Strategic development of university library space

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore issues, approaches and challenges in providing strategic direction to university libraries on developing their physical space in what is increasingly a digital age. A key aspect of the work is to explore how university libraries and their senior staff can widen libraries’ role to inform the strategic direction of formal and informal learning spaces across the institution. Design/methodology/approach – Research and perspectives from across the world provide the context for the study. A single site case study based at Loughborough University in the UK is explored to demonstrate how strategy for university library space is developed. The case study also provides an example of how a university library has extended its influence on other informal learning spaces. Findings – University library physical space has an important role in learning, teaching and research, despite the increase in digital information provision. For effective strategy, information and evidence needs to be collected from a wide range of sources. The experience and skills that university libraries have developed in managing learning spaces can be transferred to learning spaces elsewhere in the university. Research limitations/implications – This is a single site case study. Practical implications – The case study provides approaches and ideas that can be applied by university libraries in the strategic development of learning spaces. Originality/value – The paper provides an innovative and informed insight into how university libraries can influence learning and teaching spaces across university campus/site. Further research would be valuable to identify practice more widely. Surveying, from a library perspective, university and university estate, management strategies for content relating to libraries and formal and informal spaces across the institution and what is going on/being planned in this area would further progress the debate.

Academic Libraries' Strategic Plans: Top Trends and Under-Recognized Areas

“…Academic libraries take up a lot of real estate, and they must justify the use of that space or risk losing it. As such, it makes sense for academic libraries to make physical space a priority and to align the development and use of the space with institutional mission and goals (Matthews & Walton, 2014). The rise of the learning or information commons is one manifestation of the library's attempt to redefine space around teaching and learning goals, rather than collection warehousing.…”

Going the full distance: Strategic support for digital libraries in distance education at the University of Education, Winneba in Ghana

“…A number of recent studies address the need for strategic planning in the field of higher education (Bieler and McKenzie, 2017; Immordino et al, 2016; Srinivasa Rao et al, 2015). More so, as a central component in educational delivery in distance education, research has increased over the years into the search for viable models of strategic planning to sustain academic digital libraries (Le, 2015; Matthews and Walton, 2014; Wade, 2013). Even though a number of authors in Africa (Kavulya, 2007; Mapulanga, 2013) and specifically in Ghana (Dadzie and Van der Walt, 2015) have explored the need for strategic planning to sustain academic digital library services, there appears to be a dearth of recent research dedicated to strategic planning of digital library services in the distance education terrain in Ghana.…”

Library space assessment methods: perspectives of new information professionals

“…Readers interested in exploring the growing literature on the planning, design, development and assessment of library space can find fuller discussion in the recent book chapter by Diller (2017) or in the articles by Matthews and Walton (2014), Nitecki and Simpson (2016), and Turner et al (2013). (Corrall, 2017), the present much larger study adopted a longitudinal or "diachronic" collective (multiple) case study strategy because the instructor was interested in not only analyzing within and across the different student groups, but also exploring whether student approaches to designing and conducting a one-shot space assessment were changing over time (Thomas, 2016, p. 114).…”