![8 Chapter 1
must be able to put these ideas into their own words, to explain them to someone
else. In this new paradigm, students take greater responsibility for their learning,
the instructor moves from “sage on the stage” to “guide on the side,” and the
notion of the classroom expands. Further, the emphasis shifts from establishing a
heuristic model that all students must fit to creating pedagogical practices that are
flexible enough to permit a variety of learning styles and levels.
Previous “instruction paradigm” measures of institutional success, which fo-
cused predominantly on the deliverer of the service rather than the receiver, also
reflected an understanding of education and educational value as quantifiable.20
Within libraries this paradigm translated into quality measured by volumes of
books, and architectural and organizational planning in turn geared toward the
storage of print materials. While the user of the books might be considered in col-
lection decisions and in deciding the number of tables and chairs to provide for
reference or reading areas, Vygotskian notions of social learning never entered the
equation. For much of the twentieth century, the library building served primar-
ily as a storehouse for books. “People’s needs, habits, and learning styles [were]
rarely considered in library planning for example, as the ever-growing book stock
[was] perceived as the library’s contribution to instructional relevancy.”21
Gradually, this resource-centric approach gave way to a more expansive and
inclusive focus. As beliefs shifted about the classroom space and the role of the
teacher, so did beliefs about library space and the role of the librarian. Providing
computers and other tools and space for academic instruction and student learn-
ing became more deeply ingrained in libraries’ missions, and new professional
organizations emerged to meet this challenge.
Networked Information and Social Learning
The New Learning Communities (NLC) program of the Coalition for Networked
Information (CNI) began in the early 1990s as an effort to support student-centered
approaches to teaching and learning built upon networked sources of informa-
tion.22
Speaking from the perspective of community college libraries, Philip Tomp-
kins, then director of library information services at Estrella Mountain Community
College, argued that libraries must find ways to successfully merge print-based
and digital cultures and create spaces and services that support interactive learn-
ing.23
Further, libraries must become more integral parts of the teaching-learning
experience, integrating instruction and communication into their traditional
service of information storage and delivery.24
Tompkins observed that “an era of
reconceptualization and boundary spanning collaboration is occurring”:
This collaboration has implications for telecommunications, microcomputers, the
redesign of the classroom and the need for new, sponsored learning environments
(spaces) departing radically in design from the theater of the classroom or the tra-
ditional library or learning resource center. Above all, a new vision of the role of all
campus personnel to accommodate student-centered learning cultures has emerged.
It is richly supported by the massing of microcomputer technology and changes in
pedagogy. . . . Collaborative and cooperative teaching, and independent, self-paced
learning call for new spaces accommodating the massing of newer instructional and
information technologies, remote from the theater style classroom. Multimedia ac-](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/925589-250618135835-e099a840/85/A-Field-Guide-To-The-Information-Commons-Charles-Forrest-Martin-Halbert-29-320.jpg)
![Origin and Development of the Information Commons in Academic Libraries 11
needs, rather than by the priorities of librarians or computing personnel. Lippin-
cott observes that “a key purpose of an information commons is to leverage the
intersection of content, technology, and services in a physical facility to support
student learning,” but acknowledges that institutions face real challenges in actu-
ally facilitating learning.42
She suggests that information commons may increase
their potential for supporting student learning by providing, for example,
• spaces that encourage social interaction and collaboration;
• diverse information formats;
• multiple technologies for accessing and using information, particularly those
that students are not likely to own themselves;
• highly skilled and knowledgeable service personnel who can assist students
at point of need.
This last point was echoed in the 2006 Canadian Learning Commons Conference,
which defined the learning commons as both supporting “numerous aspects of un-
dergraduate and graduate student learning” and, through campus collaborations,
“particularly in academic and student services, as well as computing, [providing]
a rich array of learning supports.”43
In his keynote address at this conference, Yale
University Librarian Emeritus Scott Bennett likewise underlined the pivotal role of
collaboration in creating spaces that attend to diverse learning needs.44
Rather than signaling a shift in direction, the recent attention to learning heralds
a rededication to the partnerships and philosophies on which the information
commons was founded. When Donald Beagle summarized the key features of the
physical information commons following a decade of development, he pointed to
expanded and flexible group and individual study spaces as key to supporting a
range of learning styles.45
Libraries that expand the services and resources pro-
vided through the information commons—by adding computer service centers,
for example, or writing centers—continue the path set by early information com-
mons developers who sought to support multiple facets of the academic experi-
ence, and particularly, to better support teaching and learning.46
FROM CULTURAL ICON TO SOCIAL CENTER:
CAN A “LIBRARY” BE BOTH?
Likewise, the renewed emphasis on social interaction echoes early hopes that the
library would be more than a place to find information and technology by refer-
encing pedagogical beliefs that unstructured, dialogic interactions foster learning.
Bennett’s call to build spaces that support learning behaviors that are valued by
both students and faculty aligns with Lippincott’s observation that commons spaces
must support social interaction: while the former explicitly orients these spaces
toward learning, it also builds on the finding that both faculty and students most
value learning behaviors that are built upon conversation.47
Commenting on trends
in library design, university librarian Peter Graham cited the importance of both
individual and group study areas at the Syracuse University Libraries: “The library](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/925589-250618135835-e099a840/85/A-Field-Guide-To-The-Information-Commons-Charles-Forrest-Martin-Halbert-32-320.jpg)
![Information Commons: Surveying the Landscape 21
ample, students use course websites and course management systems, access elec-
tronic reserves, search for information via the web or library catalogs and databases,
employ software (such as spreadsheet programs or GIS [geographic information
systems]) that is relevant to their major disciplines, embed visuals and audio in their
papers, and create presentations, websites, and short videos as class projects. Much
of student learning occurs outside the classroom, and libraries have traditionally
been a venue where students (and faculty) could broaden their learning outside of
the classroom’s confines. To support today’s students’ learning styles, libraries can
provide technology-rich environments, such as information commons, which offer
physical spaces for collaborative work, expert assistance, technology, and content.
EXAMPLES AND FEATURES
With the current wide-ranging discussion of information commons, one would
think that they are the prevalent configuration in academic libraries today, but
that is not the case. There are a growing number of information commons in
American universities and colleges, but more are in the planning stage than have
been implemented. For example, in an Association of Research Libraries survey
in which seventy-four (60 percent) of their member libraries responded, only
twenty-two (30 percent of the respondents) replied that they have an information
commons in the library.4
Many institutions are in the planning phase for devel-
oping information commons, generally as part of a library renovation or library
renovation/expansion. In some cases, entirely new libraries are being planned
that will incorporate an information commons as a key feature.
There are so many variations of information commons that it is difficult to
devise distinctive categories that describe identifiable types. However, when
examining an information commons, some of the features that may distinguish
types include: type of academic institution (or subunit such as an academic de-
partment); renovation or new construction; inclusion of services from information
technology, writing center, and others; inclusion of multimedia production; and
types of group space, including small-group rooms, informal seating, cafés, and
classroom space.
This section provides a selective “tour” of information commons, designed to
represent those that have received particular attention in the profession and also
to represent information commons that have distinctive features or that are in dif-
ferent types of academic institutions. In fact, some of the facilities described here
are not even called information commons, but they share many of the features
that define the concept of a commons. The “tour” is not intended to be compre-
hensive, and details provided here will likely change in future years. After all,
flexibility and change are essential to the success of any information commons.
The examples and features highlighted here help to illustrate the range of insti-
tutions creating information commons and differences in these spaces over time
and across institutions, components and characteristics frequently identified with
information commons, and the wide variation that makes categorizing informa-
tion commons problematic.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/925589-250618135835-e099a840/85/A-Field-Guide-To-The-Information-Commons-Charles-Forrest-Martin-Halbert-42-320.jpg)
![30 Chapter 2
spaces that provide technology-rich environments, encourage the use of scholarly
content, and offer knowledgeable staff that can help faculty and students with
their academic work. By providing the campus with community-oriented physi-
cal space that has academic values at its core, the library can reinforce its valuable
role within the institution.
RELEVANT URLS
http://library.gmu.edu/libinfo/jcl.html [Johnson Center at George Mason
University]
www.slc.uga.edu/students.html [University of Georgia Student Learning Cen-
ter]
www.lib.uiowa.edu/arcade/#null [University of Iowa Information Arcade]
www.usc.edu/libraries/locations/leavey/ic/ [University of Southern Califor-
nia Leavey Library]
www.ilc.arizona.edu/features/infocom.htm [Integrated Learning Commons at
the University of Arizona]
http://ic.indiana.edu/ [Indiana University Information Commons]
http://commons.utk.edu/ [The Commons at the University of Tennessee,
Knoxville]
www.umass.edu/learningcommons/ [University of Massachusetts, Amherst,
Learning Commons]
www.middlebury.edu/academics/lis/lib/ [Middlebury College Library]
http://lis.dickinson.edu/Technology/Public%20Labs/Information%20
Commons/index.html [Information Commons at Dickinson College]
www.lib.uiowa.edu/commons [University of Iowa Hardin Health Sciences
Information Commons]
www.library.vanderbilt.edu/peabody/commons/ [Peabody Library Learning
Commons at Vanderbilt University]
www.lib.washington.edu/ougl/ [University of Washington undergraduate
library]
http://infocommons.emory.edu/usage.php [workstation usage alert at Emory
Information Commons]
NOTES
1. D. Russell Bailey, “Information Commons Services for Learners and Researchers:
Evolution in Patron Needs, Digital Resources and Scholarly Publishing” (paper presented
at INFORUM 2005: 11th Conference on Professional Information Resources, Prague, May
24–26, 2005), www.inforum.cz/inforum2005/prispevek.php?prispevek=32.
2. University of Georgia, “Student Learning Center,” www.slc.uga.edu/students/
library.html.
3. University of Iowa, “Information Arcade: Mission/Overview,” www.lib.uiowa.edu/
arcade/about/mission.html.
4. Leslie Haas and Jan Robertson, The Information Commons, SPEC Kit 281 (Washington,
D.C.: Association of Research Libraries, July 2004).](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/925589-250618135835-e099a840/85/A-Field-Guide-To-The-Information-Commons-Charles-Forrest-Martin-Halbert-51-320.jpg)
![remind him, that as he was not sure he had ever had it, so, perhaps,
he still had it without knowing it. 'Perhaps,' he would reply, 'but it is
certainty I want.' Such a perplexed presbyter, and doubtless there
are many such, is in a regular fix; and there he must remain, calling
on his idols for help, but, like the priests of Baal, calling in vain, as
there is no power in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, which
can rescue a man from the terror of his own delusions, till the
delusions themselves are abandoned as visionary and absurd.'
Mr. Roscoe.—This question of apostolical succession, when
cleared of its legendary mysticism, and brought within the pale of
sober reality, may be employed as a very cogent argument in
confirmation of the historic truthfulness of the Christian faith and its
institutions, in refutation of some of the objections of infidelity. 'The
existence of such an order of men as Christian ministers, continually
from the apostles to this day, is perhaps,' as Archbishop Whately
remarks,[36]
'as complete a moral certainty as any historical fact can
be; because it is plain that if, at the present day, or a century ago, or
ten centuries ago, a number of men had appeared in the world,
professing (as the clergy do now) to hold a recognized office in a
Christian church, to which they had been regularly appointed as
successors to others, whose predecessors, in like manner, had held
the same, and so on, from the times of the apostles—if, I say, such a
pretence had been put forth by a set of men assuming an office
which no one had ever heard of before, it is plain that they would at
once have been refuted and exposed. And as this will apply equally
to each successive generation of Christian ministers, till we come up
to the time when the institution was confessedly new—that is, to the
time when Christian ministers were appointed by the apostles, who
professed themselves eye-witnesses of the resurrection—we have a
standing monument in the Christian ministry of the fact of that event
as having been proclaimed immediately after the time when it was
said to have occurred. This, therefore, is fairly brought forward as an
evidence of its truth.'
Rev. Mr. Guion.—Yes, Sir, the unbroken succession of the
ministerial order, from the times of the apostles till now, is, in my](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/925589-250618135835-e099a840/85/A-Field-Guide-To-The-Information-Commons-Charles-Forrest-Martin-Halbert-57-320.jpg)
![—and would tend to allay the disquietudes of those who sometimes
complained that they derived no spiritual benefits from the church
sacraments.
Rev. Mr. Guion.—This is what ought to be done in self-defence,
and to satisfy the scrupulous anxiety of others; but who can do it?
that is the perplexing question. Dr. Hook says, and his asseverations
are echoed by his fellow-Tractarians, 'the prelates who at this
present time rule the churches of these realms were validly ordained
by others, who, by means of an unbroken spiritual descent of
ordination, derived their mission from the apostles and from our
Lord. This continual descent is evident to every one who chooses to
investigate it. Let him read the catalogues of our bishops, ascending
up to the most remote period. There is not a bishop, priest, or
deacon amongst us who cannot, if he please, trace his own spiritual
descent from St. Peter or St. Paul.'
Rev. Mr. Ingleby.—Dr. Hook is a very rash man to give such a
boastful utterance, when he knows, or ought to know, that this
tracing of a spiritual descent is an absolute impossibility;[37]
it never
has been done, and every attempt to do it has proved a mortifying
failure.
Rev. Mr. Guion.—Two things in relation to this question of spiritual
descent are certain, at any rate they are as certain as any positive
and negative evidence can make anything certain—first, our
Tractarian clergy cannot prove their spiritual descent, and therefore,
on their own principle, they have no authority to officiate in the
church; and, secondly, if they could do this thing, which has never
yet been done, they cannot prove that they are invested with the
mysterious gift on which the validity of their ministrations depends.
Therefore, on their own principle, the laity can derive no spiritual
benefits from their labours. They are a pompous order of self-
created exclusionists, uttering great swelling words of vanity, when,
on their own principle, they are self-convicted usurpers in the
priestly office; and, while vaunting that they, and they only, are
God's ambassadors to man, they decline producing their commission](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/925589-250618135835-e099a840/85/A-Field-Guide-To-The-Information-Commons-Charles-Forrest-Martin-Halbert-60-320.jpg)
![of appointment, even when pressed to do so, though they say they
could easily do it if they pleased.[38]
Mr. Roscoe.—But after all, the practical influence of those high
church principles, constitutes, in my opinion, the most cogent
argument against them. We shall find that pernicious as they are to
the clergy, they are still more fatal to the laity, though they do not
always operate with the same uniformity of result. Some they lull
into a callous apathy and indifference, from which nothing can rouse
them to the soul-stirring question—What must I do to be saved? They
have unbounded confidence in their parson, that he is in the regular
line of succession—firmly believe in the fact of their regeneration in
baptism, as they have seen the public record of its performance—
and calculate that when death comes, a despatch will bring the duly
qualified official to give them absolution and the sacrament, and
then the debt of nature may be paid without reluctance, as their
peace with God is settled, on the authority of the unalterable laws of
the church, of which they are bona fide members and devoted
advocates.
Mr. Stevens.—I knew an instance in which these high church
principles had a contrary effect; they plunged an old friend of my
own into a state of mental perplexity and depression, which was not
only painful but appalling. This friend was a sincere and a
conscientious member of the Church of England, and a firm believer
in the Tractarian doctrines of the Oxford school; but happening to
meet with Archbishop Whately's Essays on the Kingdom of Christ, he
began to entertain some doubts that he was not quite so safe, in
relation to eternity, as he had been accustomed to believe. On one
occasion, he confidentially disclosed his fears and his misgivings to
myself, confessing that they arose from the degree of uncertainty
attachable to the legitimacy of the spiritual descent of his Rector
from the apostles, and the consequent validity or invalidity of the
administrations of the sacraments. I wished to direct his attention to
a safer way to final happiness than through the medium of the
sacraments; but his predeliction for the church and its ordinances
was so inveterate, that I could not succeed; his long-cherished](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/925589-250618135835-e099a840/85/A-Field-Guide-To-The-Information-Commons-Charles-Forrest-Martin-Halbert-61-320.jpg)
![in our prescribed formularies or other articles of belief, which has not
the direct sanction of the Word of God; and shall evince a greater
zeal for the extension and for the triumphs of Christianity herself,
than the honour and glory of our own church or its ministerial
orders. If we can bring our minds to this resolve, and if we rely on
Him who is the invisible Head of his visible church, we need fear no
evil; the truth, however obscured for a time, will at length shine
forth, and the fabrics of human superstition and device totter and
fall like the dwelling of the foolish man, which built his house upon
the sand.
END OF VOL. I.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The epithet Methodist is taken in its popular acceptation, as
employed by the antievangelical part of society.
[2] Covey was one of the bravest of the brave, and as wicked
as he was brave. Mr. Pratt, in the second volume of his Gleanings,
gives us the following account of him:—
As the two fleets were coming into action, the noble admiral, to
save the lives of his men, ordered them to lie flat on the deck, till,
being nearer the enemy, their firing might do the more execution.
The Dutch ships at this time were pouring their broadsides into
the Venerable as she passed down part of the Dutch fleet, in
order to break their line. This stout-hearted and wicked Covey,
heaped in rapid succession the most dreadful imprecations on the
eyes, and limbs, and souls of what he called his cowardly
shipmates, for lying down to avoid the balls of the Dutch. He
refused to obey the order, till, fearing the authority of an officer
not far from him, he in part complied, by leaning over a cask
which stood near, till the word of command was given to fire. At
the moment of rising, a bar-shot carried away one of his legs, and
the greater part of the other; but so instantaneous was the
stroke, though he was sensible of something like a jar in his
limbs, he knew not that he had lost a leg till his stump came to](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/925589-250618135835-e099a840/85/A-Field-Guide-To-The-Information-Commons-Charles-Forrest-Martin-Halbert-63-320.jpg)
![wicked neighbours and fellow-sailors may find mercy as well as
Covey!' He said much more; but the last words he uttered were,
'Hallelujah! hallelujah!'
[3] See p. 106.
[4] See note, p. 58.
[5] A poor, half-witted man, named Joseph, whose employment
was to go on errands and carry parcels, passing through London
streets one day, heard psalm-singing in the house of God; he
went into it; it was Dr. Calamy's church, St. Mary's, Aldermanbury.
The preacher read his text from 1 Tim. i. 15—This is a faithful
saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into
the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. From this he
preached, in the clearest manner, the ancient and apostolic
gospel, and Joseph, in rags, gazing with astonishment, never took
his eyes from the preacher, but drank in with eagerness all he
said, and trudging homeward, he was heard thus muttering to
himself, Joseph never heard this before! Christ Jesus, the God
who made all things, came into the world to save sinners like
Joseph; and this is true, and it is a 'faithful saying!' Not long after
this Joseph was seized with a fever, and was dangerously ill. As
he tossed upon his bed, his constant language was, Joseph is the
chief of sinners, but Jesus Christ came into the world to save
sinners, and Joseph loves him for this. His neighbours who came
to see him wondered on hearing him always dwell on this, and
only this.
One man, finding out where he heard this sermon, went and
asked Dr. Calamy to come and visit him. He came, but Joseph was
now very weak, and had not spoken for some time, and though
told of the doctor's arrival, he took no notice of him; but when the
doctor began to speak to him, as soon as he heard the sound of
his voice he instantly sprang upon his elbows, and seizing him by
his hands, exclaimed, as loud as he could with his now feeble and
trembling voice, O Sir! you are the friend of the Lord Jesus,
whom I heard speak so well of him. Joseph is the chief of sinners,
but it is a faithful saying, that Jesus Christ, the God who made all
things, came into the world to save sinners, and why not Joseph?
