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Defend the Library

A few months ago, University of Chicago's central library Regenstein had a questionnaire circulated to assess the way students used the space and plan ahead on how best to re-orient the library in the coming 5-10 years. One theme in the questionnaire was whether we "met" people in the Reg or whether we "wanted a social space". Questions about availability of foods and snacks and chill-out music.

As someone who uses the stacks to, um, get books and such, I paid little attention to the questionnaire but my concern level rises up a notch today. In CSM is an article about the UT-Austin turning their undergraduate library into a "learning center" with couches, laptops and baristas. What!?

Liberal bias in faculty! Global Studies! Churchill! Forget all that. Here is a cause I can get behind: Defend the Library! Let's talk about this in a comically rising voice reaching panic. Here are some places in any given campus where students can do "social gathering": Classrooms [before, during and after lecture]; any open space outside of any campus building; designated student centers and eating commons; dorms; and neighborhood speakeasies. How much social gathering do we need? Really? And speaking as a plugged-in digirati, I shudder when I read that students can access information through "bibliographical weblinks". Designed by Google-bots, I am sure.

I am not talking out of nostalgia for some "the-way-things-were". Just this morning, I have been writing a post about the necessity of increasing technology in the classroom [until Caleb pre-empted me below]. However, I cannot conceive of an undergrad education that does not include thorough familiarity with some semblance of archival/library work. There is more to a stack of library volumes than "Harry Potter". I hope.

Posted on Wednesday, August 24, 2005 at 10:22 AM | Comments (10) | Return

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