a suitable device?
You might also keep some physical books of historical interest or perhaps large maps or other visually oriented works that resist digitization.
Yes... based on my university library, I'd actually break down a "library" into 4 distict sections, and size them appropriately: individual vs. group, and "unplugged" vs. tech.
Library as a cathedral of knowledge and meditation: (individual unplugged) : your "traditional" view of a library, where silence and sensory deprivation is enforced, stacks of books organized into sections, and isolated nooks and crannies with bean bags and desks for reading / study / sleeping. My most productive study space was a hard desk at the end of a stack in the basement of the engineering library.
Library as a tech center: Need to break out into individual "serious work-focused" computer stations, and collaborative conference rooms. The collaboration environments would need to be scheduled out, but have all the accoutrements of modern conference rooms: wifi, whiteboards (both smart and dumb), projectors, servers and client stations for LAN-parties, etc. But of course encase it in glass so they can be monitored.
Get a display space near the cafeteria or some other place where students go frequently. Put books there that are interesting to the students. Thor comics, Ender's game whatever the media is already advertising for you.
Talk to teachers and hold classes in the library occasionally so the kids feel comfortable there.
See if the school will add DVDs to the library's collection.
Get them there and they'll figure out how to use it, but you have to get them there.
If they can put meeting rooms in, so clubs can meet there that would be great as well.
"Sometimes it's hard to tell the dancer from the dance." --Corwin Of Amber in CoC
When i think back to my elementary school, there was only one reason to visit the library other than to check out books, and that was to play games on the computers.
We had games like Spellevator Math Blaster as well as some adventure game that constantly quizzed various knowledges that I can't for the life of me remember the name of.
(I wish I did because I never beat it and I'd love to go back and do such now)
The point is, there's many an educational game out there, and it's an easy way to get younger kids learning things they may not otherwise take interest in.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
I think an underrated component of libraries is the librarians. I think I'm imagining a modern library as more than just a place for the public to connect to information. It's a place where the public can go to learn about something and get help in finding the information. Sometimes having access to the internet just isn't enough. You need to find a *person* who has specific expertise.
here's what worked in our low income elementary school libraries: 1. allow children to stay there until after 6PM when a parent could pick them up. this ONE thing was the most popular, and might be extended to 7PM. 2. allow 7AM entry, too. this was hit-and-miss, but where it hit, it was a BIG hit. both the above need a minimum of 3 PAID adult (over 25) supervisors. this is in addition to the actual librarian. 3. then, just stay out of their way. they'll let you know the next direction. in other words: don't guess and hope for change.