O, pray to that Jesus for me; pray that he may save me; tell him
that Joseph thinks that he loves him for coming into the world to
save such sinners as Joseph. The doctor prayed; when he
concluded, Joseph thanked him most kindly; but his exertions in](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/925589-250618135835-e099a840/85/A-Field-Guide-To-The-Information-Commons-Charles-Forrest-Martin-Halbert-65-320.jpg)
![talking had been too much for him, so that he shortly afterwards
expired.
[6] See p. 129.
[7] See page 43.
[8] See page 105.
[9] Burke.
[10] Will it be asked what females are expected to do? We
leave the decision of their conduct to the impulses of their hearts,
and the dictates of their judgment. Let but their affections be
consecrated to the cause, and their understanding will be
sufficiently fruitful in expedients to promote it. Their husbands will
be gently prevailed upon to lay apart some of their substance to
serve religion. Their children will be nurtured in a missionary
spirit, and learn to associate with all their pleasures the records of
missionary privations and triumphs. They will solicit the repetition
of the often-told tale, and glow with a martyr's zeal for the
salvation of the souls of men. Listen to the eloquent appeal of a
masterly preacher on this subject:—'Christian matrons! from
whose endeared and endearing lips we first heard of the
wondrous Babe of Bethlehem, and were taught to bend our knee
to Jesus—ye who first taught these eagles how to soar, will ye
now check their flight in the midst of heaven? I am weary, said
the ambitious Cornelia, of being called Scipio's daughter; do
something, my sons, to style me the mother of the Gracchi. And
what more laudable ambition can inspire you, than a desire to be
the mothers of the missionaries, confessors, and martyrs of
Jesus? Generations unborn shall call you blessed. The churches of
Asia and Africa, when they make grateful mention of their
founders, will say, Blessed be the wombs which bare them, and
the breasts which they have sucked! Ye wives also of the clergy,
let it not be said that while ye love the mild virtues of the man, ye
are incapable of alliance with the grandeur of the minister. The
wives of Christian soldiers should learn to rejoice at the sound of
the battle. Rouse, then, the slumbering courage of your soldiers
to the field; and think no place so safe, so honoured, as the camp
of Jesus. Tell the missionary story to your little ones, until their
young hearts burn, and in the spirit of those innocents who
shouted hosannah to their lowly King, they cry, Shall not we also
be the missionaries of Jesus Christ?' Such an appeal to Christian
females cannot be made in vain. They are not the triflers who
balance a feather against a soul. They will learn to retrench](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/925589-250618135835-e099a840/85/A-Field-Guide-To-The-Information-Commons-Charles-Forrest-Martin-Halbert-66-320.jpg)
![superfluities, in order to exercise the grace of Christian charity.
They will emulate those Jewish women who 'worked with their
hands for the hangings of the tabernacle,' and brought 'bracelets,
and ear-rings, and jewels of gold,' for the service of the
sanctuary. They will consecrate their ornaments to the perishing
heathen; and render personal and domestic economy a fountain
of spiritual blessings to unenlightened nations, and to distant
ages. They will resign the gems of the East to save a soul from
death, and bind round their brow a coronet of stars, which shall
shine for ever and ever!
[11] See page 6.
[12] Some of the Tractarians speak in more guarded, yet in
more ambiguous terms, on the regenerating power of baptism;
but the majority of them entertain the belief which is expressed
by the Rev. W. J. E. Bennett, in the following quotation from one
of the last sermons he preached at St. Paul's, Knightsbridge, see
page 193:—Here is a great mystery; that by water in holy
baptism is given a regenerating and life-creating grace—that by
water we go down into the font foul and leprous; by grace we rise
pure, spotless, and sound—that by water we go down into the
font dead in trespasses and sins; by grace we rise up from the
font alive in Christ.
[13] Dr. Mant.
[14] The reader is referred to two tracts on Regeneration and
Conversion, published by Dr. Mant, and circulated by the Society
for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge.
[15] The author once knew a lady who was celebrated, in the
town in which she lived, no less for her benevolence, than she
was for her utter dislike to those persons who had embraced
evangelical sentiments. She generally used to term them, by way
of reproach, Methodists, enthusiasts, or fanatics. For many years
she was in the habit of visiting the poor and the infirm,
sympathizing with them when in trouble, giving them money to
purchase the necessaries and comforts of life; and she originated
several public institutions, which still remain as the memorial of
her practical goodness. Often has she sat beside the lingering
sufferer, wiping away the cold sweats of death, and administering,
with her own hands, the last portion of food or of medicine which
nature consented to receive. This lady, when conversing with a
friend, whose prejudices against the fanatics of the day (as the
disciples of the Redeemer are styled) ran as high as her own,](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/925589-250618135835-e099a840/85/A-Field-Guide-To-The-Information-Commons-Charles-Forrest-Martin-Halbert-67-320.jpg)
![said, I don't know how to account for it, but I find these people
know more about religion than we do, and appear more happy in
their dying moments than any others I ever meet with. Happy
would it have been for her if some friend had been present to
explain the cause of it; but no—living under the sombrous gloom
of a pharisaical faith, which admits not of the clear light of the
truth, she lived in ignorance of the nature of faith in Christ, and in
ignorance she died.
[16] See page 78.
[17] See page 228.
[18] They that have any just sense of the importance of
religion, says a judicious writer, find that they need all the helps
that God has appointed. Suppose the Sabbath were abolished for
a few weeks—in what state, think you, would some of you find
your minds? Why, you would feel as if you had scarcely any
knowledge or power of religion at all. But there is no charm in
the sanctity of the day to keep up the power of vital religion in
the heart of a Christian, nor in the holy place where he may
spend the consecrated hours—this honour having been put on a
faithful ministry, which exhibits the truth in its purity and force.
What a loss does a Christian habitually sustain who deprives
himself of such a ministry, and worships where angels never stoop
to celebrate the conversion of one sinner to God! Instead of
hearing that glorious gospel which enlivens and strengthens the
mind, which purifies and ennobles it, and which brings the remote
and unseen realities of eternity to moderate the impetuosity and
cool the ardour with which the fleeting shadows of time are
pursued, the heart is often disquieted, if not with harsh and
dissonant sounds, yet with antichristian and dissonant
sentiments, and the day of rest becomes one of perplexity and
mortification—Providence having determined, that they who
observe lying vanities shall feel that they have forsaken their own
mercies (Jonah ii. 8).
[19] See page 321.
[20] See page 348.
[21] See page 344.
[22] Reference is here made to Archdeacon Hare, the Rev.
Fred. Maurice, chaplain of Lincoln's Inn, the Rev. Mr. Trench,
professor of divinity in King's College, London, and the Rev. Mr.
Kingsley, rector of Eversley.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/925589-250618135835-e099a840/85/A-Field-Guide-To-The-Information-Commons-Charles-Forrest-Martin-Halbert-68-320.jpg)
![[23] Miss Rawlins, of London.
[24] Rev. Mr. Logan, a priest at Oscott College, near
Birmingham.
[25] See page 320.
[26] The writer of this article, in the year 1843, met a physician
in Bath, and in the same year he met a solicitor in Banbury, who
for many years ranked as members of the Church of England; but
on examining the baptismal service in conjunction with this part
of the Catechism, they felt such a strong repugnance against
having their children baptized according to the prescribed
formula, that they both preferred becoming Dissenters, rather
than give their sanction to what they conscientiously believed to
be a sinful, because antiscriptural ceremony, more fit for a Papal
than a Protestant church.
[27] After the intelligent reader has carefully examined the
following references—Acts viii. 5-15; xix. 1-6—then let him look at
a Puseyite confirmation, and I think the contrast cannot fail to
strike his attention.
We have seen what took place in the days of the apostles, let
us next see what takes place at a Puseyite confirmation. The
unconscious infants of a nation are baptized; by such baptism
they are professedly regenerated; they are made children of God,
heirs of the kingdom of heaven. At this ordinance there are
godfathers and godmothers undertaking solemn responsibilities;
these parties are required to be present to witness the
confirmation, and are taught to regard it as a loosening of them
from their sacred bonds.
Now, we ask the Episcopal expositors to tell us where we are
to look for godfathers or godmothers at the baptisms mentioned
in the Acts? Where is the doctrine of the regeneration of baptized
infants in the Acts? Where is the doctrine of a Divine life begun in
baptism and perfected in confirmation? What are the proofs of
such regeneration as a qualification for confirmation? The only
qualification prescribed by the Book of Common Prayer for
confirmation by the bishop, is ability to repeat the Creed, the
Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and the Catechism. Of
repentance towards God and faith towards the Lord Jesus Christ
there is not a word. Here, then, we have a generation of young
persons on whom Episcopal hands are laid, and who are taught to
believe that, in consequence of this act, they have received an](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/925589-250618135835-e099a840/85/A-Field-Guide-To-The-Information-Commons-Charles-Forrest-Martin-Halbert-69-320.jpg)
![influx of spiritual grace, implanting new, and invigorating old
spiritual principles, and raising them at once to the stature of
Christian manhood. Was there ever such delusion! How long will
men of sense in the Established Church endure it!—Dr. Campbell.
[28] The writer of this paper once heard a young man say,
when reeling out of a public-house, Well, as I have the old score
wiped away to-day by the bishop himself, I can afford to run up
another short one.
[29] See vol. i. p. 92.
[30] See vol. i. p. 104.
[31] Missionary Enterprises in South Sea Islands. By Rev. John
Williams.
[32] See Dr. Hook's Sermons on Church and Establishments.
[33] The Life of the Rev. John Williams. By the Rev. E. Prout.
Snow, London.
[34] If we suppose, with some of the Tractarians, that he was
now ordained to the apostolic office, then we have a series of
irregularities: he labours for years before he receives ordination,
and when he does receive it, it is not from the hands of apostles,
but some very inferior officials connected with the church at
Antioch.
[35] April, 1843.
[36] Whately on the Kingdom of Christ, p. 180.
[37] There is not a minister in all Christendom (says
Archbishop Whately, and he is an authority on this question),
who is able to trace up with any approach to certainty, his own
spiritual pedigree. The sacramental virtue dependent on the
imposition of hands, with a due observance of apostolical usages,
by a bishop himself duly consecrated, after having been in like
manner baptized into the church and ordained deacon and priest
—this sacramental virtue, if a single link in the chain be faulty,
must be utterly nullified ever after in respect to all the links
hanging on that one. For, if a bishop has not been duly
consecrated, or had not been previously rightly ordained, his
ordinations are null, and so are the ministrations of those
ordained by him, and their ordinations of others, and so on
without end. The poisonous taint of informality, if it once creep in](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/925589-250618135835-e099a840/85/A-Field-Guide-To-The-Information-Commons-Charles-Forrest-Martin-Halbert-70-320.jpg)
![undetected, will spread the infection of nullity to an indefinite and
irremediable extent.
And who can undertake to pronounce that, during that long
period usually designated as the dark ages, no such taint was
ever introduced? Irregularities could not have been wholly
excluded without a perpetual miracle; and that no such
miraculous interference existed we have even historical proof.
Amidst the numerous corruptions of doctrine and of practice, and
gross superstitions that crept in during those ages, we find
recorded descriptions not only of the profound ignorance and
profligacy of life of many of the clergy, but also of the grossest
irregularities in respect of discipline and form. We read of bishops
consecrated when mere children—of men officiating who barely
knew their letters—of prelates expelled and others put in their
places by violence—of illiterate and profligate laymen, and
habitual drunkards, admitted to holy orders; and, in short, of the
prevalence of every kind of disorder, and reckless disregard of the
decency which the apostle enjoins. It is inconceivable that any
one, even moderately acquainted with history, can feel a certainty,
or any approach to certainty, that, amidst all this confusion and
corruption, every requisite form was, in every instance, strictly
adhered to by men, many of them openly profane and secular,
unrestrained by public opinion through the gross ignorance of the
population among which they lived; and that no one not duly
consecrated or ordained was admitted to sacred offices.
The inference which the Archbishop* draws from these historic
statements is this: 'The ultimate consequence must be that any
one who sincerely believes that his claim to the benefits of the
gospel-covenant depends on his own minister's claim to the
supposed sacramental virtue of true ordination, and this again on
perfect apostolical succession as described, must be involved, in
proportion as he reads, and inquires, and reflects, and reasons on
the subject, in the most distressing doubt and perplexity.
* See Essays on the Kingdom of Christ, pp. 176-9.
[38] It is a somewhat ominous sign that neither Dr. Hook nor
any of his brethren has been pleased to do this very easy thing,
though they have often been challenged to do it, as essential to
their priestly identity and the validity of their ministrations.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/925589-250618135835-e099a840/85/A-Field-Guide-To-The-Information-Commons-Charles-Forrest-Martin-Halbert-71-320.jpg)
A Field Guide To The Information Commons Charles Forrest Martin Halbert
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- 5. A Field Guide to the Information Commons edited by Charles Forrest and Martin Halbert
- 6. A Field Guide to the Information Commons Edited by Charles Forrest Martin Halbert THE SCARECROW PRESS, INC. Lanham, Maryland • Toronto • Plymouth, UK 2009
- 7. SCARECROW PRESS, INC. Published in the United States of America by Scarecrow Press, Inc. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.scarecrowpress.com Estover Road Plymouth PL6 7PY United Kingdom Copyright © 2009 by Charles Forrest and Martin Halbert All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A field guide to the information commons / edited by Charles Forrest, Martin Halbert. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-8108-6100-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-8108-6100-3 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-13: 978-0-8108-6650-8 (ebook) ISBN-10: 0-8108-6650-1 (ebook) 1. Information commons. I. Forrest, Charles, 1953– II. Halbert, Martin. ZA3270.F54 2009 025.5'23–dc22 2008039244 ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Manufactured in the United States of America.
