Reimagining the Library – a Design Thinking Framework

Editor's Notes

• #3: Who I am:
• #4: The University is located on the border of the Great Basin and the Sierra Nevada mountains on the western edge of the state, and is ranked in the top tier of best colleges in the United States – that means, it’s one of the top 200 universities.
• #5: We seem to take the fact that the library serves the community for granted, as a given. Libraries exist for the common good. The University of Nevada, Reno is a Land-Grant College; that is, ideally everything we do at the University is about one of the three legs of the Land-Grant mission: learning, discovery, and outreach. Land Grant institutions were established to ensure that the learning and discovery that happens behind the walls of colleges benefits all in society.
• #6: From 2009 to 2015 enrollments have grown by 24%; you’re looking at a view of the campus that highlights several of the new buildings built to accommodate that growth. The building in the center of the photograph: the Mathewson-IGT Knowledge Center, opened in 2008 – a building of over 27,400 square meters built to house the library. Note the name “knowledge center” – knowledge is something we create within ourselves, and is not contained between the pages of a book. It is something that is created when we engage: with one another, with technology, and with traditional learning materials. It is a place where the integration of formal and informal learning can happen naturally.
• #7: That means we need to go well beyond the aesthetics of the library. Rather than the focus of previous centuries’ almost exclusive focus on provisioning books and access to academic journals, today’s library is also about the creation and sharing of new knowledge. Fundamentally, knowledge creation requires conversation; an effective support of that creation involves access to resources as well as guided and stimulated conversations. Catalysis.
• #8: Makerspace hits on all three legs of the land grant mission: learning, discovery, and engagement…
• #9: Think of this infographic as a framework. In order for the practice of education to be effective, we need to consider the full range of learning activity. If all we’re relying on is classroom lecture, assigned readings, and homework, the best we can hope for is 50% of what we teach.
• #10: Effective library support of learning, discovery, and outreach, requires more. How can we go beyond enabling and supporting talks & group discussions to enabling our supported communities to practice and do? Reflected in learning theory from the Constructivism of Dewey and Piaget through Papert’s Constructionism, it’s not rocket science: To better support deeper levels of learning, we need to enable opportunities for the active doing of the subject being taught. If you’re teaching physics, that support might range from simply providing whiteboards and hands-on demos to support for prototyping of experimental apparatus. If a language, opportunities for the active use and practice of the language – including study abroad in a foreign country.
• #11: Enter makerspace. Education isn’t just at University! Or K-12… Consider the role of the public library in education and lifelong learning.
• #12: In 2010 I was named the Head of the DeLaMare Library – a library that can trace its roots to the very f=irst graduating class of the University. Located in the Mackay Mines building, literally one of the first campus buildings, the primary campus library for the physical sciences & engineering on campus.
• #13: Apart from books, it was also largely empty. Beautiful, but quiet – too quiet. Located centrally to the departments served, the library should’ve been alive, serving an overall community of students and faculty in the physical sciences and engineering numbering between 5,000 and 10,000. I was tasked with the job of transforming the library from a book repository into a ”vibrant knowledge center.”
• #14: Study carrels, seemingly pushed up against the walls by book stacks, saw relatively infrequent use.
• #15: Where was everybody? Given the ideal location and size of the potential community, the library should have been a hotbed of learning and research activity. Maximum number of people we saw in the library was on the order of 24.
• #16: By putting the Liquid Google Galaxy out in the open we allowed these teens who came for a visit to hang out and mess around. Interacting with each other.
• #17: Two years later, the library was live with learning and discovery.
• #18: It bears mention that the pretty building and its furnishings are not critical details. The conversation IS. In order to support the creation of knowledge, the conversation is critical path. After all…
• #19: In 2014 the DeLaMare Library was named to Make magazine’s list of “Most Interesting Makerspaces in America.” Image credit: http://makezine.com/2014/07/29/most-interesting-makerspaces-in-america/
• #21: Broken – problem identification. Often taken for granted. Empathize – observe. Engage. Immerse. Why? Uncover needs they’re not even aware of.) Define – scope a meaningful challenge Ideate – transition from identifying problems to exploring solutions Prototype – getting ideas and explorations out of your head and into the physical world Test – refine the solutions to make them better Image credit: https://sites.google.com/a/wcastl.org/the-westminster-school-of-business-and-communication/entrepreneurship/6stagesofdesignthinking
• #22: Problems identified/addressed: Lack of student collaborative spaces Lack of whiteboards big enough to work problems on Overall lack of community Image credit: https://sites.google.com/a/wcastl.org/the-westminster-school-of-business-and-communication/entrepreneurship/6stagesofdesignthinking
• #23: Prototype/test: 4 rolling whiteboards – off to a good start. New problems identified: - cost of scaling - “you can run out of whiteboard space, but you can never have enough.”
• #24: Enter whiteboard paint. Used in conjunction with furniture scavenged from campus and county surplus, ad-hoc collaborative areas were created throughout. At this point, in a library of over 2,000 square meters floorspace, there’s nearly 1,900 square meters of whiteboard space.
• #25: The creation of ad-hoc collaboration areas throughout the library enabled the raw creation of knowledge on a far deeper level than the library had seen previously. Direct – and highly visible – support of the learning mission.
