LIBRARY DESIGN / LEARNING GARDEN

Understanding the learning garden and library environment involves special problem solving, navigation, trying to make sense of a chaotic book shelving system wayfinding information that may help interacting with the three-dimensional environment. We do not process information about the library environment the way cameras or computers do. Our processing is full of listening sessions. Understanding the special way humans think about library environments will help us to design better settings. The central concept is legibility, or the ease in which a library may be organized and what makes sense to the user?

Our Library Consultants have learned there four elements that contribute to a learning garden or library environment.

Paths – The routes along which people travel. Typical paths are walkways and corridors.

Edges – Non traveled areas like the window wall edge. I call this the “living edge” of a building. A place where the user can sit and relate to a nature; or just see outside.

Zones – Moderate size areas that have a particular character, the users can identify with such areas as a Periodical Reading, Reference/Computers, Children’s, Rare books, Quiet Study, Conference and Meeting Rooms. A zone of the collection can strongly contribute to the legibility of library if it is well defined and legible. We do not gain, house and recall information about locations, distances and arrangements mechanically, yet our way of processing environment information can be made easier if the user has clear paths, and defined edges and zones.

Nodes – Identified points that users in libraries travel to and from often at junctions of important paths, like circulation desk and reference desk. These key intersections or nodes are staffed in traditional library and served with technology using the digital library.

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Library Design Supports Productivity

The dynamic of the changing library and the use of technology can enable the development of online information services and spaces. The online library provides the interface, junctions, and paths that can be displayed in popular gathering areas. We can provide QR codes to bring the library collections and resources to life.

Here are a few helpful links & QR code generators:

Library Interface Use Cases: QR Code In Libraries
Strategies to Create and Test QR Codes:
QR Code Generator
QR Code Monkey

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Understanding the Learning Space, Interface and the Living Environment

Understanding the library spatial environment, its place, like environmental perception must be studied indirectly. The library design goal is to extract an accurate representation of what the user wants and needs in a library & the environment. The commonest way of approaching this problem is by observation such as visiting other libraries and meeting other librarians on ALA Connect.

The library design assessment will be more meaningful when the individuals sketched a layout, constructed a scale model, or estimated distances between various elements, bookstacks, etc. The layout or sketched map of the library may be limited in its accuracy by such factors as the individuals drawing ability memory and problems with scale translation. If the map depicted a person’s activity patterns then some for the problems relating behavior patterns, the way people actually use space can be improved and reinforced.

Library environments are not thought of in the same way by their inhabitants – age, sex, as well as familiarity with the setting, the location of the various functions, reference, and meeting room tables all affect the way we feel about the library. Spatial cognition or understanding of the user interface may also be affected by visual or spatial abilities, personality and intelligence. Our Library Consultants help libraries transform services and space, technology and services. We know that a library can be a big traditional table with lighting and power or an open learning space. We know that living things and plants add to the learning environment.

We support libraries and bring them up to date. We are international library consultants and planners – Contact: Aaron Cohen Associates, LTD