- 8. iii iii Foreword v Joan Gotwals Acknowledgments ix Charles Forrest and Martin Halbert Introduction xi Charles Forrest and Martin Halbert Part I: The Information Commons 1 Origin and Development of the Information Commons in Academic Libraries 3 Elizabeth J. Milewicz 2 Information Commons: Surveying the Landscape 18 Joan K. Lippincott 3 Breaking Down Barriers to Working and Learning: Challenges and Issues in Designing an Information Commons 32 Carole C. Wedge and Janette S. Blackburn 4 Technology in the Information Commons 41 Richard Bussell 5 Case Study in Customizing Information Commons Environments: Hardin Library 50 James Duncan Contents
- 9. Part II: The Field Guide Introduction to the Field Guide Entries 67 Field Guide Entries: Brigham Young University (UT) 68 Bucknell University (PA) 71 California State Polytechnic University (CA) 75 Emory University (GA) 79 Ferris State University (MI) 84 Georgia Institute of Technology (GA) 88 Indiana University–Bloomington (IN) 93 Kansas State University (KS) 96 Kent State University (OH) 100 Lehigh University (PA) 103 Northwestern University (IL) 108 Oregon State University (OR) 111 Simon Fraser University (Canada) 115 St. Martin’s University (WA) 119 Texas Christian University (TX) 124 Trinity University (TX) 128 University of Arizona (AZ) 131 University of Auckland Grafton Medical and Health Sciences Campus (New Zealand) 134 University of Auckland Kate Edger Information Commons (New Zealand) 137 University of Calgary (Canada) 142 University of Cape Town (South Africa) 145 University of Cincinnati (OH) 149 University of Iowa Hardin Library for the Health Sciences (IA) 153 University of Iowa Information Arcade (IA) 158 University of Minnesota–Twin Cities (MN) 162 University of Nevada–Las Vegas (NE) 165 University of Newcastle (Australia) 168 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (NC) 171 University of Waterloo (Canada) 175 Afterword 179 Crit Stuart Appendix A: Field Guide Entry Survey Form 183 Appendix B: Time Line of Information Commons Developments 189 Index 191 About the Editors and Contributors 195 iv Contents
- 10. v The information commons was one of the most significant trends to emerge from developments in the research library community of the late twentieth century. As a conceptual theme that could be adapted to many academic settings, it became a catalytic notion for innovative new library facilities and programs. Librarians, library administrators, academic technologists, and other interested persons will want to understand the range of opportunities presented by the in- formation commons concept. This book, A Field Guide to the Information Commons, will provide you with a broad perspective on this trend. My experience at Emory University illustrates this trend. My first major as- signment after arriving on the Emory campus in August 1988 was to chair a com- mittee, appointed by the university president, to determine the central library’s future space needs. What new space did the library need to function effectively in the hybrid world of print and electronic information resources and the rapidly changing technology environment? The committee’s recommendations called for a new building and upgrading current facilities to serve most effectively the teaching and research needs of faculty and students. It also clearly voiced the de- sirability of academic computing joining the library in a proposed new building. The report and recommendations were strongly endorsed by the president and provost and this was welcome news to me. By chance, the newly appointed vice provost for information technology (IT) as- sumed his new position at the university on the same day that I did. Almost from the beginning, we started exploring ways to work collaboratively in supporting the information needs of the community. After the endorsement of the president for a new building in which academic computing would join the library, the vice Information Commons: A Foreword Joan Gotwals
- 11. provost for IT and I began serious discussions about ways of jointly providing in- formation services and support. Together we began regular meetings with the ar- chitects from the firm that was hired by the university. What emerged from these planning sessions was a vision for an integrated service environment, bringing together academic computing, traditional library services, and media support. In this integrated service environment, students and faculty would have access to information resources of all formats and the members of the community would find a venue there to immerse themselves in a new kind of learning experience. Services and support would come from members of the library’s public service units together with those from the academic computing section of the Information Technology Division (ITD), along with those in media production units. We had no desire to merge our two organizations; our aim was to have our organizations work collaboratively in the new building to create “one-stop shopping” for the user. To reflect the expanded role of the library and its partnership with informa- tion technology, we called the new building the Center for Library and Informa- tion Resources (CLAIR). While we as leaders of both the library and the Information Technology Divi- sion felt strongly about the library and ITD partnership to provide services to- gether, all levels of staff in our two organizations were not always as enthusiastic, especially in the early stages of planning. This was true even though the space in the new building offered academic computing a location at the center of campus for the first time. The Information Commons was uppermost in our thinking as the key element in the integrated service environment of the new building. We had read about the pioneering efforts at the Leavey Library at the University of Southern California (USC). Since our architects, Shepley Bulfinch Richardson Abbott (SBRA), were involved in designing the installation there, it frequently came up in our discus- sions. Library staff visited the USC library and other sites where early versions of the commons concept were in place. We wanted to make sure we learned from those who preceded us in developing an information commons, so we could use their ideas as a foundation on which to build and perhaps add some new fea- tures. An issue that was very important in our thoughts and plans was where the Commons was physically located. Our staff members felt that at some sites the Commons was not positioned to be the center of activity, but was off to the side. We wanted the Information Commons to be the central focus, so it would draw patrons to it as they entered the building. The centerpiece of Emory’s new addition, completed and opened in 1998, is clearly the Information Commons. The Commons occupies the central portion of the main level and a large part of the second level of CLAIR. It is a handsome and welcoming gateway into the library and the world of information. The Commons symbolizes the concept of the integrated service environment. The main service point is centered in the midst of clusters of flexible workstations on the main level and is staffed by the library’s reference department and support staff from academic computing. Determining staffing for the service desk and ways to man- age the Commons, involving the maintenance and replacement of software and hardware, changed over time as we learned from experience and occasional mis- calculations. Staff offices for many units of the library, for academic computing, vi Foreword
- 12. and for media services are located in areas to the rear and side of the Information Commons, so staff members are in relatively close proximity to the Commons. The term “commons” had great appeal for our staff as we thought of the com- mons of old and the notion it conveyed of people coming together from all parts of town and sharing ideas and thoughts and perhaps working together on a project. We envisioned a hub of activity, an information hub. We wanted the area to have a sense of energy and excitement about it, with the buzz of an active nerve center, all of which became a reality. As soon as it opened, the workstations in the Com- mons quickly filled up and the figures for attendance doubled library totals of the past. In fact, according to a survey conducted by a consulting group, the Com- mons became “the place to be” at Emory. A side effect of its success, however, is a level of noise that sometimes in the evenings becomes cause for concern. A series of service points makes up one side of the Commons. These service units, consisting of staff from the library, academic computing, or the media pro- duction unit, add greatly to the range of information services available. They offer users the opportunity to receive assistance with multimedia resources, to access and manipulate extensive electronic text collections, and to use or create numeric data. The library and technology specialists there assist faculty and students in developing research projects, in creating tools for classroom use, and in working on issues relating to the preservation of digital information, among other topics. Advanced electronic classrooms are available for teaching and may be used to connect to classrooms located around the globe. We were fortunate in having the right people in the right place at the right time to develop the Information Commons and other new approaches to infor- mation support and services. As newcomers to Emory, the vice provost for IT and I both came with fresh ideas about what we needed to do as leaders of the major information providers on campus. We were convinced and determined that only by working jointly in the new electronic environment would we be suc- cessful in helping the university achieve its goals for excellence in teaching and research. Our determination to work as a team was demonstrated in many ways. For several years, we even made joint budget presentations and gave joint dem- onstrations to the university administration to show clearly how technology was changing the ways the library provided services and access to an increasing num- ber of electronic resources. The timing was good in the sense that a major capital campaign was underway at the university, a campaign that focused on the need for new spaces and new approaches for Emory to meet its ambitious goals. Emory’s provost played a key role in keeping library and technology issues highly placed as priorities for the university. Provost Billy E. Frye was a well-known and respected leader in the academic world for his knowledge of research libraries and the impact of technology on academic institutions. He served on various boards at the national level that focused on these matters. His leadership role on the board of the Council on Library and Information Resources, based in Washington, D.C., was especially noteworthy for its strong advocacy for a program to preserve important print collections deteriorating in libraries across the country. For me as a librarian, the prospect of working with him offered a great opportunity. The Information Commons played a major role in bringing about big changes in the campus community’s perceptions of the central library. The library has Foreword vii
- 13. become “the place to be.” It has become a vibrant intellectual center for informa- tion gathering and learning, which is all so very different from the situation that I found at Emory when I came in 1988. It is an energized, revitalized central li- brary. Building on long-standing traditions of library service and the more recent partnership with academic computing and media services, the central library has expanded its purview to all forms of information through effective and imagina- tive use of technology as seen most visibly in the Information Commons. As a result of the electronic environment, with its rich range of services, support, and access in the Commons, plus the strategically developed resources of the Manu- script, Archives, Rare Book Section, the central library is now able to support the university’s goal for excellence in ways that were never possible in depending solely on the print-based collections of the past. Those who seek to understand how libraries are evolving should read this book carefully to gain insights into academic libraries’ embrace of the information com- mons. The information commons has provided a new programmatic focus for many libraries across the country, and sets the stage for collaborative operations of the future that we have not yet envisioned. I encourage you to delve into this important survey of a significant trend in the history of academic libraries. viii Foreword
- 14. ix Acollaborative work like this puts the editors in the debt of many; allow us a moment to single out a few for special mention. We start by thanking our authors, whose contributed essays have so engagingly and effectively described the emergence and evolution of the information commons; we greatly appreci- ate your effort. Next, our gratitude goes to all those who contributed entries and photos of their information commons; thank you so much. We would like to acknowledge the efforts of the original information commons implementation team that got the ball rolling for us here at Emory University. Our thanks also go to Joan Gotwals, vice provost and director of the Emory Libraries when Emory’s Information Commons was implemented; that your challenge was an inspiration to us is evidenced by the book you (finally!) hold in your hands. Without the unflagging persistence and gentle persuasion of our two graduate student administrative assistants, Carrie Finegan and Robin Conner, this book would never have seen the light of day. We appreciate the efforts of the team at Scarecrow Press including Blair An- drews, Jayme Bartles, Corinne Burton, and especially Martin Dillon (for becoming a believer). Finally, we would like to acknowledge the support of our families; you put up with our grumbling longer than you should have, and now you can share in our sense of accomplishment. Acknowledgments Charles Forrest and Martin Halbert
- 16. xi “We built some nice new space for computers in the library. Let me show you the lab on the ground floor.” After a short elevator ride with a couple of students, my cheerful and enthusiastic guide and I followed those same students down a short hallway, around a corner, through a door, and into a low-ceilinged space not quite big enough for the rows and rows of computer workstations packed into it. “We can lock this off from the rest of the library, and operate it on a twenty-four- hour basis,” my guide said with a smile. “It’s always busy.” “So this is where everybody is,” I thought, looking out over the ranks of students, pointing, clicking, and typing away elbow to elbow. “I wonder why they didn’t put all these computers upstairs around the Reference Desk, and create an information commons?” In the past two decades, libraries have responded to rapid changes in their environments by acquiring and making accessible a host of new informa- tion resources, developing innovative new services, and building new kinds of spaces to support changing user behaviors and patterns of learning. New forms of technology-enabled information-seeking behavior and scholarship create new possibilities for creating community within higher education, and have drawn a response from libraries that harkens back to the venerable notion of the “com- mons,” a public place that supports conversation and sharing, free to be used by everyone, and which everyone has a right to use, a place that is generally acces- sible, affable, and familiar. Without a readily identifiable theoretical wellspring or set of sources, the phenomenon of the “information commons” or “info commons” blossomed in a Introduction Charles Forrest and Martin Halbert
- 17. xii Introduction relatively short amount of time in libraries across North America and around the world, particularly in Europe and the British Commonwealth. The motivation for this book originally came from our own curiosity as we wondered, “What is this phenomenon, and what accounts for its more or less simultaneous widespread appearance?” A Field Guide to the Information Commons is an attempt to document the emer- gence of a range of facilities and service programs that call themselves “Informa- tion Commons.” We here document a snapshot of practice, a range of related new library service models that embody all three of the following spheres of response: new information resources and technologies, collaborative service programs, and redesigned staff and user spaces. While labels have varied widely, the entries of this field guide focus on those institutions that call their integrated service program or facility an “Information Commons,” or one of several related terms such as “Tech- nology Commons,” “Knowledge Commons,” or “Learning Commons.” Our aim is not to comprehensively document every occurrence of every form of the commons, but rather, through representative entries, describe how the information commons was actually implemented in libraries across the country and around the world. The Field Guide is structured in two parts. First, a brief series of essays explore the information commons from several perspectives: historical, architectural, and technological, concluding with a case study. The second part is composed of more than two dozen representative entries describing various information commons using a consistent format that provides both perspective on issues and useful details about actual implementations. Later in this introduction, the editors will also provide an overview of our perspective on the conceptual foundations of the information commons as a trend, and our own speculations concerning where this trend in building facilities is going. The essays provided here bring together a range of perspectives on the emer- gence of the information commons. Our contributors span many types of profes- sional backgrounds and interests, each offering a different lens on the information commons. Elizabeth Milewicz examines the “Origin and Development of the information commons in Academic Libraries” in an essay that she developed as part of a larger doctoral research study of library spaces. She contextualizes the information com- mons movement in a historical perspective of the changing library landscape of the late twentieth century, technological developments in libraries, and what leaders at the time were thinking about the future of library services. Milewicz concludes by capturing the ambivalent reception of the information commons as a central model for future library services, sometimes guarded and sometimes enthusiastic. Joan Lippincott, in her essay “Information Commons: Surveying the Landscape,” gives us the benefit of the many visits she has made over the years to a large num- ber of libraries with information commons programs. She provides a perspective on the variety of interpretations this phrase has taken in different libraries, often meaning significantly different things in different situations. Carole Wedge and Janette Blackburn, architects with Shepley Bulfinch Richardson Abbott, talk about the need for flexibility in the design of information com- mons, with an emphasis on designing for new service models and customizing
- 18. Introduction xiii the information commons for increasing breadth and complexity of technologies, services, and resources. They observe that the information commons has ex- panded far beyond its genesis in library and IT environments, and has come into its own as a distinct type of learning space that accommodates change. In his contribution, Richard Bussell talks about integrating technology into place and purpose and the potential of the commons to connect to print collections and computers, to consolidate online access to information, and to accommodate social learning in an open computing environment. The information commons can support wireless connectivity, provide more advanced technology training, support instruction through faculty production labs, enhance production values in student media productions, encourage experimentation with new instructional technologies, challenge existing uses of technology, and link to campus and global simulation and visualization resources. Bussell asserts that the informa- tion commons should provide access to tools and resources that are out of reach of the average student and continually upgrade mainstream technologies, while introducing emerging, potentially disruptive technologies that would otherwise be narrowly defined as specialized research tools. James Duncan concludes the contributed chapters with a case study of custom- izing information commons environments in the University of Iowa’s Hardin Library for the Health Sciences. He emphasizes the need for a champion for the cause, the ongoing evolution of the commons, the fact that collaboration is core to any commons, and the ongoing requirement to customize physical spaces, create flexibility, and maximize future potential. The information commons can serve as a campus leader, positioning the library as a test bed for teaching and research technologies. The last word is given to Crit Stuart, who encourages us to invite our own stu- dents into the process of designing our information commons. If we position our spaces for dwelling, learning, productivity, and socializing, we can revitalize our libraries. Our passion, creativity, hard work, and constant attention to authentic voice and needs of our undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty will in- spire us, and enable us to “get it right.” Finally, this essay would not be complete without some commentary by the editors about the remarkable simultaneous emergence of the information com- mons in so many libraries, and where we see this trend going in the future. First, we believe the confluence of three major contextual factors combined to drive the spontaneous appearance of the information commons over the past two decades in many areas of the country. While each factor may be well known, it was their confluence that led to the discovery of the information commons, accounting for at least some unifying characteristics of this new entity. Our first broad observation is that user expectations are shaped in the larger so- cial experience outside of libraries. Contemporary culture is highly mobile. Rapid communications and personal mobility ensure that libraries across a broad range of geographical locations will today face a user population with many shared expectations about technology. In addition, user expertise with technology often varies widely. The first factor we would draw attention to is the widespread, rapidly growing, and common experience of new personal computing and net- working technologies of most members of society during the past twenty years,
- 19. xiv Introduction but most especially experienced and typically embraced by college-age students. While perhaps obvious and even omnipresent in our attention, this embrace of technology interlinked and interacted with at least two other factors to drive the emergence of the information commons. Our second observation is that the technological systems commercially avail- able to libraries have been both uniformly available to essentially all libraries, and in fact have steadily become commodified in price. When computers became commod- ified, they went from being unusual purchases by specialized nonlibrary agencies to devices understood as routinely affordable, things that were both capable of being purchased and expected to be purchased by libraries, and indeed by most other types of organizations. While libraries have had a particular institutional focus on information, they did not—until recently—have shared expectations of significant or heavy investment in information technology. Libraries now make significant investments in new technologies, perhaps an obvious point by itself, but one which interacted with the other factors to produce an unexpected result. The final observation that needs to be made is perhaps more subtle, namely that libraries have strong institutional traditions and cultural framing by both librar- ians and users. Libraries are not culturally empty institutions, but are embedded in a framework of cultural values, assumptions, and judgments. Our claim here is that the core assumptions of value that surround the concept of “library” for both librarians and users have to do with sharing information as a common re- source among the members of a community. This is a culturally received concept that is foundational to society’s understanding of what constitutes a library. The practical result of this is that people cannot understand or accept new services as library services if those new services are not conceptually framed by these concepts. So in retrospect, it is perhaps not surprising that the phrase “information com- mons” would seem to capture so perfectly this core cultural framing of libraries, and would be the name of choice independently arrived at by so many libraries as a label for some linked set of new services that deployed information technology in innovative ways. As information technologies and supporting services became increasingly seen and implemented as a normal part of library operations, librar- ians had to develop a conceptual framework for articulating and presenting such programs to themselves and their clientele. The phrase “information commons” and its variants, such as the “learning commons” or the “technology commons,” provide labels to describe a distinctive new program while simultaneously con- necting it conceptually to the cultural underpinnings of the library. The variability in the specific programmatic meaning of the phrase “information commons” is neither surprising nor inappropriate. The phrase has a broad and obvious ex- planatory and evocative sense, while leaving plenty of room for localized and particular interpretations. This variation in the precise meaning of the term leaves room for relevant in- terpretation in local settings, while preserving a general sense of the phrase in the larger context. All of the information commons that we have examined have the general attributes of incorporating new technologies and associated services into an existing library setting. Beyond this, we think that it is appropriate that local leaders brainstorm, discuss, and plan what form an information commons should
- 20. Introduction xv take in their specific settings. Some may focus more on multimedia, others mobile computing; some emphasize facilities, others services. Local interpretation of the broad information commons concept has not only been the pattern observed to date, but will likely continue as the wholly appropri- ate way that new high-tech programs are implemented in libraries. When plan- ning a major institutional investment in new services and facilities, careful analy- sis of local priorities should indeed drive the process, rather than implementation of the specific solutions of other institutions. Having said this, we do think that it is critically important to survey implementations of a range of peer institutions to garner ideas during the initial stages of planning. In fact, it is the general purpose of this book to provide a quick overview of what a range of institutions have done. Combining selective in-person visits to promising locations, with picking and choosing elements that seem to best respond to local needs, will continue to be a most effective way of planning innovative new information commons. All academic and research libraries face similar challenges and pressures and their responses are conditioned by a shared history and culture. But like politics, all information commons are local. Libraries are usually willing to share and discuss local solutions to common problems, without promoting a single cookie- cutter response. The library is simultaneously a traditional icon for the stability of established knowledge and a leading agent of change for the novel and rapid evolution of today’s information landscape. The information commons represents libraries’ efforts to bring forward the best elements of both roles in the service of the twenty-first-century user community. How long will libraries continue to build information commons? While many new facilities continue to be named “Information Commons,” the competing term “Learning Commons” has slowly been gaining favor, perhaps indicative of a new emphasis on the expanded role of the library in supporting successful student learning outcomes. But the common thread remains the “Commons,” emphasizing the role the library has in helping to create and support a viable academic com- munity. We believe that we will continue to see some variant of “Commons” in the names of new endeavors, because there is no other noun that quite captures this idea. We hope this field guide will suggest some places to look for the information commons, and help you identify the commons when you see it. Whatever similar facilities and programs are called in the future, the information commons has been a rallying point for libraries seeking to reinvent themselves. This trend has had and will continue to have important implications as an evocative new under- standing of library services in the future.
