Library renovation

Abstract

The journey started at a 2016 meeting of the college’s Learning Resources Committee, which I chair as Library Director, A student representative casually commented that our Library looked “dated”. Not that we actually WERE dated, we have electronic resources, 24/7 remote access, printers, scanners, wireless, and a state-of-the-art Library Management System. However, through the eyes of our young student, the Library looked “like something from the 1970s.” Anyone who has lived through that decade’s will know that was not meant as a compliment. The student’s criticism prompted the Dean of Academic Affairs, who sat in on the meeting, to ask when the Library had had its last “facelift.” That was an easy one to answer - as far as I knew…never. And I’ve been here over 20 years.
 Just like that, a renovation was born. How hard could this be? I would query the students on what a suitable update might look like, get a budget, buy some new furniture, and go back to the business of being a librarian rather than an interior designer. Spoiler alert: not so fast.

Reorganization of a very small academic library: a case study of Maine maritime academy's Nutting Memorial Library

“…When these come on top of existing workloads, making any further changes, particularly ones that require creative and strategic thinking, can be Reorganization of a small academic library onerous. Even the ultimate execution of a physical move can come with an unexpected degree of labor that may not be appropriate or logical for current staff positions to take on (Wells, 2019).…”

“…With so few library personnel left at small academic libraries to conduct a change process, it is not surprising that there is little literature on those change processes: the process itself takes significant staff time that may not be available, and publishing scholarly literature is similarly time-consuming and energy intensive. Wells (2019) notes that their small institution also noticed that new tasks tended to fall directly to the director to accomplish, as they do not fit neatly in existing roles, further exacerbating the workload on small library administrators managing a change process. Jacobs observes of carrying many different roles that “You can't split yourselves into too many jobs … If you're working on updating databases, to mentally shift over to reference or to do instruction for a class or to try to do collection development—it's pretty much crazy making” (Ford, 2018).…”