No shushing here: Learning Commons in Wilson Library is a place for discussion, collaboration
There's plenty of space for quiet study in Wilson Library, but you won't find it here on the second floor. Wisps of conversations drift from Zoe's Bookside Bagels near the north entrance, through the skybridge and on past the reference desk as students and faculty alike seek information, advice and camaraderie here in the Learning Commons.
Reconfiguration of the library's second floor this past summer has opened up the whole space to collaboration, teaching and the sharing of information. The Tutoring Center is here, across the hallway from Zoe's and the media circulation desk. The Writing Center has moved, too, now occupying the space vacated by the media collection, which moved across the hall behind the Daylight Lounge. The Teaching Learning-Academy dialogue groups now meet in 2 West in a space being developed for informal group gatherings and small group study.
Why all the changes?
"We're really seeing this second floor as an interactive and collaborative learning space," says Carmen Werder, the Learning Commons' director. "We wanted to create a physical space where this kind of interaction could happen outside the classroom."
Students operate differently now than they used to, Werder says. They're more interactive, more social in the ways they glean and share information. Faculty, too, are teaching differently; some, such as Anthropology's Kathleen Saunders and Huxley’s Troy Abel, are holding office hours in the Learning Commons in addition to their offices. The space also is being used by other academic units holding special learning events. The Committee on Undergraduate Education, in collaboration with the vice provost for undergraduate education and the Academic Advising Center, is co-sponsoring "Viking Landing: Making the Most of Your GURs," on Nov. 9. The event will feature faculty, advisers and upperclass students discussing how to explore the Western GURs in connection with various academic areas of interest.
Seven programs compose this first phase of the Learning Commons: Circulation Services, the Tutoring Center, the Writing Center, Instruction and Research Services, the Student Technology Center, the Teaching-Learning Academy and Writing Instruction Support. Speckled in and among these areas are pockets of space for class and group meetings.
"We don't expect the library to be completely quiet; we also expect it to be a collaborative, vibrant space," Werder says.
Case in point is Zoe's, which daily draws hundreds of students, faculty and staff to a space once held by Special Collections.
The moves are based on reams of data gleaned from students and the literature on learning in the past several years, Werder says. That data have shown that students want dedicated collaborative space as well as quiet space for study and reflection.
"We're not forgetting that," Werder says. "In fact, there is a corresponding campaign going on to develop the library's upper floors. What this reorganization does is say, 'If you want collaborative space, go to the second floor. If you want solitary, quiet space, go upstairs, especially to fourth floor central and the fifth floor."
The idea is that if the whole second floor is claimed as collaboration space, it's easy for everyone to differentiate quiet space from not-so-quiet space. The moves also unite programs with natural affinities for each other, Werder adds. Moving the Tutoring Center here from Old Main, for example, has obvious benefit in working with other learning support programs, she says.
What's next? Lots. But, of course, having no additional funds means the library is limited in what it can do in the immediate future, Werder says.
"We're building the Learning Commons together," she says. "We want the campus to help grow and expand it. An advisory board composed of faculty, staff and students from across campus is convening to explore its development and growth, and they welcome ideas from others about they would like to see happen here."
Phase two (and beyond) is definitely in the offing, says Werder, but it's too soon to say exactly what the next changes will be. And anyway, Western is just beginning to learn how phase one plays out.
"This is exciting works," she says. "We have such great education here at Western, and so many other things can happen outside the classroom, too, when you have this kind of environment."
Want to know more? To promote and answer questions about the new space, a Coffee in the Commons event is held at 3 p.m. every Wednesday this quarter on the library's second floor.