- 24. 3 3 INTRODUCTION This chapter highlights twenty years of information commons development in libraries, from its conceptual beginnings in the mid-1980s through the first decade of the twenty-first century. By examining the ideas that led to early inno- vations in library spaces and contemporary trends, this brief history documents a major shift in the type of space that defines the library and its role in the academic community. This history will consider • predictions about libraries in the digital age, and how the information com- mons both challenged and embodied these assumptions; • technological changes and corresponding pedagogical, professional, and legal trends that contributed to the emergence of the information commons; and • recent trends that may signal future directions for the nature and role of the information commons in academic libraries. Though the technology and services in the information commons have expanded over time, its character and emphasis have remained consistent: to provide a col- laborative, conversational space that brings together technology, services, tools, and resources to support teaching and learning and encourage innovative ideas. The appellation chosen for these spaces has changed as well, from information commons to learning commons and academic commons, reflecting such shifts in emphasis. In the interest of consistency, this chapter will refer to all such spaces 1 d Origin and Development of the Information Commons in Academic Libraries Elizabeth J. Milewicz
- 25. 4 Chapter 1 generally as “information commons,” with deliberate attention given toward the end to evolutions in these spaces and subsequent changes in name. THE POWER OF PLACE In the mid- to late 1980s, just a few years before the first information commons developments, predictions abounded on what libraries of the future would be like. Many librarians and educators agreed that the new libraries would be service- oriented and computer-centered, perhaps merging or collaborating with computer centers.1 John Budd and David Robinson, attending to predictions of lower college enrollments, proposed that academic libraries could play a more active role in curriculum design and reconfigure traditional patterns of service (including bib- liographic instruction) to better accommodate students’ needs.2 In a retrospective article examining the effect of computer technology on library building design, Philip Leighton and David Weber proposed that, as more users accessed resources online, the library space would still retain its value as a learning and work space, offering support services, reference, and other academic assistance, as well as com- puting space and quiet reading areas for focused study and research.3 Others questioned the primacy of the physical building as information be- came more digital. Professors Lawrence Murr and James Williams asserted that the “‘library,’ as a place, will give way to ‘library’ as a transparent knowledge network providing ‘intelligent’ services to business and education through both specialized librarians and emerging information technologies.”4 Their exposition on the importance of libraries and librarians for managing flows of electronic information emphasized the ethereal library-as-network over the physical library- as-place. Barbara Moran, writing on the fiftieth anniversary of the Association of College and Research Libraries in 1989, predicted that in the near future “users will not have to come to a physical entity, the library, to use its resources.”5 At the same time, in considering the future of higher education (to which the academic library is obviously and inextricably tied), Moran referenced futurist and philosopher John Naisbitt’s observation that the more technology we have, the more we require personal contact with others, and she pondered whether the socializing aspect of these institutions would remain essential.6 Joan Bechtel’s vi- sion of the library as social center struck even closer to the fundamental question of how libraries would meet the demands of a changing information landscape.7 Calling for a new paradigm of library service, she argued that “libraries, if they are true to their original and intrinsic being, seek primarily to collect people and ideas rather than books and to facilitate conversation among people rather than merely to organize, store, and deliver information.”8 In many respects, all these predictions were accurate. Throughout much of the 1990s, as the Internet morphed into the World Wide Web, print indexes migrated to CD-ROMs and then online, and OPACs (Online Public Access Catalogs) and databases replaced traditional print resources, libraries witnessed a decline in building usage.9 Now able to conduct research remotely, many users opted to stay at home or in their offices rather than visit the library. Declines in gate counts, however, plateaued by the end of the century and reversed. Some refer to this as
- 26. Origin and Development of the Information Commons in Academic Libraries 5 the post-Internet “bounce”—a sign that the initial allure of the Internet had worn off and library users had tempered their irrational exuberance with electronic resources and begun to recognize the enduring value of print.10 Yet such argu- ments relegate libraries to a passive role in this process and deeply understate the convenience and appeal of online information. While electronic books have yet to deliver on their promise, faculty and students continue to overwhelmingly select electronic journals and databases over their print counterparts. What changed was the library itself. The past fifteen years have seen libraries actively reinventing themselves—in the types of resources and services they pro- vide and how they provide them, and in the physical space of the library. In line with many predictions, the new library spaces represent collaboration between librarians and IT personnel and other groups as well. Despite tendencies to down- play the power of place in libraries of the future, some forecasters did predict that libraries would provide an area distinct from typical pedagogical spaces yet offer- ing unique and complementary learning experiences,11 heralding the information commons spaces that soon materialized. The information commons visibly and functionally incorporates networked computer resources and collaborative work environments into libraries’ mission. It serves as a testing ground for interdepartmental cooperation and shared re- sources, provides space for different campus populations to meet and collaborate, supports social learning and intellectual play, and reasserts the role of library spaces in fostering and supporting academic work. New pedagogical approaches to knowledge construction in the classroom and a heightened awareness of the role of social spaces in teaching, learning, and scholarship contribute to academ- ics’ willingness to experiment in and contribute to these spaces. And some (albeit architects) would argue that the increasing ability to access information elec- tronically, without human intercession, has ironically increased the importance of place as people seek out common spaces for social contact.12 WHAT’S IN A NAME? Understanding what the information commons is and why it emerged is a win- dow into the mind-set of librarians at the fin de siècle, as they faced the future of academic libraries and information access in the digital age and attempted to rearticulate their role in teaching, learning, and scholarship. The phenomenon of the information commons is remarkable not simply for its novelty and its wide- spread adoption, but also for the cachet of the term itself. The appeal of this label, and the decision by so many institutions to adopt the title for their collaborative work spaces, implies shared beliefs about the role of libraries and informational resources in building knowledge. References to “collaboration” and “community” in library articles in the early 1990s (and that continue to mark discussions in this area) suggest that decisions to renovate and restructure library buildings were predicated in part on egalitarian attitudes toward access to information, owner- ship of the learning process, and the library’s position on campus. References to “information commons” in legal discussions of access to informa- tion, while focused less on physical spaces and more on media ownership, fair
- 27. 6 Chapter 1 use, and other aspects of intellectual property rights, are not unrelated to its use in academic libraries to describe spaces where students, faculty, librarians, IT personnel, and others collaborate and cooperatively construct new knowledge. What began in the mid-twentieth century as a debate about the merits of com- mon ownership of natural resources became by century’s end a broader argument about the ownership of information and the importance of information access to democracy.13 In The Future of Ideas, legal scholar Lawrence Lessig draws analo- gies between the availability and use of electronic information at the turn of the century and the physical commons before industrialization: just as the physical commons provided shared access to resources that people needed to survive and thrive, the information commons or virtual commons provides shared access to the tools, ideas, and instruction needed to perform one’s academic work and cre- ate new scholarship.14 While the information commons in libraries represents very literally a physical space, it operates from the same principles as the notion of in- formation commons in legal circles: to encourage the free, collaborative exchange and creation of ideas and information, which in turn benefits and strengthens the community. Though many institutions chose to call their new collaborative spaces informa- tion commons, this history does not exclude from consideration spaces with other names. For instance, the University of Iowa’s Information Arcade represents one of the earliest attempts to join new technology and new philosophies of learning within the space of the library. When it was first opened in 1992, the Information Arcade embodied many of the distinctive qualities that have come to be associ- ated with the information commons in libraries: • embedded and networked computing, information, and multimedia technol- ogy that allows users to seamlessly search, access, and apply information in a single location and in a variety of ways; • flexible or modular architecture that accommodates multiple and divergent activities; • emphasis on service and instruction through coordinated efforts of a special- ized or highly skilled staff; and • pedagogical philosophies that acknowledge the need for students to take ownership of their learning, rather than receive instruction through tradi- tional means, and to construct knowledge by interacting with others. The information commons, as both a label and a conceptual ideal, is exemplified by features of the space itself and the philosophy behind its construction more so than by the appellation. Indeed, some “commons” may be so in name only—called information commons or learning commons, and housing computers, yet reflect- ing little of the larger trend toward collaborative work, community exchange, and technological innovation exhibited in so many of the spaces described later in this guide.15 For that reason, the information commons may be understood as a type, marked to varying degrees by its conformity to certain principles of social interaction; organizational structure; embedded, ubiquitous, and/or collaborative technology; integration of informational resources and services with processes and tools for teaching and learning; and partnerships between librarians, IT per-
- 28. Origin and Development of the Information Commons in Academic Libraries 7 sonnel, faculty, and others in creating and supporting these spaces. Though they may differ in the details, information commons typically cohere around the no- tion that scholarly work is best supported through environments that encourage and are maintained through collaboration, that provide convenient access to the tools, information, and services for accomplishing that work, and that cultivate meaningful interactions among the academic community. CONTEXTS OF CHANGE Pedagogical Paradigm Shift In 1995, Robert Barr, a director of institutional research and planning at Palomar College, and his colleague John Tagg, a professor of English, called attention to a shift that was occurring in higher education—a movement away from the goal of merely providing instruction to a passive, receptive audience to a new focus on fostering learning among active student participants.16 The Learning Paradigm frames learning holistically, recognizing that the chief agent in the process is the learner. Thus, students must be active discoverers and construc- tors of their own knowledge . . . In the Learning Paradigm, learning environments and activities are learner-centered and learner-controlled. They may even be “teacherless.” While teachers will have designed the learning experiences and environments stu- dents use—often through teamwork with each other and other staff—they need not be present for or participate in every structured learning activity.17 This shift could be seen particularly well in educational literature, where for the past two decades researchers had challenged the traditional structures and processes of pedagogical environments. Referencing the works of such early twentieth-century educational theorists as John Dewey and Lev Vygotsky, these scholars argued that knowledge is not something that passes verbally or visually from teacher to student, but something that must be actively constructed through teacher-student and student-student interactions. They eventually proposed that learning may occur anywhere, at any time, not simply in structured learning envi- ronments. For example, Kenneth Bruffee, an English professor at City University of New York’s Brooklyn College, emerged as an early proponent of collaborative learning outside the classroom, where students could focus on discussing and solving problems without the pressures of competition, performance, and evalu- ation.18 In essence, this shift in educational theory pushed for new conceptions of the roles and relations of teachers and students and of the where, when, and how of learning. Rather than being relegated to recess, play becomes central to learning: tools critical for conceptual development must be accessible to students outside of structured learning situations and students must be allowed to experiment with them. In addition, students’ ability to talk about their ideas with peers emerged as essential for learning. Educators rediscovered Vygotsky’s notion of social cogni- tion, which views conceptual development as tightly connected to language.19 It is not enough for students to be able to repeat a professor’s lecture on a topic; they
- 29. 8 Chapter 1 must be able to put these ideas into their own words, to explain them to someone else. In this new paradigm, students take greater responsibility for their learning, the instructor moves from “sage on the stage” to “guide on the side,” and the notion of the classroom expands. Further, the emphasis shifts from establishing a heuristic model that all students must fit to creating pedagogical practices that are flexible enough to permit a variety of learning styles and levels. Previous “instruction paradigm” measures of institutional success, which fo- cused predominantly on the deliverer of the service rather than the receiver, also reflected an understanding of education and educational value as quantifiable.20 Within libraries this paradigm translated into quality measured by volumes of books, and architectural and organizational planning in turn geared toward the storage of print materials. While the user of the books might be considered in col- lection decisions and in deciding the number of tables and chairs to provide for reference or reading areas, Vygotskian notions of social learning never entered the equation. For much of the twentieth century, the library building served primar- ily as a storehouse for books. “People’s needs, habits, and learning styles [were] rarely considered in library planning for example, as the ever-growing book stock [was] perceived as the library’s contribution to instructional relevancy.”21 Gradually, this resource-centric approach gave way to a more expansive and inclusive focus. As beliefs shifted about the classroom space and the role of the teacher, so did beliefs about library space and the role of the librarian. Providing computers and other tools and space for academic instruction and student learn- ing became more deeply ingrained in libraries’ missions, and new professional organizations emerged to meet this challenge. Networked Information and Social Learning The New Learning Communities (NLC) program of the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) began in the early 1990s as an effort to support student-centered approaches to teaching and learning built upon networked sources of informa- tion.22 Speaking from the perspective of community college libraries, Philip Tomp- kins, then director of library information services at Estrella Mountain Community College, argued that libraries must find ways to successfully merge print-based and digital cultures and create spaces and services that support interactive learn- ing.23 Further, libraries must become more integral parts of the teaching-learning experience, integrating instruction and communication into their traditional service of information storage and delivery.24 Tompkins observed that “an era of reconceptualization and boundary spanning collaboration is occurring”: This collaboration has implications for telecommunications, microcomputers, the redesign of the classroom and the need for new, sponsored learning environments (spaces) departing radically in design from the theater of the classroom or the tra- ditional library or learning resource center. Above all, a new vision of the role of all campus personnel to accommodate student-centered learning cultures has emerged. It is richly supported by the massing of microcomputer technology and changes in pedagogy. . . . Collaborative and cooperative teaching, and independent, self-paced learning call for new spaces accommodating the massing of newer instructional and information technologies, remote from the theater style classroom. Multimedia ac-
- 30. Origin and Development of the Information Commons in Academic Libraries 9 cessibility can usher in changing roles for the instructors who learn to moderate the historic obsession with “telling” to incorporate skillful coaching and facilitating upon call (“from sage on the stage to guide on the side”).25 Early on, new technologies were linked to new philosophies of teaching and learning, and both would need new spaces to accommodate them. Most librar- ians saw a shift in the use and structure of library space as an inevitable conse- quence of new technology; others saw it as an imperative, with the co-location of resources, tools, and services making the library “the public space for scholarship on campus.”26 The ubiquity of personal computers alongside the remote delivery of formerly print-based resources (e.g., library catalogs, indexes, journals, and books) meant that areas once dedicated solely to shelving current periodicals and reference works or housing card catalogs would need to be repurposed or reno- vated in order to remain viable. Community colleges, with their instruction-centered and student-focused mis- sions, were primed to adapt their libraries to this new approach. Writing in 1990, Don Doucette of the League for Innovation in the Community College asserted that community colleges would be “the institutions of higher education in which the widespread integration of computers into instructional practices will first take place.”27 Indeed, they were among the first higher education institutions to develop information commons, with several community colleges adopting the model developed by Philip Tompkins.28 Despite predictions that top-tier research libraries would resist this expan- sion in role from resource center to instruction and service center,29 many major university libraries led the information commons movement, likely because they possessed the funds necessary to develop and maintain these additional tools and services. Indeed, the costs involved in revamping or overhauling infrastructures in order to create an information commons may explain the seemingly lower fre- quency of information commons development among associate’s or baccalaure- ate/associate’s degree-granting institutions.30 Connecting People, Places, and Information The Maricopa County Community College District of Arizona offers one of the earliest-recorded examples of an information commons, with its opening in 1992 of the Estrella Mountain Community College Center, a combined library and tech- nology center “planned as an environment where instructional and information technologies and efforts were to be integrated.”31 From the planning stages, the project sought to leverage new technology for instructional support. The University of Southern California’s Leavey Library, which opened in 1994 but had been in the planning stages for over a decade, also arose from the belief that the library could serve as a link between instruction and technology,32 and an answer to the information needs of a digital generation of students.33 When the new library was opened, the director of the Leavey Library stated that he expected the library to be “far more than just a site for information technology and books, far more than just a comfortable place to study and learn. It will be an intellectual center—a place where students and teachers will come to exchange ideas—and I very much want the Leavey to be a center for campus social life as well.”34
- 31. 10 Chapter 1 The same year that the Maricopa County Community College District launched its technology and teaching center, the University of Iowa opened the Information Arcade—“a playground for the mind”—that housed a classroom of twenty-four computers and an open independent work area of fifty computers and a few clus- ters of multimedia workstations.35 The space was intended to support a range of uses; the electronic classroom was designed to accommodate smaller work groups as well as whole-class discussions. For their part, the faculty often had to restruc- ture their curriculum and pedagogical approach to match the type of teaching and learning supported by the electronic classroom: “As a political science faculty member commented, teaching in the Arcade ‘changes the focus. Instead of learn- ing by listening, students learn by doing. It puts me, the teacher, into the role of helping, giving advice. It’s a different sort of learning.’”36 Besides the novel approach to learning and the diverse array of technology provided within the learning space, another significant hallmark of the University of Iowa’s Information Arcade was the collaborative effort involved in producing and maintaining it.37 Members of the faculty, the libraries, and the academic com- puting center worked together at the outset to procure funding for the space, and this collaborative approach has continued throughout the life of the Information Arcade. Joan Lippincott (this volume) observes varying levels of organizational team- work involved in creating and supporting information commons, from co-location (simply locating different departmental resources services in close proximity) to co- operation (coordinating efforts to provide resources and services), to rare instances of true collaboration (interacting at a deeper level, resulting in shared governance, strategic planning, and goals).38 In short, though the depth of the relationships may differ, and though in some cases a single campus entity may lead the development, some degree of departmental interaction must occur in order to produce an infor- mation commons. NEW SPACES Shifting the Focus from Information to Learning Recent years have seen another stage in the evolution of information commons spaces with the emergence of the learning commons and its sharper focus on creating learning spaces. Some architects and advocates of information commons have begun shifting emphasis from providing networked information sources and services to creating spaces with an array of tools and services specifically de- signed to foster learning,39 with particular attention given to the needs of students who have grown up with the Internet.40 Some draw careful distinctions between the information commons and the newer learning commons. Whereas the former may be understood generally to provide fluid information access and service delivery, the latter goes a step fur- ther by enabling students’ effortless orchestration of their own learning tasks.41 The difference arises not just in a shift in purpose but also in operation: the shape and use of the learning commons is defined and driven by students’ learning
- 32. Origin and Development of the Information Commons in Academic Libraries 11 needs, rather than by the priorities of librarians or computing personnel. Lippin- cott observes that “a key purpose of an information commons is to leverage the intersection of content, technology, and services in a physical facility to support student learning,” but acknowledges that institutions face real challenges in actu- ally facilitating learning.42 She suggests that information commons may increase their potential for supporting student learning by providing, for example, • spaces that encourage social interaction and collaboration; • diverse information formats; • multiple technologies for accessing and using information, particularly those that students are not likely to own themselves; • highly skilled and knowledgeable service personnel who can assist students at point of need. This last point was echoed in the 2006 Canadian Learning Commons Conference, which defined the learning commons as both supporting “numerous aspects of un- dergraduate and graduate student learning” and, through campus collaborations, “particularly in academic and student services, as well as computing, [providing] a rich array of learning supports.”43 In his keynote address at this conference, Yale University Librarian Emeritus Scott Bennett likewise underlined the pivotal role of collaboration in creating spaces that attend to diverse learning needs.44 Rather than signaling a shift in direction, the recent attention to learning heralds a rededication to the partnerships and philosophies on which the information commons was founded. When Donald Beagle summarized the key features of the physical information commons following a decade of development, he pointed to expanded and flexible group and individual study spaces as key to supporting a range of learning styles.45 Libraries that expand the services and resources pro- vided through the information commons—by adding computer service centers, for example, or writing centers—continue the path set by early information com- mons developers who sought to support multiple facets of the academic experi- ence, and particularly, to better support teaching and learning.46 FROM CULTURAL ICON TO SOCIAL CENTER: CAN A “LIBRARY” BE BOTH? Likewise, the renewed emphasis on social interaction echoes early hopes that the library would be more than a place to find information and technology by refer- encing pedagogical beliefs that unstructured, dialogic interactions foster learning. Bennett’s call to build spaces that support learning behaviors that are valued by both students and faculty aligns with Lippincott’s observation that commons spaces must support social interaction: while the former explicitly orients these spaces toward learning, it also builds on the finding that both faculty and students most value learning behaviors that are built upon conversation.47 Commenting on trends in library design, university librarian Peter Graham cited the importance of both individual and group study areas at the Syracuse University Libraries: “The library
- 33. 12 Chapter 1 as student center—or, ‘coffee shop in the library’—encourages social interaction that tends toward learning.”48 Carole Wedge, an architect involved in the design of numerous information commons spaces, underscores this point, noting that “at Dartmouth, they refer to the library as a ‘café with books.’ It’s the hub of activities after classes, as well as the crossroads of all disciplines.”49 This now widely accepted link between informal social interactions and learning bolsters the incorporation of structures and services that diverge greatly from traditional expectations of what libraries should look and sound like. Wedge and Janette Blackburn (this volume) expand the information commons category further by introducing the academic commons—a space that goes be- yond teaching and learning to provide a staging area for social interactions that connect the campus community.50 Their discussion of the Undergraduate Learn- ing Center at the Georgia Institute of Technology offers a striking example of this new dimension of information commons space: one intended to support a range of scholarly endeavors, from research to performance to play. Despite the decid- edly more informal and high-tech aspects of these new spaces (and in some cases the decision to rename these spaces something other than “library”), Wedge and Blackburn also observe a common desire that these spaces be not simply “cool” and “innovative,” but also “majestic” and “memorable.”51 In some ways, the information commons movement has been successful pre- cisely because it created new spaces in libraries that differed distinctly (in sound and appearance as well as in name) from the established institution. In the early 1990s, when the first of these high-tech computing spaces emerged, some aca- demic libraries perceived a benefit (perhaps even a necessity) in distancing them- selves from their long tradition as book repositories: To some, the word library became almost a term of opprobrium, as voices—not un- commonly from among college and university trustees, state legislators, and other laypersons—were heard inveighing against the construction of any more outmoded “book warehouses.” To change the popular image from one of miles upon miles of bookshelves, some institutions began designating newly constructed library buildings as their “centers for information service,” “gateways,” or other euphemism instead of “libraries,” and indeed perhaps the new terms were more appropriate.52 As an egalitarian and decidedly less formal space marked by conversation, the information commons often demonstrates a visual and aural break with the past. Though vaunted by Tompkins and others as a way to bridge the digital-print di- vide,53 in practice many of these spaces lean further toward the digital end of the spectrum, with numerous high-tech workstations far outnumbering the available print resources. Furniture, lighting, and even color choices can produce an overall effect of entering a coffee shop or lounge, with conversation levels rising to meet this expectation. And yet, writing on the future of libraries from the perspective of the twenty- first century, University of Southern California librarian Jerry Campbell recog- nizes that attempts to change something so revered in academic culture as the library building are bound to meet with resistance.54
- 34. Origin and Development of the Information Commons in Academic Libraries 13 Early in their history, libraries were endowed by colleges and universities with some of the most beautiful, uplifting, and noble spaces on campus. Usually devoted to read- ing or meeting, such spaces served and still serve symbolically to reinforce the spirit of learning and to imbue the knowledge-interaction experience with a powerful sense of importance. . . . Consequently, simply asking questions about the future of libraries, let alone work- ing to transform them for the digital age, almost inevitably evokes anguished, poi- gnant, and even hostile responses filled with nostalgia for a near-mythical institution. As the information commons enters its second decade, new iterations deliber- ately reference the more traditional sights and sounds of the library. For example, Indiana University–Bloomington’s IC2 continues the trend of previous informa- tion commons spaces, with a twist: in addition to computer workstations and wireless access, this new space purports to provide a quiet study environment.55 Rhodes College has attempted to seamlessly integrate technological convenience with elements of the traditional library. An online description of the building carefully notes that although the library is “a technology center with a theater, complete media production facilities and a teaching and learning center that gives our professors the capacity to hold virtual global classes with colleagues around the world . . . we haven’t gone technocrazy. The collection includes books and tra- ditional resources as well as databases and online journals.”56 Along with wireless access, a 24/7 cybercafé, and multiple collaborative study areas “where students can work with professors and each other and actually talk out loud,” the library also offers a majestic reading and study room. Returning to the issue of names, it is noteworthy that there is not consensus re- garding the nature of the information commons and the nature of libraries. On the one hand, the term “information commons” was born of necessity, to mark spaces that offered a new and digitally centered research experience. As a product, gen- erally, of collaboration among libraries, IT personnel, and others, there was also a need to mark this space as distinct from the library proper. Consequently, as the information commons concept has gained greater currency and popularity, it has not always carried with it an association with libraries. Though it may structur- ally support and carry forward a traditional role of libraries—to support scholarly endeavors—the space itself often lacks the traditional features associated with the iconic library building. Systems librarian Martin Halbert’s comments on users’ initial reception of Emory University’s Information Commons illustrate the resis- tance to calling information commons spaces “libraries”: The Nintendo generation adapts to virtually any and all new dazzling technologies without much ado, but more traditionally oriented generations confront gleaming new computerized spaces with dismay. The problematic response of the latter group is exemplified by a local anecdote about the askance confusion of the grizzled faculty member standing in the (still recognizable, surely!) lobby of the new facility, looking out on a sea of computer terminals (the books stacks are still where they have always been though!) and asking over and over, “Can you tell me, where is the library? I’m trying to find the library. It used to be here.” Special care must be taken that new Information Commons facilities do not alienate those users looking for a traditional
- 35. 14 Chapter 1 experience of the library, with all of its delightful textures of marble stairs and ma- hogany bookcases.57 Such sentiments resonate in a recent Chronicle of Higher Education commentary on library innovations, as a professor lightly reproaches librarians who replace tactile, traditional research experiences with digital surrogates.58 Hesitation to conflate the high-tech information commons with the bookish library still persists in some circles, along with efforts to reinstate or emphasize the place of the library building in projecting institutional identity, linking with intellectual heritage, and connecting members of the academic community. Storage of books continues, though increasingly often off-site. If mahogany and marble remain, they may be serving as backdrop or framework for computing, study sessions, and guest lec- tures, not simply for quiet study and book browsing. For others, however, “a library by any other name is still a library,”59 and the in- formation commons, however it may look or sound or act, continues the mission of supporting the scholarly work of the academic community. For architects and librarians alike, the next few decades will determine whether new generations of scholars see libraries and information commons as mutually exclusive, or just two names for the same place. NOTES 1. Patricia Battin, “The Electronic Library—A Vision of the Future,” EDUCOM Bulletin 19 (Summer 1984): 13; Richard M. Dougherty, “Libraries and Computer Centers: A Blue- print for Collaboration,” College Research Libraries 48 (July 1987): 289–96; C. Lee Jones, “Academic Libraries and Computing: A Time of Change,” EDUCOM Bulletin 20 (Spring 1985): 9–12; David W. Lewis, “Inventing the Electronic University,” College Research Li- braries 49 (July 1988): 291–304; Pat Molholt, “On Converging Paths: The Computing Center and the Library,” Journal of Academic Librarianship 11 (November 1985): 284–88; Barbara Mo- ran, “The Unintended Revolution in Academic Libraries: 1939 to 1989 and Beyond,” College Research Libraries 50 (January 1989): 25–41; Lawrence E. Murr and James B. Williams, “The Roles of the Future Library,” Library Hi-Tech 5 (Fall 1987): 7–23; Raymond K. Neff, “Merging Libraries and Computer Centers: Manifest Destiny or Manifestly Deranged?” EDUCOM Bulletin 20 (Winter 1985): 8–12, 16; and Richard L. Van Horn, “How Significant Is Computing for Higher Education?” EDUCOM Bulletin 20 (Spring 1985): 8. 2. John M. Budd and David G. Robinson, “Enrollment and the Future of Academic Li- braries,” Library Journal 111 (September 15, 1986): 43–46. 3. Philip D. Leighton and David C. Weber, “The Influence of Computer Technology on Academic Library Buildings,” in Academic Librarianship: Past, Present, and Future: A Fest- schrift in Honor of David Kaser, ed. John Richardson, Jr. and Jinnie Y. Davis (Englewood, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 1989), 13–29. 4. Murr and Williams, “The Roles of the Future Library,” 7. 5. Moran, “The Unintended Revolution in Academic Libraries,” 39. 6. Moran referred to John Naisbitt’s book, Megatrends: Ten New Directions Transforming Our Lives (New York: Warner Books, 1982). 7. Joan Bechtel, “Conversation: A New Paradigm for Librarianship?” College Research Libraries 47 (1986): 219–24. 8. Bechtel, “Conversation,” 221.
