Posting on behalf of Martin Halbert, who is co-authoring, with Charles Forrest, a second edition of A Field Guide to the Information Commons. (Disclosure – I contributed to the first edition and plan to update my chapter for the second edition). The book will contain a section describing new types of library spaces in institutions, and the authors seek information about facilities such as information or learning commons and makerspaces. I encourage you to contribute information through the survey link in the message below.
–Joan Lippincott, CNI
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Greetings,
If your institution has a library facility called an Information Commons, Knowledge Commons, Learning Commons, Makerspace, or some similar name, we invite you to complete a survey describing your facility for inclusion in an upcoming book entitled A Field Guide to the Information Commons (Second Edition), which will be published by Scarecrow Press and authored by myself and Charles Forrest of Emory University. The entries in this book will provide a snapshot of the current state of development in academic and research libraries of the information commons, a response to the pressures of a rapidly changing research and learning environment characterized by acquiring and making accessible a host of new online information resources, developing innovative collaborative services, and transforming spaces to support changing user behaviors and patterns of learning.
Descriptive entries will include both text and images portraying facilities in several dozen libraries across North America and beyond. If you are interested in submitting an entry to the book, please fill out the survey information at the following link. The survey will close January 31st at midnight.
https://unt.az1.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_8HNo4R1EReusCy1
Background: Developments in technology libraries and in the larger society continue to enable new forms of information seeking behavior and scholarship, drawing a response from libraries that harkens back to the venerable notion of the “commons,” a public place that supports community, a place free to be used by everyone, which everyone has a joint right to use, to participate in or share, a place that is generally accessible, affable and familiar. The first edition of the Field Guide described the early and rapid emergence of the concept of the “commons” and its widespread adoption among academic and research libraries. This second edition will capture the continued evolution of the trend. Many thanks for participating!
Warm regards,
Martin Halbert (Ph.D., MLIS)
UNT Dean of Libraries and Associate Professor