LJ Talks To Carton Rogers, Director of Libraries University of Pennsylvania

-- Library Journal, 5/16/2006

Several week ago H. Carton Rogers, the University of Pennsylvania's Vice Provost and Director of Libraries, opened the new Weigle information commons to rave reviews from students and faculty, and a big nod to generous alum David B. Weigle. The WIC is the latest in the new wave of learning commons.

LJ: Congratulations on the new Weigle Information Commons. Did other library projects factor in designing your new space?

CR: We did do an extensive environmental scan specifically for the Weigle Information Commons (WIC), to learn from others and to adopt the best ideas in the field. For example, the planners and our students were impressed by the study booth concept used at the University of Chicago. However, we never simply appropriated Chicago’s or anyone else’s solutions. In the case of the study booths, for example, we augmented the concept by outfitting each installation with a laptop and a detached flat panel display mounted on an articulating arm. This is a key ergonomic improvement, because it allows students to huddle comfortably around a display without having to sit on top of the poor fellow designated to work the laptop. This focus on the ergonomic in the several study environments of WIC was an important design consideration.

What were some of the things you did at Penn that you see as groundbreaking?

The first word that comes to mind is: collaboration. The WIC represents a confluence of interests shared by the School of Arts and Sciences and the Library. The project was born out of a growing sense that both parties have a stake in improving the academic experience of students and that our goals are complementary. As a result, the WIC is not a study hall. It is instead a place where we help students do research. It is not a computer lab, but a kind of workshop, a resource that young scholars use in carrying out their academic apprenticeships. At WIC, students work with research librarians, academic computing and media specialists, counselors who support communications within the curriculum, and people who teach critical writing. By co-locating these programs and physical resources in a library facility, Penn has taken a major step toward integrating the strategic priorities of school and library. That’s new—for Penn at least—and exciting.

Thanks to the architects and the input we received from students, the WIC boasts a few other innovations that are new to Penn. One is the blending of different kinds of work environments. The study booths I mentioned make up one of these “micro-environments.” We also created sound-proof study rooms with plasma screens where students can rehearse a presentation, or hunker down in quiet. The WIC has several open spaces too, where the furniture is on casters and can be configured to a group’s needs. Technology is ubiquitous in the Commons—wireless connections, plasma displays—and there’s space for consultants or IM access to our reference staff if you need an expert who’s keeping office hours elsewhere.

On a broader note, how does your library project fit in with what you see as the future of the library on campus?

In my experience, libraries have always been, and I’m certain they’ll remain, gathering places. I think what you’re observing today, however, relates to the social or community dimensions of learning and the library’s effort to strengthen them. Our Information Commons project suggests how spaces can be transformed to help enrich the communal aspects of academic experience. But that transformation is not confined to library buildings. Most of our undergraduates have grown up functioning in teams of one sort or another—in sports, in the online gaming world, and in the classroom. Cell phones, IM, text messaging, face books, iPods, and the internet are as indispensable as oxygen to them. Academic libraries need to penetrate the social networks that are organized around such technologies. To be effective, we need to be embedded in the communities we serve, and adapting the library to their various learning styles, their tools, their lexicons. The WIC is one type of community learning environment, another even more evocative of the future is PennTags, a social bookmarking service that is experiencing a wave of undergraduate interest here. A common thread running through these rather dissimilar community-building projects is the challenge to rethink many traditional ideas about service delivery, organizational dynamics, and librarian job skills.

Can you talk a little about what the architectural process was like? How did you choose a design and a team to implement the project?

The Library and School of Arts and Sciences commissioned a feasibility study. To take us through the design phase and eventual construction we hired Ann Beha and Associates, a Boston firm with a good track record in this area of design. To work with Ann Beha, we selected research and instruction librarians, academic computing staff, and representatives from the various academic programs that would make use of WIC. At stages of the design process we sought student input, particularly as we worked on the different layers of study facilities. We even set up a prototype of the study booth for students to test drive and critique. Their advice was thoughtful and concrete; the final design owes a great deal to their insights. We also collaborated closely with Arts and Sciences on a series of events to test our vision of how programs might integrate their work into the new space. We ran a dissertation boot camp and several teaching forums, for example, to identify what technologies might best serve our counseling and instructional staff and to inform the design plans accordingly. These exercises also provided us with case studies to take to donors so we could help them visualize how WIC could be used and what its potential benefits would be.

How much instruction is taking place in the library these days, and how much did this factor in to how you viewed this project?

A good deal of instruction occurs in and around the Penn library today. In a typical year, attendance at library instructional programs and orientations tops 20,000. We operate an advisor program in each of Penn’s 12 College Houses, and we even meet annually with the parents of incoming students to describe to them how library services can make a difference in the academic careers of their children. At Penn, the library is responsible for courseware support for ten of 12 schools, so we are the campus champion for new teaching technologies.

I think it’s widely recognized that the library is part of a crowded information space, space students will need to understand and be able to negotiate if they’re to succeed academically and prosper in the information economy after graduation. A growing part of the library’s business, therefore, is to teach them to master the many tools we make available and to recognize the shortcomings of many we don’t provide. The beauty of WIC is that it places us in proximity to students at the “teaching moment.” Our most effective work happens when we’re able to partner them as they develop a project or begin organizing their research. From this point of view, WIC and facilities like it are an important aspect of our strategic planning.

The library space seems to be changing as quickly as technology in some respects, yes? Are there other plans in the works at Penn?

Yes and yes. Several projects now on the drawing board are getting the “WIC” treatment. Last year we reached milestones in the planning for a new Engineering Library and a rehabilitation of our Biomedical Library. Both facilities will have expanded versions or adaptations of the Information Commons as part of their core designs. Since the 1990 restoration of its original library building, a National Historic Landmark erected in 1890, Penn has been gradually upgrading library spaces. Much of the work has involved millions of dollars to expand and improve service and study environments. As we make more and more information available online, and find more efficient and cost-effective ways to store our lesser-used collections in high density facilities, we’re presented with opportunities to create new centers of learning in our libraries. These learning centers can be as varied as the spaces they occupy. Biomedicine will not be like Engineering, and neither will work like the new Special Collections Center we’re currently fundraising for. But they will all serve the specialized needs of their communities through the partnerships we foster with the teachers and learners who use them.