- 36. Origin and Development of the Information Commons in Academic Libraries 15 9. Scott Carlson, “The Deserted Library,” Chronicle of Higher Education 48 (November 16, 2001): A35–38. 10. Andrew Richard Albanese, “Deserted No More,” Library Journal 128 (April 2003): 34–36; and Frieda Weis, “Being There: The Library as Place,” Journal of the Medical Library Association 92 (January 2004): 6–12. 11. Murr and Williams, “The Roles of the Future Library,” 7–23. 12. Craig Hartman, “The Future of Libraries,” Architecture 84 (October 1995): 43–47. 13. Nancy Kranich, The Information Commons: A Public Policy Report (New York: Bren- nan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, 2004). Kranich cites the following articles as examples of environmental discussions of the commons: H. Scott Gordon, “The Economic Theory of a Common-Property Resource: The Fishery,” Journal of Political Economy 62.2 (April 1954): 124–42; Garrett Hardin, “The Tragedy of the Commons,” Science 162 (Decem- ber 1968): 1243–48; and Anthony D. Scott, “The Fishery: The Objectives of Sole Owner- ship,” Journal of Political Economy 63.2 (April 1955): 116–24. 14. Lawrence Lessig, The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World (New York: Random House, 2001). 15. Because information commons can vary so widely in appearance, there is a tendency to typify them by their objects rather than by their objectives, and by foreground appearances rather than background organization. As a cursory definition, Andrew Albanese identifies the key elements of an information commons as “lots of computers, collaborative space, comfortable furniture, and usually some kind of café, lounge, or other suitably social area nearby.” Later he discusses a more substantive component: organizational realignments that preceded and supported the information commons’ development. Albanese, “De- serted No More,” 31. 16. Robert B. Barr and John Tagg, “From Teaching to Learning: A New Paradigm for Undergraduate Education,” Change 27 (November/December 1995): 12–25. 17. Barr and Tagg, “From Teaching to Learning,” 21. 18. Bruffee published a number of articles in College English throughout the 1970s and 1980s, arguing for a collaborative learning approach to instruction. See “The Way Out: A Critical Survey of Innovations in College Teaching, with Special Reference to the Decem- ber, 1971, Issue of College English,” College English 33, no. 4 (January 1972): 457–70; “Collab- orative Learning: Some Practical Models,” College English 34, no. 5 (February 1973): 634–43; “Collaborative Learning,” College English 43, no. 7 (November 1981): 745–47; and “Social Construction, Language, and the Authority of Knowledge: A Bibliographical Essay,” Col- lege English 48, no. 8 (December 1986): 773–90. 19. Lev Vygotsky, Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes (Cam- bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1978). 20. Barr and Tagg, “From Teaching to Learning,” 12–25. 21. Philip Tompkins, “Information Technology Planning and Community Colleges: A Variance in a Transitional Era” (Report prepared for the HEIRAlliance Executive Strategies Re- port #1: What Presidents Need to Know about the Integration of Information Technology on Campus, 1992), www.educause.edu/ir/library/text/HEI1040.TXT (accessed July 16, 2006). 22. Philip Tompkins, Susan Perry, and Joan K. Lippincott, “New Learning Communities: Collaboration, Networking, and Information Literacy,” Information Technology and Libraries 17 (June 1998): 100–106. 23. Philip Tompkins, “Quality in Community College Libraries,” Library Trends 44 (Win- ter 1996): 506–25. 24. Philip Tompkins, “Quality in Community College Libraries,” 506–25; and Philip Tompkins, “New Structures for Teaching Libraries,” Library Administration and Management (Spring 1990): 77–81. 25. Philip Tompkins, “Information Technology Planning and Community Colleges.”
- 37. 16 Chapter 1 26. David W. Lewis, “Inventing the Electronic University,” College Research Libraries 49 (July 1988): 291–304. Lewis quotes John Sack, who spoke during a panel discussion at the Seminar on Academic Computing Services held in Snowmass, Colorado, 1986. 27. Don Doucette, “The Community College and the Computer: Behind Widespread Integration into Instruction,” Academic Computing 4 (February 1990): 12. 28. Tompkins also helped develop the Information Commons that opened with the new Leavey Library at the University of Southern California in 1994. 29. Van Horn, “How Significant Is Computing for Higher Education?” 8. 30. See, for example, Brookdale Community College librarian David Murray’s oft-cited directory of information commons sites, listed by Carnegie Classification. Information Commons: A directory of innovative resources and services in academic libraries, “Sites by Carnegie Classification,” Brookdale Community College, www.brookdale.cc.nj.us/ library/infocommons/icsites/sitestype.htm (accessed December 8, 2006). 31. Philip Tompkins, “Information Technology Planning and Community Colleges.” 32. Doris S. Helfer, “The Leavey Library: A Library in Your Future?” Searcher 5 (January 1997): 38–40. 33. Karen Commings, “Inside the University of Southern California’s ‘Cybrary,’” Com- puters in Libraries 14 (November/December 1994): 18–19. 34. Commings, “Inside the University of Southern California’s ‘Cybrary,’” 19. 35. Sheila D. Creth, “The Information Arcade: Playground for the Mind,” Journal of Aca- demic Librarianship 20 (March 1994): 22–23. 36. Creth, “The Information Arcade,” 23. 37. Creth, “The Information Arcade,” 22–23. 38. Joan K. Lippincott’s chapter follows after mine in this volume. “Information Com- mons: Surveying the Landscape,” in A Field Guide to the Information Commons, ed. Charles Forrest and Martin Halbert (Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2009), 18–31. 39. Donald Beagle, “From Information Commons to Learning Commons” (paper provided for Leavey Library 2004 Conference, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, (Septem- ber 16–17, 2004), www.usc.edu/libraries/locations/leavey/news/conference/presentations/ presentations_9–16/Beagle_Information_Commons_to_Learning.pdf (accessed August 1, 2006); and Scott Bennett, “Righting the Balance,” in Library as Place: Rethinking Roles, Rethinking Space (Washington, D.C.: Council on Library and Information Resources, 2005), 10–24. 40. Malcolm Brown, “Learning Spaces,” in Educating the Net Generation, ed. Diane G. Oblinger and James L. Oblinger (EDUCAUSE: 2005), www.educause.edu/Learning Spaces/6072 (accessed August 18, 2006); Joan K. Lippincott, “Developing Collaborative Relationships: Librarians, Students, and Faculty Creating Learning Communities,” College and Research Libraries News 63 (March 2002): 3; Joan K. Lippincott, “New Library Facilities: Opportunities for Collaboration,” Resource Sharing and Information Networks 17 (2004): 1–2; Joan K. Lippincott, “Net Generation Students and Libraries,” in Educating the Net Gen- eration, ed. Diane G. Oblinger and James L. Oblinger (EDUCAUSE: 2005), www.educause .edu/NetGenerationStudentsandLibraries/6067 (accessed August 18, 2006); and Joan K. Lippincott and Malcolm Brown, “Learning Spaces: More Than Meets the Eye,” EDU- CAUSE Quarterly 12 (February 2003): 14–16. 41. Scott Bennett, Libraries Designed for Learning (Washington, D.C.: Council on Library and Information Resources, 2003). 42. Joan K. Lippincott, “Linking the Information Commons to Learning,” in Learning Spaces, ed. Diana G. Oblinger (EDUCAUSE: 2006), 7.6, www.educause.edu/ir/library/ pdf/PUB7102g.pdf (accessed November 30, 2006). 43. Canadian Learning Commons Conference, “Towards a Learning Ecology: Canadian Learning Commons Conference Proceedings, June 19–20, 2006,” University of Guelph, http://conference2006.learningcommons.ca/ (accessed November 30, 2006).
- 38. Origin and Development of the Information Commons in Academic Libraries 17 44. Scott Bennett, “Communication Technology Improvements: Designing in Spite of Uncertainties,” in “Towards a Learning Ecology: Canadian Learning Commons Conference Proceedings, June 19–20, 2006,” University of Guelph, 2, http://conference2006.learning commons.ca/resources/presentations/proceedings.pdf (accessed November 30, 2006). 45. Donald Beagle, “Conceptualizing an Information Commons,” The Journal of Academic Librarianship 25 (March 1999): 82–89. 46. With the information commons well into its second decade, many are returning to the question of what students and faculty need and asking whether these spaces are meeting these needs or accomplishing their mission. See, for example, Susan Gardner and Susanna Eng’s survey of undergraduates who use USC’s Leavey Library. Susan Gardner and Susanna Eng, “What Students Want: Generation Y and the Changing Function of the Academic Library,” Portal: Libraries and the Academy 5 (2005): 405–20. 47. Bennett, “Communication Technology Improvements,” 2; and Joan K. Lippincott, “Linking the Information Commons to Learning.” In the proceedings for the 2006 Learn- ing Commons Conference, Bennett lists six learning behaviors most valued by both faculty and students: conversations with students with different values, discussions of readings outside of class, conversations with students of different race, discussions of readings with faculty outside of class, culminating senior experiences, and group study. 48. Jeff Morris, “The College Library in the New Age,” University Business (October 2002): 28. 49. Morris, “The College Library in the New Age,” 29. 50. Carole Wedge and Janette Blackburn’s chapter follows later in this book. “Breaking down Barriers to Working and Learning: Challenges and Issues in Designing an Informa- tion Commons,” in A Field Guide to the Information Commons, ed. Charles Forrest and Martin Halbert (Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2009), 32–40. 51. Wedge and Blackburn, “Breaking down Barriers to Working and Learning, 39. 52. David Kaser, The Evolution of the American Academic Library Building (Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 1997), 163. 53. Tompkins, “Quality in Community College Libraries,” 506–25. 54. Jerry D. Campbell, “Changing a Cultural Icon: The Academic Library as a Virtual Destination,” EDUCAUSE Review 41 (January/February 2006): 16–31, www.educause .edu/apps/er/erm06/erm0610.asp (accessed August 18, 2006). 55. “Indiana U’s IC2,” Library Journal 130 (May 1, 2005): 15. 56. Rhodes College Barret Library, “About Barret: Our Building,” Rhodes College, www.rhodes.edu/barret/2660.asp (accessed August 17, 2006). 57. Martin Halbert, “Lessons from the Information Commons Frontier,” The Journal of Academic Librarianship 25 (March 1999): 90–91. In the same issue of The Journal of Academic Librarianship, Philip Tramdack cautioned of potential conflict between the design of the information commons and users’ expectations for library spaces: “Traditional library users may be sympathetic in acknowledging a complex function addressed by the idea of the IC. However, when the design is seen as an alternative to the familiar book-centered and print- bound reference center, anxiety may be the result.” Philip Tramdack, “Reaction to Beagle,” The Journal of Academic Librarianship 25 (March 1999): 93. 58. Fred D. White, “Libraries Lost: Storage Bins and Robotic Arms,” Chronicle of Higher Education 52 (September 30, 2005): B8. 59. Andrew Richard Albanese, “Campus Library 2.0,” Library Journal 129 (April 2004): 33.
