GLTU9 - The City of Glasgow College Library
I went on my first Glasgow Libraries Tweet-Up on Thursday. This was the 9th tweet-up, all of which have been organised by Anabel Marsh, @AnabelMarsh on twitter. Twenty of us were visiting The City of Glasgow College Library, where we had a fantastic tour from Tony Donnelly, the Chief Librarian. The tour really sparked my brain for dissertation writing. I'm just going to bash down a few thoughts here on the blog, so this post might be a little fragmented. Tony gave us an outline of the mergers that the college has gone through, and how this has impacted on the information and library services. The current college library is split over two floors, and each has different characteristics because of the two different building periods. Level 1 was completed in 2007, and Level 2 was completed in 2012. The political climate was not great in 2007, and some things had to be compromised in the design process for level 1. There's no real path through the floor, although it is still well used; I think it was last years footfall figures that were 156,000 compared to 74,000 for level 2. However, computer use is inversely in favour of level 2, but I missed noting those figures. The ICT suite on level 1 is slightly like a call centre, but the staff had less control of this at the time. PCs are crammed into the space, and close to the wall, when staff would have preferred clusters. However, cables cost money and money was tight. I wonder about the price of copper, and it's effect on ICT facility layout. Tony acknowledged that the design of level 2 had been inspired by the intuitive and 'invisible' design of the ICT suite at the Mitchell library. Although level 2 is so new, its life expectancy is only five more years. In 2016 there is to be a new library built as part of a larger development for the college. I wish I'd got a photo of the level 1 Service Point. It was lovely. Well used though, and I didn't want to be disruptive taking photos. Staff love the room for storage and find it very ergonomic. There's certainly plenty of room for staff computer terminals and processing issues etc, as well as breathing room for reshelves and holds. Students appear to find it very approachable. There was a good consultation process on this facility, and staff were heavily involved in the design by David McGill. Tony was obviously very engaged with the topic of zoning. He cautioned us against sending a muddled message to students with the design of space. What the library learned through use of the group study area as designed on level 1, was that the large booth enclosing many group study desks at the back of the floor could invite behavioural issues. He spoke of the rethink on group study areas during the 2nd floor remodel, and we saw the lovely cluster of smaller, long tabled booth arrangements, and how well they were being used. Tony also spoke of techniques of zoning using the wall decal art, designed by the illustrator Tony McKay. The artwork features Alexander Thomson, resolutely avoiding any Rennie Mackintosh! An increase in colour and density of elements within the design indicates a more noisy area, where conversely less coloured, less busy design indicates a quieter zone.
Sound is also manipulated by ceiling design. Large shell like structures capture and focus sound in the ICT cluster area, and I think we all felt the compulsion to drop our voices in that area.
On the second floor there is a cutting table situated behind the printers. It is a thing of beauty. So obviously and perfectly useful in situ, so eminently sensible; however, we all wondered if we would ever have thought of it unprompted.
It was good to hear that the college was very supportive of the library service. All through the talk, Tony advocated getting as close to any project management processes as possible. He advised investing in design and good furniture, as the students respected the furniture they had bought, and it was wearing well. He was frank about the mistakes they felt they had made in design, and proud of the successes the library had achieved in its design. Tony's enthusiasm was contagious, and it was a great visit which has given me much food for thought on library space design in practice. I was reading the first paper in the IFLA Library Building Guidelines the other day, The Top Ten Qualities of Good Library Space, by Andrew McDonald, and had been thinking about practicalities of zoning. McDonald talks about "...sound and visual clues, layout, style of furniture, and types of technology in different configurations" (p18), citing a JISC publication from 2006. So it was really great to have Tony talk about this in practice. I've just downloaded that JISC paper, so I'm off for a read at that now...