2017 Charleston Library Conference

Space—is it truly the final frontier? For academic libraries, the answer may very well be “yes.” A library’s physical space is one of its most valuable and most restricted resources. As academic libraries try to continually expand their service offerings, difficult decisions about space allocation must be made. This poster will report on findings from a study of a library space devoted to a new and innovative purpose: a new space with treadmill desks, standing desks, cycling desks, and balance chairs to encourage and facilitate active learning through physical movement. The research team, located at a large, public, land grant institution, conducted a study using observation and short surveys to gather information about use trends of the area as well as user perceptions of the active learning space.
Increasing physical space can be impossible for some institutions; for those institutions that can afford physical expansion, the monetary costs and level of inconvenience renovation entails can be high enough that the risk outweighs the reward. Conducting space assessment studies allows library administrators to understand how and why a space is being used, so that space allocations can be decided based on users’ needs. Improvements made to the space contribute to student, faculty, and staff success and the overall value of the library. This poster details a study about the usage of the active learning equipment and the benefits gained from allocating space in this way. Poster session attendees will learn about what works in this space, what doesn’t work, and how active learning space in an academic library can influence and have an impact on student success. In doing so, we explore possibly strange and new perspectives and boldly go where few librarians have gone before... Additional presenters/authors: Brianne Dosch, Jordan Kauffman, Rachel Fleming-May, Regina Mays, Teresa Walker.