- 39. 18 18 Academic institutions are building or renovating many types of learning spaces, including libraries, computer centers, classrooms, centers for teach- ing and learning, and multimedia production studios, and they are creating new types of social spaces for student interaction. All of these spaces are relevant to the consideration of the development of information commons in libraries, a phe- nomenon that began more than ten years ago. This chapter describes the charac- teristics of an information commons, examines the forces that drive the develop- ment of new types of learning spaces, provides examples of existing information commons around the United States and outlines their features, reviews the kinds of services offered and the staff needed to support information commons, and presents a number of current challenges for information commons. CHARACTERISTICS OF INFORMATION COMMONS The concept of an information commons is slippery—it means different things in different institutions—and there is no commonly accepted definition among those who manage information commons or those who study them. In fact, some libraries that have space and service configurations that are typical of informa- tion commons do not use the terminology to identify their space at all. In simple terms, information commons bring together content, technology, and services in a physical space in order to support the educational mission of the institution. They are planned with the goal of offering a more integrated service environment for users than traditional libraries have provided. From the information commons, 2 d Information Commons: Surveying the Landscape Joan K. Lippincott, Coalition for Networked Information
- 40. Information Commons: Surveying the Landscape 19 users have easy access to library-licensed digital resources (such as databases and electronic journals), the library’s print and other collections (such as manu- scripts, videotapes, and artifacts), and freely available Internet resources, all from one physical location. This aggregation of information enables users to do their academic work in a way that enhances access to information in different formats. For example, students using books from the library’s collection can scan images to use in their papers or presentations, while they simultaneously download articles from library-licensed journals and access websites of nonlicensed materials. This emphasis on availability of content in all formats distinguishes information com- mons from computer labs. The technology available in the information commons promotes seamless ac- cess to information. For example, high-speed network connections permit users to view streaming video, wireless Internet connections encourage students to use their own laptops, and a range of software enables students to write papers, pre- pare presentations, or create multimedia products, such as short videos. The va- riety of software installed on workstations in the information commons typically covers more applications than would be available in a traditional library reference area. Rather than focusing on software applications that only facilitate access to information, the software also supports analysis and management of information and the creation of new information products. In addition, information commons intentionally provide user services for tech- nology support, as well as services related to content. In most library reference areas, students request technology support, but library staff view these requests as peripheral to the library’s service mission. In traditional library areas, staff members are not trained to support a wide array of software applications or to diagnose many technical problems. In contrast, at least a portion of information commons staff is recruited because of their technology skills, and they provide technology support as part of their primary service mission. As physical facilities, information commons generally consolidate a variety of services into one or more service desks on one floor of the library, supply spaces designed for groups to work with good access to technology, provide comfortable lounge seating in some areas, and offer food and beverages in a café. Some librar- ies have an information commons on one floor, others have expanded the concept to an additional floor of the library, and others consider the entire library as the information commons. There are few information commons at present that are located outside of the main library; an exception is the Johnson Center at George Mason University, which includes some library services in a student union build- ing, and doubtless there are others, if a broad conceptualization of information commons is used. In addition, there are some information commons in special- ized libraries that are housed in classroom buildings that serve specific colleges within a university, such as the University of Iowa Health Sciences Information Commons (see below). As librarian D. Russell Bailey notes in his survey of the information commons literature, information commons are “library-centric.” At their core, they have traditional library content and services, but they also incorporate other elements, such as technology and software, that had formerly been characteristic of com- puter labs run by campus information technology departments.1
- 41. 20 Chapter 2 The development of information commons was a response to the increased need for the campus community to have access to information technology (networks, hardware, software, and digital content) to accomplish their work. When the first information commons opened in the early 1990s, high-speed Internet access was not generally available campus-wide, fewer students owned their own computers than is the case in the early 2000s, and the amount of scholarly digital content— often licensed by the library and sometimes available only within its walls—was on the rise. Turning some prime library space into an area where students, faculty, and other users could have access to high-speed network connections, large num- bers of computers, and digital content seemed to be a winning strategy. Informa- tion commons also provided a mechanism for offering library users the kinds of services they increasingly required, such as assistance with computer hardware and software problems. The information commons movement is also a response to some trends in the higher education environment. As the technology skills of incoming students ad- vanced and their facility with using multiple devices to perform a wide range of activities increased, campuses needed spaces that accommodated the high level of technology use of those students. Providing computer labs was not sufficient for a number of reasons. Students did not necessarily need hardware—they increas- ingly brought their own laptops to campus—but they needed spaces where they could work and have wireless connections. Students increasingly wanted to work in groups, and the library information commons space was generally reconfig- ured to offer more group space than had been the case in traditional libraries or computer labs. Students also wanted access to a wider range of software in the library so that they could create their projects as well as access information. As the University of Georgia’s Student Learning Center (SLC) states on its website, At the SLC, we have a new vision of what a library of the future can be. The SLC is a collaborative learning environment and electronic teaching library. Here, you’ll go to class, meet with your friends, work on group projects, study, do research and work on your assignments all in one place! The emphasis is on learning and collaboration and providing you with the tools to make that happen.2 Similarly, the mission of the University of Iowa’s information commons, called the Information Arcade, is “to facilitate the integration of new technology into teaching, learning, and research, by promoting the discovery of new ways to access, gather, organize, analyze, manage, create, record, and transmit information.”3 During the late 1990s, many campuses expected a widespread change from tradi- tional teaching methods to technology-enabled methods, but that has generally not happened. Factors such as faculty reluctance to change, small numbers of technol- ogy-equipped classrooms, lack of understanding of the relationship of technology to pedagogical goals, and insufficient staff support of faculty, both in preparation of new types of teaching materials and in assistance with equipment and software in the classroom, have slowed this transition from traditional methods. Even though many faculty members do not use technology to a great degree in their classrooms, students use technology in a variety of ways in support of their learning. For ex-
- 42. Information Commons: Surveying the Landscape 21 ample, students use course websites and course management systems, access elec- tronic reserves, search for information via the web or library catalogs and databases, employ software (such as spreadsheet programs or GIS [geographic information systems]) that is relevant to their major disciplines, embed visuals and audio in their papers, and create presentations, websites, and short videos as class projects. Much of student learning occurs outside the classroom, and libraries have traditionally been a venue where students (and faculty) could broaden their learning outside of the classroom’s confines. To support today’s students’ learning styles, libraries can provide technology-rich environments, such as information commons, which offer physical spaces for collaborative work, expert assistance, technology, and content. EXAMPLES AND FEATURES With the current wide-ranging discussion of information commons, one would think that they are the prevalent configuration in academic libraries today, but that is not the case. There are a growing number of information commons in American universities and colleges, but more are in the planning stage than have been implemented. For example, in an Association of Research Libraries survey in which seventy-four (60 percent) of their member libraries responded, only twenty-two (30 percent of the respondents) replied that they have an information commons in the library.4 Many institutions are in the planning phase for devel- oping information commons, generally as part of a library renovation or library renovation/expansion. In some cases, entirely new libraries are being planned that will incorporate an information commons as a key feature. There are so many variations of information commons that it is difficult to devise distinctive categories that describe identifiable types. However, when examining an information commons, some of the features that may distinguish types include: type of academic institution (or subunit such as an academic de- partment); renovation or new construction; inclusion of services from information technology, writing center, and others; inclusion of multimedia production; and types of group space, including small-group rooms, informal seating, cafés, and classroom space. This section provides a selective “tour” of information commons, designed to represent those that have received particular attention in the profession and also to represent information commons that have distinctive features or that are in dif- ferent types of academic institutions. In fact, some of the facilities described here are not even called information commons, but they share many of the features that define the concept of a commons. The “tour” is not intended to be compre- hensive, and details provided here will likely change in future years. After all, flexibility and change are essential to the success of any information commons. The examples and features highlighted here help to illustrate the range of insti- tutions creating information commons and differences in these spaces over time and across institutions, components and characteristics frequently identified with information commons, and the wide variation that makes categorizing informa- tion commons problematic.
- 43. 22 Chapter 2 In the early 1990s, the planners of a new undergraduate library at the Univer- sity of Southern California realized that they wanted to create a new type of facil- ity that would integrate technology and group learning spaces into the library in innovative ways. The University of Southern California Leavey Library houses what is generally considered one of the first, full-service information commons; it celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2004. It incorporates many features that are now considered standard in information commons in the new millennium. The information commons, originally one floor of an undergraduate library that opened in 1994, includes many more public computer workstations than was common at that time and features a service desk model in which individuals from both library and information technology units are available to provide assistance to users. A number of small-group rooms are available. Today, this information commons continues to thrive. It now includes classroom facilities and offers a practice presentation room, which is equipped with a podium, “audience” chairs, and a computer, projector, and screen setup so that students may practice their class presentations in front of their friends prior to a formal class presentation. A second floor of the Leavey Library has been reconfigured in the information com- mons style to accommodate more users. Another early example, called the Information Arcade, opened on the main floor of the library at the University of Iowa in 1992.5 The Arcade offers worksta- tions, a technology classroom, multimedia production facilities, equipment loans, COMPONENTS OF AN INFORMATION COMMONS • Individual workstations • Workstations that accommodate small groups • Group study rooms equipped with computers or space for laptops and projectors • Practice presentation rooms • Multimedia production areas • Rooms equipped with adaptive technology • Rooms equipped for videoconferencing • Classrooms for information literacy instruction • General purpose classrooms for campus use • Teaching and learning center • Consultation areas (offering student or faculty consultation with reference librarians, writing tutors, etc.) • Scanning stations, printer stations, digitization facilities • Service desk(s) that offer library and information technology assistance or other services, such as laptop or camera loans or computer sales • Staff offices • Informal, comfortable seating areas • Collaboration spaces with specialized software • Cafés
- 44. Information Commons: Surveying the Landscape 23 scanning, and a small-group room. This early inclusion of multimedia production facilities is notable; whether or not to include multimedia production capabilities continues to be one of the key decision points in planning an information com- mons. Services offered include assistance with library resources and technology. In addition, in-depth consultation is available and extensive support is provided to some faculty or staff projects that focus on using sophisticated or innovative technology in an academic setting. Some of the large research universities have developed information commons that not only bring together library and computing services, but also incorporate other campus units that serve students. These more collaborative information commons generally involve remodeling one or more floors of the main campus li- brary. The traditional library print collection and other services are typically avail- able on other floors of the facility. Two such projects that have received attention in recent years are the information commons that is part of the Integrated Learn- ing Center at the University of Arizona, and the Information Commons at Indi- ana University. Both of these projects were planned as joint library/information technology facilities. At the University of Arizona, the information commons has a wide variety of seating arrangements that accommodates both groups and indi- viduals. In addition to various seating configurations in the open areas, including curved counters that offer flexible seating for individuals and small groups and large tables that accommodate multimedia production equipment, there are a number of small-group rooms, information literacy classrooms, and areas where other campus units, such as the writing center, can offer services. Unlike many computer labs built in previous decades or computers in traditional library refer- ence areas, the furniture available in the information commons provides students with room to spread out books, notebooks, and other materials at their computer workstations. The University of Arizona Integrated Learning Center included both renovation of existing space and underground expansion into new space. At Indiana University, the West Tower of the first floor of the main library was reconfigured into an information commons that offers a large number of workstations—also situated so that individuals and small groups can work comfortably—as well as classrooms, adaptive technologies, a multimedia produc- tion area, and a large, central service desk staffed jointly by the library and infor- mation technology units. Writing tutorial services are also available. To allow for flexibility in the future, no ceiling-height walls were used in the facility, including around the classroom areas. A second information commons was added on a separate floor, and it is designated as a quiet area. In a recently opened facility at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, a number of campus units, such as the career center and the writing center, offer services in the Learning Commons space. There is a central service desk staffed by library and IT staff. A reference desk staffed by reference librarians, with an adjacent office for in-depth, by-appointment consultations, is located nearby. The Commons at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville library opened in 2005. It includes a practice presentation room with an interactive SMART board like those available in many classrooms around campus. This information commons was developed in existing library space in a very short time frame, as was the information commons in the University of Massachusetts, Amherst library. Like
- 45. 24 Chapter 2 Arizona, Indiana, and Massachusetts, the Commons at Tennessee was carved out of existing space in the main library. A different model was developed at the University of Georgia, whose Student Learning Center is one of the few new buildings surveyed that has an information commons as a major component. It is a full-service facility that offers reference service, technology assistance, workshops, tutoring, writing center help, class- rooms, group and individual workstations, areas for quiet study, a café, and a project and presentation development room. Library facilities and services are one component of a building that includes many general use classrooms. The main library collection is housed in its traditional home in a separate location. In recent years, some small colleges have reconsidered their students’ technol- ogy and learning needs and completely renovated their library spaces or built new buildings. At Middlebury College, a small, liberal arts institution, an entirely new library building opened in 2004. This new building houses the center for teaching, learning, and research, which includes offices for the tutoring program, writing center, first-year program, and others. Its main floor includes reference and help desks, a media lab, and a café. While these are all typical features of an information commons, Middlebury does not use that terminology to describe its facility. The Information Commons at Dickinson College is another small college example. This renovation of library space includes open space computing areas, an area of group workstations that can also be used as a classroom, and an elec- tronic classroom. A small number of campuses have developed information commons in depart- mental or program libraries. The University of Iowa Health Sciences Information Commons opened in 1996. James Duncan, former head of the Commons, de- scribes it as “the premier central and delivery venue for health sciences course- ware development, innovative classroom instruction, health-related research, and independent learning at the University of Iowa.”6 The facility offers workstations, classrooms, multimedia production facilities, a case-based learning conference room, and production services. Another specialized facility is a small Learning Commons at the Peabody Library at Vanderbilt University, which serves the Col- lege of Education and Human Development; it offers public workstations and classroom facilities. These are small-scale models of the information commons found in the main libraries of major research universities. SERVICES AND STAFF The core services that libraries provide to information commons users are library information and reference service and technology assistance. Information com- mons frequently have a service desk that is staffed jointly by individuals from the library and from information technology. The library staff may include librarians, nonlibrarian full-time or part-time staff, and students. Information technology staff may include full-time or part-time staff (who have experience in staffing help desks or similar units), and students. In some cases, libraries retain separate reference desks; in others, all reference work is centralized in the information commons service desk. In some information commons, library and IT staff are
- 46. Information Commons: Surveying the Landscape 25 cross-trained to answer common questions. In others, library staff address ques- tions related to finding information, locating materials, and library policies, while information technology staff address questions related to the network, hardware, software, or authentication. Workshops on library and technology subjects are sometimes offered as part of the services of the information commons. In addition to these core services, some information commons rely on indi- viduals skilled in the use of multimedia equipment and specialized software packages to provide support for multimedia production. At the Georgia Institute of Technology’s Library West Commons, graduate student assistants receive in- tensive training from both library and information technology departments, and staff the multimedia production area of the information commons during the busy evening hours. The situation at Georgia Tech exemplifies an ideal asserted by librarian Donald Beagle and realized in only a small number of institutions: “The Information Commons creates a synergy between the user support skills of computer staff, the information skills of reference staff, and production skills of media staff. Physically, it offers the flexible work space all staff need to apply their combined expertise adaptively to the rapidly changing needs of a highly demand- ing user community.”7 Other types of services typically offered in information commons include laptop loan, digital and video camera loan, and supply sales (usually through a vending machine). Food and coffee are often sold in a café setting within or near the information commons. The presence of cafés in libraries reinforces the social, community-building nature of the interactions fostered in the commons. Information commons will continue to evolve as new hardware and software emerge, as patterns of use shift, and as resources are made available. The Univer- sity of Washington undergraduate library has successfully competed for student technology fee funds to add new services to their information commons, includ- ing an audio recording studio and TeamSpot, a large display that allows several users to connect their laptops and collaborate in real time. Few institutions have developed a coherent set of virtual services that directly support information commons users. For example, many information commons lack specific web pages that describe available services and identify ways to virtu- ally connect to them. While many institutions have instituted chat-based reference services and e-mail services, there is no particular emphasis on using those ser- vices from information commons locations. Promotion of virtual services might be helpful, for instance, in busy facilities, where students are often reluctant to leave their workstations to go and ask for help because they may be bumped by other students looking for vacated spots. One issue that is raised in many informa- tion commons, even those with several hundred workstations, is how to do a bet- ter job of informing students where unoccupied computers are located. At Emory University, an online service alerts information commons users of the availability of workstations on each floor of the library. Some information commons are planned to co-locate additional campus services into the facility or to provide satellite services in the information commons. Some of these services include the campus writing center, tutoring programs, adaptive technology units, career services offices, academic computing units that focus on research support for faculty, computer sales, and centers for teaching and learning
- 47. 26 Chapter 2 that support faculty efforts to improve their teaching through the use of technol- ogy. The University of Massachusetts, Amherst, the University of Arizona, and Indiana University are examples of institutions that have incorporated a number of campus services into their information commons. The overarching concept is to provide users with one-stop, convenient access to services by combining services at a single desk (e.g., library information and computer help), or by bringing ad- ditional services into the library building in order to offer them under the same roof but at separate desks or offices (e.g., writing or tutoring programs). CO-LOCATION, COOPERATION, COLLABORATION The term collaboration is often used very loosely to describe any type of working together of various parties, but in the management literature, it has a much more precise meaning. Bringing various units that are administratively separate from the library into the physical location of the information commons is frequently referred to as an example of collaboration. However, the presence of these other units may merely be one of convenience or of superficial interaction with the li- brary. If one thinks of a continuum of co-location, cooperation, and collaboration, it may assist planners to think through the type of working relationships and partnerships they might want to establish within an information commons. In the planning phase, the notion of bringing together a number of campus services is generally one of co-locating services to provide convenience to the user population, especially undergraduate students. Students who need help writing papers or preparing presentations may require assistance from writing center staff who can assist them with the mechanics of writing, from library staff who can aid them in locating information resources, or from information technology staff who can assist them with any hardware or software problems they encoun- ter. Co-location provides convenience to users, but it does not imply the creation of new services that leverage the joint expertise of more than one type of profes- sional group. Co-location of services also provides opportunities for informal staff contact across sectors, especially to encourage easy referral to appropriate service points. When services are co-located, each unit generally has a physically separate service point (a desk or designated area) within the information commons. In some information commons, the staff of various separate units move beyond co-location to genuinely cooperate in some ways. Cooperative activities can in- clude joint planning for service hours, establishing the scope of each other’s work in order to minimize overlap in services, sharing publicity or marketing efforts, and developing centralized workshop schedules. This type of cooperation can lead to increased understanding among units that results in developing an overall plan for services and filling gaps in service offerings. In addition, cooperative ef- forts can lead to the personnel in the units learning about each other’s expertise and being able to make better referrals and plan new types of services. Few information commons have realized the potential of developing fully collaborative services among unit partners. In collaborative efforts, the units in- volved would demonstrate that they
- 48. Information Commons: Surveying the Landscape 27 • develop shared goals; • engage in joint planning; • share governance or administration; • pool expertise to develop new services; • contribute resources, such as space, staff, or equipment. For example, if the library had a collaborative relationship with a center for teaching and learning in the information commons, library staff and the center staff would establish goals and create programs to help faculty develop new cur- ricular materials that involve technology and digital content. Librarians at the University of Tennessee, which has had several successful library/information technology collaborations, suggest that there are readiness criteria by which institutions can judge their capacity to engage in a genuinely collaborative project. These criteria include: • “culture” (encouraged to innovate); • history of collaboration; • executive support; • willingness to reallocate funds—“bootstrap”; • ability to leverage existing expertise (library and IT).8 INFORMATION COMMONS CAMPUS PARTNERS INCLUDE • library (usually lead partner) • information technology (usually lead partner) • faculty academic computing center (research computing) • center for teaching and learning • writing center • career center • academic advising CHALLENGES Some institutions have carefully framed a mission or a set of goals for their information commons, but others have assumed the “if we build it, they will come” philosophy. In fact, students will generally flock to newly remodeled, technology-rich spaces, especially if many of the spaces have been configured for groups. Those institutions that do develop a mission statement generally link the purpose of the information commons to the enrichment of the teaching and learning experience on campus. Developing programming or actively promoting the synergies provided by the physical facility of the information commons, the content available (both traditional and new media), and learning opportunities
- 49. 28 Chapter 2 is the unique value of positioning this facility within the library.9 It requires care- ful planning of both the facility and its services to develop direct connections between the information commons and the learning experiences of its users and then to demonstrate the role that the information commons has played in learn- ing. Some library administrators whose institutions have information commons that are packed with students every night are concerned that those spaces have become group study halls with little connection to the content or services of the library. As part of an assessment process, a group of stakeholders, including librar- ians, information technologists, instructional technologists, faculty, and students, could discuss and describe some ways that an information commons could enrich the teaching and learning experiences for the institution, and then develop mecha- nisms for measuring whether or not those expectations were being met. This process could help those responsible for the information commons to carefully think through the services that they offer and the way that they communicate the information commons’ unique value to students and other users. On a broader scale, it is important to develop an assessment program that al- lows the parties responsible for the information commons to demonstrate the facility’s value to library or university administrators or outside funders. Along with documenting use of the facility and services, assessment can demonstrate how that use is linked to desired institutional goals, such as curricular goals (e.g., more integration of technology into curriculum) or social goals (e.g., developing a sense of campus community). Gathering data on what is important to users and what changes they would like to see in the facility and services is another assess- ment goal. Many institutions have devoted little attention to promoting and advertising the information commons. Institutional web pages frequently contain little or no information on information commons, and what is available is often difficult to locate. In the libraries themselves, some institutions use large banners to advertise the existence of the commons. While some believe that marketing is unnecessary because so many of these facilities are used at capacity, the purpose of marketing is to promote the kinds of content and services that could enhance the teaching and learning experience of users. For example, default screens of information commons computers could be used to advertise services, mouse pads could include mes- sages that promote digital content at the library, and large screens could display examples of student projects or faculty curricular materials that have been devel- oped as a result of the content and technology available in the information com- mons. Today’s students are especially responsive to visual cues, and information commons staff members should think of creative ways to engage users visually.10 Institutions should begin to discuss many of the issues that they will face in operating and maintaining the commons during the planning phase. Many of the individuals and committees involved in planning efforts understandably focus on concrete concerns such as floor plans, furniture, and equipment. Other considerations, such as staffing, staff training, and types of services to be offered, are equally important. Many of these issues can be explored prior to the facility’s opening. The overall plan for what services will be offered and by whom is a very important concern. Years or months before the opening of an information
- 50. Information Commons: Surveying the Landscape 29 commons, libraries can begin to experiment with new service models whereby, for example, users are given support in the production of new media information objects. Libraries can gain a better understanding of what staff are required to support new services and/or what training existing staff may need. If more than one administrative unit—for example, the library and information technology units—will jointly offer services, memos of understanding can be developed to delineate responsibilities and terms. Information commons are often planned primarily to address students’ needs. Faculty needs for support of teaching and learning or research are not as well ad- dressed. Some facilities do incorporate a separate teaching and learning center, which assists faculty with incorporating technology and other pedagogical strate- gies into their courses. However, these teaching and learning centers often are not well integrated into the services that librarians and information technologists offer in the information commons. Opening an information commons in a library often requires the library staff to rethink some of their existing policies. Many information commons allow food and drink in their facilities as one means of enhancing the social nature of the space. The ramifications of this policy are the need for increased maintenance and trash pickup, which should be planned in advance of the opening of the facility. At some institutions, the noise level in the information commons disturbs some users. At Indiana University, the staff addressed this issue of students needing ad- vanced technologies in quiet settings by opening a second information commons, designated as quiet space, on a different floor. Other policies that administrators should consider include cell phone usage and restrictions on what equipment can be used for (e.g., computer games or business operations). Involving campus lead- ers, such as members of student government, in the establishment of policies for information commons is a useful strategy for gaining student input into issues. Since information commons are, by nature, technology-rich environments, they need regular refreshing. The budget should provide for regular equipment and software upgrades, and staff members must have access to regular training. By design, most information commons accommodate relatively easy reconfiguration of the physical space and service points to allow the library to respond with agility to changing needs. CONCLUSION Information commons have been created to support student learning and faculty’s capabilities to teach with technology, to provide both individual and group areas for users to access and produce a wide range of information objects, and to offer a broad array of user-centered services. They offer physical spaces, often open for extended hours, in which the institutional community can locate information, ac- cess software and high-speed networks, plug-in computers, borrow equipment, and receive assistance from trained staff. They facilitate the type of informal, ex- periential group learning that appeals to many of today’s students. The information commons phenomenon has existed for a little more than ten years, and it is escalating at a rapid pace. Libraries have the opportunity to create
- 51. 30 Chapter 2 spaces that provide technology-rich environments, encourage the use of scholarly content, and offer knowledgeable staff that can help faculty and students with their academic work. By providing the campus with community-oriented physi- cal space that has academic values at its core, the library can reinforce its valuable role within the institution. RELEVANT URLS http://library.gmu.edu/libinfo/jcl.html [Johnson Center at George Mason University] www.slc.uga.edu/students.html [University of Georgia Student Learning Cen- ter] www.lib.uiowa.edu/arcade/#null [University of Iowa Information Arcade] www.usc.edu/libraries/locations/leavey/ic/ [University of Southern Califor- nia Leavey Library] www.ilc.arizona.edu/features/infocom.htm [Integrated Learning Commons at the University of Arizona] http://ic.indiana.edu/ [Indiana University Information Commons] http://commons.utk.edu/ [The Commons at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville] www.umass.edu/learningcommons/ [University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Learning Commons] www.middlebury.edu/academics/lis/lib/ [Middlebury College Library] http://lis.dickinson.edu/Technology/Public%20Labs/Information%20 Commons/index.html [Information Commons at Dickinson College] www.lib.uiowa.edu/commons [University of Iowa Hardin Health Sciences Information Commons] www.library.vanderbilt.edu/peabody/commons/ [Peabody Library Learning Commons at Vanderbilt University] www.lib.washington.edu/ougl/ [University of Washington undergraduate library] http://infocommons.emory.edu/usage.php [workstation usage alert at Emory Information Commons] NOTES 1. D. Russell Bailey, “Information Commons Services for Learners and Researchers: Evolution in Patron Needs, Digital Resources and Scholarly Publishing” (paper presented at INFORUM 2005: 11th Conference on Professional Information Resources, Prague, May 24–26, 2005), www.inforum.cz/inforum2005/prispevek.php?prispevek=32. 2. University of Georgia, “Student Learning Center,” www.slc.uga.edu/students/ library.html. 3. University of Iowa, “Information Arcade: Mission/Overview,” www.lib.uiowa.edu/ arcade/about/mission.html. 4. Leslie Haas and Jan Robertson, The Information Commons, SPEC Kit 281 (Washington, D.C.: Association of Research Libraries, July 2004).