• #26: Again, the design process in action. Empathizing with our customers enabled identification/definition/ideation – coupled with prototyping/testing that remains ongoing, over four years later. Image credit: https://sites.google.com/a/wcastl.org/the-westminster-school-of-business-and-communication/entrepreneurship/6stagesofdesignthinking
• #27: The library started offering novel services; when approached by students and faculty early on as to whether the library would consider supporting a 3D printing and scanning service, we re-engaged the design process: Problem identified: students and faculty needed to be able 3D print – visualize in a very real way – chemical molecules they were studying. I reached out to students and faculty from other disciplines in an attempt to empathize and define the problem. Was there a need? Engineers spoke of a need for prototyping everything from gears and “robot parts” to cases and topographic maps; others talked of a need to prototype lab equipment, both for use in the lab and as a preliminary to manufacturing.  Although other 3D printing capacity existed on campus, it was behind locked researcher doors. Ideation: what would the service look like? In what materials would it print? What were the needs of the community? Image credit: http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2012/08/academic-libraries/u-nevada-library-offers-3d-printing-across-the-board/#_
• #29: With a launch in early-mid 2012, DeLaMare Library was the first academic library in the United States to offer 3D printing and scanning as a library service. Examples here include the protein snippet responsible for making jellyfish glow – something that labs around the world have grafted into life forms ranging from plants to earthworms and rabbits. Self-directed learning at its finest, the Master’s student pictured in the center was so curious that he taught himself – using library resources – how to create a 3D printable model from the protein database file of the protein.
• #31: Since 2012, the printing service has been operating essentially non-stop, printing an average of 5,000-7,000 pieces a year. Informed by the ongoing iteration of design, the service has expanded to include five different printers/types; note the cross-disciplinary use of the service.
• #33: As proof of that, consider 3D scanning: in tandem with the development of 3D printing services, the library also began developing support in terms of 3D scanning and modelling services. Pictured here, Engineering Librarian Tara Radniecki is demonstrating the use of 3D scanners that can be checked out of the library in support of field work.
• #34: Once captured digitally, real-world objects can be modified and remixed in software to produce entirely new creations. Pictured is a partial capture from the demo in the previous screen. Examples that follow are a couple of examples of how this makerspace activity – through the library – directly serves the community:
• #35: A collaborative effort between the artist Mischell Riley, engineering students, and Burning Man, the sculpture “Inside the Mind of Davinci”
• #38: An example from industry that required library student workers to collaborate with a company that needed to reinvent a product – a clamp that attaches ice melting tapes to existing rain gutter materials on building. One of the last of the original handmade devices needed to be 3D scanned, then reverse engineered, such that manufacture of the piece would be compatible with current computer-aided manufacture (CAM) practice. Again, learning coupled with outreach into the community...
• #41: So how do we enable members of the library to fully leverage these resources? Making 101: create baby steps that enable end-users to acquire new digital literacies – such as 3D modeling. We implemented adjunct services that simultaneously met prototyping needs of the supported communities while building bridges to skills acquisition and application. Consider the simple vinyl cutter: if a student wants to personalize something badly enough that they’re willing top learn and apply 2-D digital literacies (photo editing), they’re on their way…
• #44: 2D literacies acquired with the vinyl cutter apply directly to working with the laser cutter – going from 2D to 2-1/2D. Note that laser cutters are just another type of printer in the library. Seen here cutting pieces from a sheet of plywood.
• #45: The 2-1/2D nature of the output of the laser cutter leads directly to 3D literacies… just as this 3D model of a T-Rex head is composed of individual 2D slices, 3D models are similarly granular.
• #47: Similarly, first year engineering students are required to build autonomous robotic hovercraft driven by LEGO Mindstorms; pictured here is a student team working on their design with parts recently laser cut from a sheet of Styrofoam using the laser cutter.
• #48: A common use of the laser cutter is in support of student coursework: consider the depth of learning encouraged in a Statics course when the instructor incorporates a challenge for students to build a physical model of a truss bridge out of balsa wood – that needs to hold at least 100 kg. Students often leverage the ability to precision cut their designs using the laser cutter. Pictured here are students collaboratively working on exactly such a project – and I’ve seen designs that have held as much as 900 kg; the kind of depth of learning we want to see.
• #49: This type of deep learning is on top of – not in place of – traditional methods: note the associated theoretical calculations for the truss bridge being done with paper and pencil.
• #50: Phew! In support, the library has steadily grown its collection of lendable technology. Items recently available as lendable technology collection have ranged from Google Glass…
• #51: Oculus Rift and HTC Vive development kits…
• #52: Essentially, the same stuff that’s inside your smartphone/favorite gadget – only here, you can access and play with the pieces.
• #53: Even “traditional” ICT are critical-path when it comes to encouraging/engaging members of the supported communities to engage and “do” – over the past few years, the library has hosted on the order of a dozen hackathons. For example a few weeks ago we hosted three hackathons at once in the library – something on the order of 150 individuals from disciplines that ranged from Computer Sciences to Journalism engaged with members from the public to create real-world applications over the compressed timeframe of 24-36 hours. Think they learned anything that they wouldn’t have learned in a classroom?
• #54: Prototyping a circuit. Why? Because she had interest and access to the resources, thanks to the library. Is an Arduino Inventor kit an “information resource”? Could she have gained access if the library didn’t provide access? If not us, who? If not now, then when?
• #56: A hybrid of support: electronics coupled with 3D printing, a computer sciences student who 3D printed the structure of an android arm, with servos operated by the robot through the circuit prototype on the breadboard held in his right hand. Story about Will and library tech as gateway into his career.
• #57: We provide 3D printing and scanning services in the library for the same reasons we provide traditional ICT: it is critical-path for knowledge creation. It’s as common for students to engage around a computer workstation as it is a whiteboard in the library. Following a similar model, we expanded the availability of technology throughout the library
• #58: Norman Cousins was an American political journalist, author, professor, and world peace advocate. Recipient of the Helmerich Award and the Albert Schweitzer prize for Humanitarianism, a man who has deep insight into libraries. ”The delivery room for the birth of ideas.” What does that look like in the library?