- 52. Information Commons: Surveying the Landscape 31 5. Anita K. Lowry, “The Information Arcade at the University of Iowa,” CAUSE/EF- FECT 17, no. 3 (1994): 38–44. 6. James M. Duncan, “The Information Commons: A Model for (Physical) Digital Re- source Centers,” Bulletin of the Medical Library Association 86, no. 4 (1998): 576. 7. Donald Beagle, “Conceptualizing an Information Commons,” Journal of Academic Librarianship 25, no. 2 (1999): 88. 8. Barbara Dewey and Brice Bible, “Relationships and Campus Politics in Building the Information Commons” (paper presented at Academic Libraries 2005: The Information Commons. NY3Rs Association and the Academic and Special Libraries Section of NYLA. Saratoga Springs, N.Y., November 11, 2005), www.ny3rs.org/al2005.html. 9. Joan K. Lippincott, “Linking the Information Commons to Learning,” in Learning Spaces, ed. Diana G. Oblinger (Boulder, Colo.: EDUCAUSE, 2006), www.educause.edu/ LearningSpaces. 10. Joan K. Lippincott, “Net Generation Students and Libraries,” in Educating the Net Generation, ed. Diana G. Oblinger and James L. Oblinger (Boulder, Colo.: EDUCAUSE, 2005), www.educause.edu/educatingthenetgen/.
- 53. 32 32 BREAKING BARRIERS BY DESIGN As designers of physical space, architects are consistently charged with cre- ating spaces that will support the future. For the firm of Shepley Bulfinch Richardson Abbott, involvement in the design of information commons began in 1988, with the Gateway Commons at Leavey Library, University of Southern California. Continuing through to our most recent projects, our designs have been driven by the goals and needs of those who teach, work, and study in these facili- ties. The focus of our design approach has been on accommodating changes to the physical environment in response to the evolution of a technological culture on the college campus. Our charge has been to create environments that provide long-term flexibility and act as catalysts in breaking down barriers to how stu- dents work and learn. The commons as a concept originated as much from the need to provide in- tegrated functionality in a technological learning environment as it did from a desire to improve unpleasant, claustrophobic, and unattractive computing centers and run-down library facilities that exist on many campuses. Once computing technology reached a basic saturation level on campus, designers and academic leaders began to think differently about space. Understanding how we work, how we learn, and what we need to be productive has launched planners and designers on an exploratory journey through contemporary shifts in and creative responses to the design of learning environments. Throughout our involvement, we have encountered these broad, recurring themes: 3 d Breaking Down Barriers to Working and Learning: Challenges and Issues in Designing an Information Commons Carole C. Wedge and Janette S. Blackburn, Shepley Bulfinch Richardson Abbott
- 54. Challenges and Issues in Designing an Information Commons 33 • planning for flexibility: creating physical space solutions that enable change; • designing for today’s service models: reinforcing library and technology or- ganizational models through the physical design of service points; • customizing the information commons: developing unique design solutions in response to the specific needs of an institution; • increasing breadth and complexity: providing a broader range of resources and services to support campus and community. Although manifested differently for each institution, responses to these themes as a whole have shaped the programming, planning, and design of physical space. For both architects and institutions, the critical issue remains: what types of physi- cal environments most successfully support learning in today’s academic setting? This chapter presents the issues inherent in the physical design of commons and solutions for creating spaces that are attractive, supportive, and responsive to change, context, and community—places where teaching, research, and scholar- ship will flourish. DESIGN FOR FLEXIBILITY At many institutions, the process of achieving large-scale changes to the built environment does not keep pace with student expectations and needs. Too often, the evolution of curricula and research programs outpaces parallel changes in buildings and spaces. To compound the issue, student and faculty expectations are shaped by the faster rate of change seen in more nimble, market-driven com- mercial enterprises. To compete, the commons must be designed to be flexible and multiuse—a laboratory with multiple services where people come together to collaborate and learn. The commons needs to include technology-rich, open areas that allow for re- configuration and multiple simultaneous and consecutive uses. Change should not be limited to periodic renovations but should happen frequently over the course of a given day, month, or academic year. Weekday instructional spaces may become evening computer labs and Friday-night gaming parlors. The space can be thought of as an “academic loft” designed to change with us, not just remain a snapshot of space that is right for a fixed moment in time. Movable fur- niture, flexible panels, mobile white boards, and display surfaces can be utilized to define areas within a larger space. Wireless networks, prolific access to power and data connectivity and technological tools, nondirectional lighting and effec- tive acoustics can create a flexible spatial armature that is engaging, inviting, and suitable for a variety of campus uses including library and IT services, instruction, and collaborative and informal learning activities—all of which entice the com- munity to gather and create. The need for flexibility has brought to the forefront design and technology tools for easily modifying an environment. A wall-sized projection area or digital screen allows for varied exchanges of information, imagery, and ideas at a pace that cannot be accommodated by static signage and displays. A room enclosed
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- 56. like an extravagant invention to answer some special device, than a sober reality of Divine appointment. Rev. Mr. Guion.—I have no doubt but a scrupulous and conscientious clergyman will sometimes feel a painful degree of perplexity when musing on the very mysterious process of bestowing and receiving this gift, so essential to the identity of his priestly character, and the vital efficacy of his official labours; and should he begin to doubt, as possibly he may, whether the bishop actually bestowed on him the gift, or whether he actually received it, his doubts must remain, and will very likely increase and multiply, because no living oracle, or conclusive evidence, or logical reasoning can afford him any relief. Though I am not very fond of introducing caustic irony in the discussion of such a grave question, yet the following paragraph from the Review already quoted may not be inappropriate:— 'We can imagine the perplexity of a presbyter thus cast in doubt as to whether or not he has ever had the invaluable 'gift' of apostolical succession conferred upon him. As that 'gift' is neither tangible nor visible, the subject neither of experience nor consciousness—as it cannot be known by any 'effects' produced by it —he may imagine, unhappy man! that he has been regenerating infants by baptism, when he has been simply sprinkling them with water. 'What is the matter?' the spectator of his distractions might ask. 'What have you lost?' 'Lost!' would be the reply; 'I fear I have lost my apostolical succession; or rather, my misery is, that I do not know and cannot tell whether I ever had it to lose!' It is of no avail here to suggest the usual questions—'When did you see it last?' 'When were you last conscious of possessing it?' What a peculiar property is that, of which, though so invaluable—nay, on which the whole efficacy of the Christian ministry depends—a man has no positive evidence to show whether he ever had it or not! which, if ever conferred, was conferred without his knowledge; and which, if it could be taken away, would still leave him ignorant not only when, where, and how the theft was committed, but whether it had ever been committed or not! The sympathizing friend might probably
- 57. remind him, that as he was not sure he had ever had it, so, perhaps, he still had it without knowing it. 'Perhaps,' he would reply, 'but it is certainty I want.' Such a perplexed presbyter, and doubtless there are many such, is in a regular fix; and there he must remain, calling on his idols for help, but, like the priests of Baal, calling in vain, as there is no power in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, which can rescue a man from the terror of his own delusions, till the delusions themselves are abandoned as visionary and absurd.' Mr. Roscoe.—This question of apostolical succession, when cleared of its legendary mysticism, and brought within the pale of sober reality, may be employed as a very cogent argument in confirmation of the historic truthfulness of the Christian faith and its institutions, in refutation of some of the objections of infidelity. 'The existence of such an order of men as Christian ministers, continually from the apostles to this day, is perhaps,' as Archbishop Whately remarks,[36] 'as complete a moral certainty as any historical fact can be; because it is plain that if, at the present day, or a century ago, or ten centuries ago, a number of men had appeared in the world, professing (as the clergy do now) to hold a recognized office in a Christian church, to which they had been regularly appointed as successors to others, whose predecessors, in like manner, had held the same, and so on, from the times of the apostles—if, I say, such a pretence had been put forth by a set of men assuming an office which no one had ever heard of before, it is plain that they would at once have been refuted and exposed. And as this will apply equally to each successive generation of Christian ministers, till we come up to the time when the institution was confessedly new—that is, to the time when Christian ministers were appointed by the apostles, who professed themselves eye-witnesses of the resurrection—we have a standing monument in the Christian ministry of the fact of that event as having been proclaimed immediately after the time when it was said to have occurred. This, therefore, is fairly brought forward as an evidence of its truth.' Rev. Mr. Guion.—Yes, Sir, the unbroken succession of the ministerial order, from the times of the apostles till now, is, in my
- 58. opinion, an irrefutable evidence that Christianity took its rise at the period of its asserted origin, and that we have the essential substance, at least, of the same faith which the apostles established in Jerusalem, Ephesus, and other places; and that this same faith is administered by a distinct order of men, whose business it is, and ever has been, to propagate it and hand it down to the next generation succeeding them. As an argument of confirmation and defence in relation to the historic certainty of our faith and its institutions, it is of great value and importance; but, as Whately very justly remarks in his incomparable Essays, Successionists are guilty of a fallacy in the use which they make of it—'The fallacy consists in confounding together the unbroken apostolical succession of a Christian ministry generally, and the same succession in an unbroken line of this or that individual minister.' The existence of the order may be traced up to the times of the apostles; but this supplies no evidence in proof that each, or any one minister of the order now living is a legitimate descendant, in the genealogical line, from either of the two favourite apostles, St. Peter or St. Paul. And hence the argument, which is a splendid triumph to Christianity, is a dumb oracle to Tractarianism. Rev. Mr. Ingleby.—When reading the Oxford tracts, and some other publications of the same school, I have often felt astonished that the writers are not startled when advocating their favourite dogma; because, if they could establish it as a positive truth, they would prove self-destroyers—be guilty, in fact, of what I may term ecclesiastical suicide. They maintain, first, that no one is duly qualified to take office in the church of Christ—to preach and administer the sacraments—until he is ordained by some bishop, who can trace up his descent either to the apostle Peter or Paul. And they maintain, in the next place, that, when so ordained, they are in verity God's ambassadors to men; but, if not so ordained, the laity cannot expect to receive any spiritual benefit from their official labours. Or, in other words, each clergyman of our church must be in the unbroken line of succession from the times of the apostles, or he holds an office to which he has no legitimate appointment, and
- 59. administers sacraments which cannot take effect. A Tractarian, then, is either in the unbroken line, or he is not in it—if in the unbroken line, all is right; if not in, all is wrong. If in, the people are blest; if not in, they are unblest. He believes he is in, but this does not prove that he is; he may be mistaken, self-deceived, and quite unintentionally deceiving others. And he cannot know he is in, unless he can prove it, and prove it as all facts of history are proved, by moral evidence. He may be able to prove his own ordination, and perhaps the ordination of the bishop by whom he was ordained, and also a few preceding bishops; but as an intelligent and conscientious man, he ought not to administer the sacraments, or appear as a clergyman amongst the people, till he has, with the clearest and most unequivocal evidence, traced back the successive ordinations of the bishops through the long lapse of past ages, up to the time when Paul or Peter conferred the rite of ordination on the bishops to succeed them. This done, he may remain in the priest's office; but till this is done, on his own principle of belief and reasoning, he ought to hold his peace—he ought to do nothing; because he has no evidence that the laity can derive any spiritual benefit from his ministrations. Thus his faith, and its consequent reasoning, impose silence and inaction, till he has performed this process of historical research; or, if he continue to labour, it will inevitably be in a state of ceaseless disquietude, because, ceaseless doubt. Rev. Mr. Roscoe.—Soon after Dr. Hook preached his celebrated sermon on 'Hear THE church,' I delivered one on the same subject. On leaving the pulpit one of my hearers, a shrewd clever man, followed me into the vestry, and, in the presence of my wardens, asked me to hang up under the tablet containing the ten commandments, a genealogical pedigree of my ecclesiastical descent; assigning as a reason for such an application, that he and his family had an interest in knowing it, as I had taught them to believe that the efficacy of the sacraments on their souls depended on my ecclesiastical legitimacy. I felt greatly mortified by his application, and especially when my senior warden said such a document, he had no doubt, would prove very satisfactory to many
- 60. —and would tend to allay the disquietudes of those who sometimes complained that they derived no spiritual benefits from the church sacraments. Rev. Mr. Guion.—This is what ought to be done in self-defence, and to satisfy the scrupulous anxiety of others; but who can do it? that is the perplexing question. Dr. Hook says, and his asseverations are echoed by his fellow-Tractarians, 'the prelates who at this present time rule the churches of these realms were validly ordained by others, who, by means of an unbroken spiritual descent of ordination, derived their mission from the apostles and from our Lord. This continual descent is evident to every one who chooses to investigate it. Let him read the catalogues of our bishops, ascending up to the most remote period. There is not a bishop, priest, or deacon amongst us who cannot, if he please, trace his own spiritual descent from St. Peter or St. Paul.' Rev. Mr. Ingleby.—Dr. Hook is a very rash man to give such a boastful utterance, when he knows, or ought to know, that this tracing of a spiritual descent is an absolute impossibility;[37] it never has been done, and every attempt to do it has proved a mortifying failure. Rev. Mr. Guion.—Two things in relation to this question of spiritual descent are certain, at any rate they are as certain as any positive and negative evidence can make anything certain—first, our Tractarian clergy cannot prove their spiritual descent, and therefore, on their own principle, they have no authority to officiate in the church; and, secondly, if they could do this thing, which has never yet been done, they cannot prove that they are invested with the mysterious gift on which the validity of their ministrations depends. Therefore, on their own principle, the laity can derive no spiritual benefits from their labours. They are a pompous order of self- created exclusionists, uttering great swelling words of vanity, when, on their own principle, they are self-convicted usurpers in the priestly office; and, while vaunting that they, and they only, are God's ambassadors to man, they decline producing their commission
- 61. of appointment, even when pressed to do so, though they say they could easily do it if they pleased.[38] Mr. Roscoe.—But after all, the practical influence of those high church principles, constitutes, in my opinion, the most cogent argument against them. We shall find that pernicious as they are to the clergy, they are still more fatal to the laity, though they do not always operate with the same uniformity of result. Some they lull into a callous apathy and indifference, from which nothing can rouse them to the soul-stirring question—What must I do to be saved? They have unbounded confidence in their parson, that he is in the regular line of succession—firmly believe in the fact of their regeneration in baptism, as they have seen the public record of its performance— and calculate that when death comes, a despatch will bring the duly qualified official to give them absolution and the sacrament, and then the debt of nature may be paid without reluctance, as their peace with God is settled, on the authority of the unalterable laws of the church, of which they are bona fide members and devoted advocates. Mr. Stevens.—I knew an instance in which these high church principles had a contrary effect; they plunged an old friend of my own into a state of mental perplexity and depression, which was not only painful but appalling. This friend was a sincere and a conscientious member of the Church of England, and a firm believer in the Tractarian doctrines of the Oxford school; but happening to meet with Archbishop Whately's Essays on the Kingdom of Christ, he began to entertain some doubts that he was not quite so safe, in relation to eternity, as he had been accustomed to believe. On one occasion, he confidentially disclosed his fears and his misgivings to myself, confessing that they arose from the degree of uncertainty attachable to the legitimacy of the spiritual descent of his Rector from the apostles, and the consequent validity or invalidity of the administrations of the sacraments. I wished to direct his attention to a safer way to final happiness than through the medium of the sacraments; but his predeliction for the church and its ordinances was so inveterate, that I could not succeed; his long-cherished
- 62. associations prevented the free exercise of his reasoning faculty, and in this state of perplexity and depression, he lived for years: he died a few months since, but how he died, I know not, though I fear he died under the spell of the awful delusion in which he had lived. Mrs. John Roscoe.—I recollect a somewhat similar occurrence, happening to a near and dear friend of my own, but with a very different result. She also was a member of the Church of England, and a great admirer of the Oxford tracts, which she read, and, I may say, studied with close attention, having no more doubt of the reality of baptismal regeneration than she had of the fact that her Vicar had administered it to her. However, some circumstances, though I never heard what they were, led her to suspect that there was a difficulty, if not an impossibility, for any one minister of the Episcopal church being able to trace up with absolute certainty his spiritual descent from either of the apostles, and for a while she felt perfectly bewildered. At length she was advised by a pious friend to turn from man to God: to put aside the Oxford tracts, and search the Scriptures, to exercise her own judgment when doing so, and pray to the Holy Spirit for wisdom and grace to lead her in the right way to mental peace and to heaven. She did so, and now she has made her escape from the delusive errors of Tractarianism, and feels secure, because she now builds her hope of pardon and salvation, not on sacraments or ceremonies, but on Christ, the sure foundation which the Lord hath laid, and not man. Rev. Mr. Ingleby.—This painful controversy which is shaking our church from its centre to its remotest extremities—alienating friendships, making us a by-word amongst Papists, and a scorn amongst infidels—will, I fear, continue to rage for a long time to come; but I am sanguine in my anticipations of the final issue. Our church was slumbering in ease and security, paying but little attention to her responsibilities to her Divine Lord and Master; but these corruptions of heresy and error have roused her, and called upon her faithful sons to come forward in the defence and support of the truths of the New Testament. If we act wisely, we shall be prepared to surrender any tenet or mode of expression incorporated
- 63. in our prescribed formularies or other articles of belief, which has not the direct sanction of the Word of God; and shall evince a greater zeal for the extension and for the triumphs of Christianity herself, than the honour and glory of our own church or its ministerial orders. If we can bring our minds to this resolve, and if we rely on Him who is the invisible Head of his visible church, we need fear no evil; the truth, however obscured for a time, will at length shine forth, and the fabrics of human superstition and device totter and fall like the dwelling of the foolish man, which built his house upon the sand. END OF VOL. I. FOOTNOTES: [1] The epithet Methodist is taken in its popular acceptation, as employed by the antievangelical part of society. [2] Covey was one of the bravest of the brave, and as wicked as he was brave. Mr. Pratt, in the second volume of his Gleanings, gives us the following account of him:— As the two fleets were coming into action, the noble admiral, to save the lives of his men, ordered them to lie flat on the deck, till, being nearer the enemy, their firing might do the more execution. The Dutch ships at this time were pouring their broadsides into the Venerable as she passed down part of the Dutch fleet, in order to break their line. This stout-hearted and wicked Covey, heaped in rapid succession the most dreadful imprecations on the eyes, and limbs, and souls of what he called his cowardly shipmates, for lying down to avoid the balls of the Dutch. He refused to obey the order, till, fearing the authority of an officer not far from him, he in part complied, by leaning over a cask which stood near, till the word of command was given to fire. At the moment of rising, a bar-shot carried away one of his legs, and the greater part of the other; but so instantaneous was the stroke, though he was sensible of something like a jar in his limbs, he knew not that he had lost a leg till his stump came to
- 64. the deck, and he fell. He was sent home to Haslar hospital, with many others; and soon after he left it, he went on a Sabbath evening to Orange Street Chapel, Portsea, where he heard the Rev. Mr. Griffin preach from Mark v. 15. He listened, says his biographer, with attention and surprise, wondering how the minister should know him among so many hundred people; or who could have told him his character and state of mind. This astonishment was still more increased when he found him describe, as he thought, the whole of his life, and even his secret sins. Some weeks after this, says Mr. Griffin, he called and related to me the whole of his history and experience. He was surprised to find that I had never received any information about him at the time the sermon was preached which so exactly met his case. Something more than twelve months after this time he was received a member of our church, having given satisfactory evidences of being a genuine and consistent Christian. A few weeks since, hearing he was ill, I went to visit him. When I entered his room, he said, 'Come in, thou man of God! I have been longing to see you, and to tell you the happy state of my mind. I believe I shall soon die; but death now has no terrors in it. The sting of death is sin; but, thanks be to God, he has given me the victory through Jesus Christ. I am going to heaven! O! what has Jesus done for me, one of the vilest sinners of the human race.' A little before he died, when he thought himself within a few hours of dissolution, he said, 'I have often thought it was a hard thing to die, but now I find it a very easy thing to die. The presence of Christ makes it easy. The joy I feel from a sense of the love of God to sinners, from the thought of being with the Saviour, of being free from a sinful heart, and of enjoying the presence of God for ever, is more than I can express! O! how different my thoughts of God, and of myself, and of another world, from what they were when I lost my precious limbs on board the Venerable! It was a precious loss to me! If I had not lost my legs, I should perhaps have lost my soul.' With elevated and clasped hands, and with eyes glistening with earnestness, through the tears which flowed down his face, he said, 'O, my dear minister! I pray you, when I am dead, to preach a funeral sermon for a poor sailor; and tell others, especially sailors, who are as ignorant and wicked as I was, that poor blaspheming Covey found mercy with God, through faith in the blood of Christ! Tell them, that since I have found mercy, none that seek it need to despair. You know better than I do what to say to them. But, O! be in earnest with them; and may the Lord grant that my
- 65. wicked neighbours and fellow-sailors may find mercy as well as Covey!' He said much more; but the last words he uttered were, 'Hallelujah! hallelujah!' [3] See p. 106. [4] See note, p. 58. [5] A poor, half-witted man, named Joseph, whose employment was to go on errands and carry parcels, passing through London streets one day, heard psalm-singing in the house of God; he went into it; it was Dr. Calamy's church, St. Mary's, Aldermanbury. The preacher read his text from 1 Tim. i. 15—This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. From this he preached, in the clearest manner, the ancient and apostolic gospel, and Joseph, in rags, gazing with astonishment, never took his eyes from the preacher, but drank in with eagerness all he said, and trudging homeward, he was heard thus muttering to himself, Joseph never heard this before! Christ Jesus, the God who made all things, came into the world to save sinners like Joseph; and this is true, and it is a 'faithful saying!' Not long after this Joseph was seized with a fever, and was dangerously ill. As he tossed upon his bed, his constant language was, Joseph is the chief of sinners, but Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, and Joseph loves him for this. His neighbours who came to see him wondered on hearing him always dwell on this, and only this. One man, finding out where he heard this sermon, went and asked Dr. Calamy to come and visit him. He came, but Joseph was now very weak, and had not spoken for some time, and though told of the doctor's arrival, he took no notice of him; but when the doctor began to speak to him, as soon as he heard the sound of his voice he instantly sprang upon his elbows, and seizing him by his hands, exclaimed, as loud as he could with his now feeble and trembling voice, O Sir! you are the friend of the Lord Jesus, whom I heard speak so well of him. Joseph is the chief of sinners, but it is a faithful saying, that Jesus Christ, the God who made all things, came into the world to save sinners, and why not Joseph? O, pray to that Jesus for me; pray that he may save me; tell him that Joseph thinks that he loves him for coming into the world to save such sinners as Joseph. The doctor prayed; when he concluded, Joseph thanked him most kindly; but his exertions in
- 66. talking had been too much for him, so that he shortly afterwards expired. [6] See p. 129. [7] See page 43. [8] See page 105. [9] Burke. [10] Will it be asked what females are expected to do? We leave the decision of their conduct to the impulses of their hearts, and the dictates of their judgment. Let but their affections be consecrated to the cause, and their understanding will be sufficiently fruitful in expedients to promote it. Their husbands will be gently prevailed upon to lay apart some of their substance to serve religion. Their children will be nurtured in a missionary spirit, and learn to associate with all their pleasures the records of missionary privations and triumphs. They will solicit the repetition of the often-told tale, and glow with a martyr's zeal for the salvation of the souls of men. Listen to the eloquent appeal of a masterly preacher on this subject:—'Christian matrons! from whose endeared and endearing lips we first heard of the wondrous Babe of Bethlehem, and were taught to bend our knee to Jesus—ye who first taught these eagles how to soar, will ye now check their flight in the midst of heaven? I am weary, said the ambitious Cornelia, of being called Scipio's daughter; do something, my sons, to style me the mother of the Gracchi. And what more laudable ambition can inspire you, than a desire to be the mothers of the missionaries, confessors, and martyrs of Jesus? Generations unborn shall call you blessed. The churches of Asia and Africa, when they make grateful mention of their founders, will say, Blessed be the wombs which bare them, and the breasts which they have sucked! Ye wives also of the clergy, let it not be said that while ye love the mild virtues of the man, ye are incapable of alliance with the grandeur of the minister. The wives of Christian soldiers should learn to rejoice at the sound of the battle. Rouse, then, the slumbering courage of your soldiers to the field; and think no place so safe, so honoured, as the camp of Jesus. Tell the missionary story to your little ones, until their young hearts burn, and in the spirit of those innocents who shouted hosannah to their lowly King, they cry, Shall not we also be the missionaries of Jesus Christ?' Such an appeal to Christian females cannot be made in vain. They are not the triflers who balance a feather against a soul. They will learn to retrench
- 67. superfluities, in order to exercise the grace of Christian charity. They will emulate those Jewish women who 'worked with their hands for the hangings of the tabernacle,' and brought 'bracelets, and ear-rings, and jewels of gold,' for the service of the sanctuary. They will consecrate their ornaments to the perishing heathen; and render personal and domestic economy a fountain of spiritual blessings to unenlightened nations, and to distant ages. They will resign the gems of the East to save a soul from death, and bind round their brow a coronet of stars, which shall shine for ever and ever! [11] See page 6. [12] Some of the Tractarians speak in more guarded, yet in more ambiguous terms, on the regenerating power of baptism; but the majority of them entertain the belief which is expressed by the Rev. W. J. E. Bennett, in the following quotation from one of the last sermons he preached at St. Paul's, Knightsbridge, see page 193:—Here is a great mystery; that by water in holy baptism is given a regenerating and life-creating grace—that by water we go down into the font foul and leprous; by grace we rise pure, spotless, and sound—that by water we go down into the font dead in trespasses and sins; by grace we rise up from the font alive in Christ. [13] Dr. Mant. [14] The reader is referred to two tracts on Regeneration and Conversion, published by Dr. Mant, and circulated by the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge. [15] The author once knew a lady who was celebrated, in the town in which she lived, no less for her benevolence, than she was for her utter dislike to those persons who had embraced evangelical sentiments. She generally used to term them, by way of reproach, Methodists, enthusiasts, or fanatics. For many years she was in the habit of visiting the poor and the infirm, sympathizing with them when in trouble, giving them money to purchase the necessaries and comforts of life; and she originated several public institutions, which still remain as the memorial of her practical goodness. Often has she sat beside the lingering sufferer, wiping away the cold sweats of death, and administering, with her own hands, the last portion of food or of medicine which nature consented to receive. This lady, when conversing with a friend, whose prejudices against the fanatics of the day (as the disciples of the Redeemer are styled) ran as high as her own,
- 68. said, I don't know how to account for it, but I find these people know more about religion than we do, and appear more happy in their dying moments than any others I ever meet with. Happy would it have been for her if some friend had been present to explain the cause of it; but no—living under the sombrous gloom of a pharisaical faith, which admits not of the clear light of the truth, she lived in ignorance of the nature of faith in Christ, and in ignorance she died. [16] See page 78. [17] See page 228. [18] They that have any just sense of the importance of religion, says a judicious writer, find that they need all the helps that God has appointed. Suppose the Sabbath were abolished for a few weeks—in what state, think you, would some of you find your minds? Why, you would feel as if you had scarcely any knowledge or power of religion at all. But there is no charm in the sanctity of the day to keep up the power of vital religion in the heart of a Christian, nor in the holy place where he may spend the consecrated hours—this honour having been put on a faithful ministry, which exhibits the truth in its purity and force. What a loss does a Christian habitually sustain who deprives himself of such a ministry, and worships where angels never stoop to celebrate the conversion of one sinner to God! Instead of hearing that glorious gospel which enlivens and strengthens the mind, which purifies and ennobles it, and which brings the remote and unseen realities of eternity to moderate the impetuosity and cool the ardour with which the fleeting shadows of time are pursued, the heart is often disquieted, if not with harsh and dissonant sounds, yet with antichristian and dissonant sentiments, and the day of rest becomes one of perplexity and mortification—Providence having determined, that they who observe lying vanities shall feel that they have forsaken their own mercies (Jonah ii. 8). [19] See page 321. [20] See page 348. [21] See page 344. [22] Reference is here made to Archdeacon Hare, the Rev. Fred. Maurice, chaplain of Lincoln's Inn, the Rev. Mr. Trench, professor of divinity in King's College, London, and the Rev. Mr. Kingsley, rector of Eversley.
- 69. [23] Miss Rawlins, of London. [24] Rev. Mr. Logan, a priest at Oscott College, near Birmingham. [25] See page 320. [26] The writer of this article, in the year 1843, met a physician in Bath, and in the same year he met a solicitor in Banbury, who for many years ranked as members of the Church of England; but on examining the baptismal service in conjunction with this part of the Catechism, they felt such a strong repugnance against having their children baptized according to the prescribed formula, that they both preferred becoming Dissenters, rather than give their sanction to what they conscientiously believed to be a sinful, because antiscriptural ceremony, more fit for a Papal than a Protestant church. [27] After the intelligent reader has carefully examined the following references—Acts viii. 5-15; xix. 1-6—then let him look at a Puseyite confirmation, and I think the contrast cannot fail to strike his attention. We have seen what took place in the days of the apostles, let us next see what takes place at a Puseyite confirmation. The unconscious infants of a nation are baptized; by such baptism they are professedly regenerated; they are made children of God, heirs of the kingdom of heaven. At this ordinance there are godfathers and godmothers undertaking solemn responsibilities; these parties are required to be present to witness the confirmation, and are taught to regard it as a loosening of them from their sacred bonds. Now, we ask the Episcopal expositors to tell us where we are to look for godfathers or godmothers at the baptisms mentioned in the Acts? Where is the doctrine of the regeneration of baptized infants in the Acts? Where is the doctrine of a Divine life begun in baptism and perfected in confirmation? What are the proofs of such regeneration as a qualification for confirmation? The only qualification prescribed by the Book of Common Prayer for confirmation by the bishop, is ability to repeat the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and the Catechism. Of repentance towards God and faith towards the Lord Jesus Christ there is not a word. Here, then, we have a generation of young persons on whom Episcopal hands are laid, and who are taught to believe that, in consequence of this act, they have received an
- 70. influx of spiritual grace, implanting new, and invigorating old spiritual principles, and raising them at once to the stature of Christian manhood. Was there ever such delusion! How long will men of sense in the Established Church endure it!—Dr. Campbell. [28] The writer of this paper once heard a young man say, when reeling out of a public-house, Well, as I have the old score wiped away to-day by the bishop himself, I can afford to run up another short one. [29] See vol. i. p. 92. [30] See vol. i. p. 104. [31] Missionary Enterprises in South Sea Islands. By Rev. John Williams. [32] See Dr. Hook's Sermons on Church and Establishments. [33] The Life of the Rev. John Williams. By the Rev. E. Prout. Snow, London. [34] If we suppose, with some of the Tractarians, that he was now ordained to the apostolic office, then we have a series of irregularities: he labours for years before he receives ordination, and when he does receive it, it is not from the hands of apostles, but some very inferior officials connected with the church at Antioch. [35] April, 1843. [36] Whately on the Kingdom of Christ, p. 180. [37] There is not a minister in all Christendom (says Archbishop Whately, and he is an authority on this question), who is able to trace up with any approach to certainty, his own spiritual pedigree. The sacramental virtue dependent on the imposition of hands, with a due observance of apostolical usages, by a bishop himself duly consecrated, after having been in like manner baptized into the church and ordained deacon and priest —this sacramental virtue, if a single link in the chain be faulty, must be utterly nullified ever after in respect to all the links hanging on that one. For, if a bishop has not been duly consecrated, or had not been previously rightly ordained, his ordinations are null, and so are the ministrations of those ordained by him, and their ordinations of others, and so on without end. The poisonous taint of informality, if it once creep in
- 71. undetected, will spread the infection of nullity to an indefinite and irremediable extent. And who can undertake to pronounce that, during that long period usually designated as the dark ages, no such taint was ever introduced? Irregularities could not have been wholly excluded without a perpetual miracle; and that no such miraculous interference existed we have even historical proof. Amidst the numerous corruptions of doctrine and of practice, and gross superstitions that crept in during those ages, we find recorded descriptions not only of the profound ignorance and profligacy of life of many of the clergy, but also of the grossest irregularities in respect of discipline and form. We read of bishops consecrated when mere children—of men officiating who barely knew their letters—of prelates expelled and others put in their places by violence—of illiterate and profligate laymen, and habitual drunkards, admitted to holy orders; and, in short, of the prevalence of every kind of disorder, and reckless disregard of the decency which the apostle enjoins. It is inconceivable that any one, even moderately acquainted with history, can feel a certainty, or any approach to certainty, that, amidst all this confusion and corruption, every requisite form was, in every instance, strictly adhered to by men, many of them openly profane and secular, unrestrained by public opinion through the gross ignorance of the population among which they lived; and that no one not duly consecrated or ordained was admitted to sacred offices. The inference which the Archbishop* draws from these historic statements is this: 'The ultimate consequence must be that any one who sincerely believes that his claim to the benefits of the gospel-covenant depends on his own minister's claim to the supposed sacramental virtue of true ordination, and this again on perfect apostolical succession as described, must be involved, in proportion as he reads, and inquires, and reflects, and reasons on the subject, in the most distressing doubt and perplexity. * See Essays on the Kingdom of Christ, pp. 176-9. [38] It is a somewhat ominous sign that neither Dr. Hook nor any of his brethren has been pleased to do this very easy thing, though they have often been challenged to do it, as essential to their priestly identity and the validity of their ministrations.
- 72. Transcriber's note: Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have been retained as printed. The illustrations have been moved so that they do not break up paragraphs, thus the page number of the illustration might not match the page number in the List of Illustrations. Mismatched quotes are not fixed if it's not sufficiently clear where the missing quote should be placed. In the table of contents the transcriber has changed the page number for A Village Funeral from 187 to 186. Page 105: The page number in the caption has been changed from 165 to 105 to match the table of contents order. For Spiritual Regeneration a Reality, the page number has been changed from 337 to 336. Page 324 The transcriber has added the word to after the word wrath: Will they, if warned to flee from the wrath come, apprehend any danger ... Also on page 324 though he lives and his a sceptic or a blasphemer—The transcriber has changed his to he is.
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