Introduction
The Bundaberg State High School Library is a building which has been modified at least twice since it was built in the immediate post-WW2 period. Each refurbishment has extended the physical space and then altered them significantly. While it was originally built as a Memorial Library, built to house resources, it has grown to accommodate teaching spaces and student learning.
The main issue with the learning space relates to its design. Having been added to in spurts, and having a variety of demands placed on it means that it has to cater for a wide range of users and uses, from “normal” classes and break use, to vaccinations and school photos, information evenings, SET plan interviews, staff meetings, quiet study, distance education students, ICT assistance, textbooks and more. These are possibly the norm for most school libraries but it is now worth evaluating the effectiveness of the building.
Wider education context
The Future learning and school libraries report (ASLA, 2013) was written as an advocacy document for teacher librarians, showing the many ways that they contribute to student learning. It describes an “ever-changing (learning) landscape” (ASLA, 2013, p.9) which needs to address a number of aspects, one of which is “evolving spaces for learning” (p.9). Personalised learning is seen as the driving force behind the “increasing need for flexible and varied learning spaces” (ASLA, 2013, p.10), allowing students the option to move between spaces that suit their learning needs at the particular time. The learning environment is mentioned in other aspects and in fact, it is integral to the success of the other aspects, such as the development of a knowledge building environment which is both physical and virtual (ASLA, 2013, p.10).
However, the report is only brief and has to consider the large variety of school libraries and education sectors ASLA’s members come from. Consequently, it does not offer solutions to issues nor make recommendations about spaces, physical requirements and the like. This is hardly a fault of the report. Each school and space has to make its own decisions about how the library will be used and the report merely offers some broad directions to consider.
Queensland’s Department of Education and Training (DET) sees the school library as “integral to the teaching and learning process” and that they should seek to “create and develop motivating, flexible physical and digital learning spaces” (DET, 2014). Again, specific directions are left to the discretion of the school.
The relationship between public and school libraries is one which helped to initially define the nature of the spaces (Boyce, 2003), and indeed, public libraries now seem to be following some of the trends seen in schools, with areas for public wi-fi access, communal work, and makerspaces. She also mentions another key factor in library design, though, which is the “personal agendas of those who actually organise and manage library spaces” (p.23), or the teacher librarian, in other words. There is a degree of personal decision-making involved which has to be either aligned or at least negotiated with the needs of the wider school community. Boyce’s observation that school library spaces are “necessarily highly social spaces” (p.24) is at the crux of the issue for the school library being discussed here.
According to Boyce, public libraries were organised for the purposes of “administrative surveillance” and silent readership of the main resource contained within their walls, books and print materials (p.24). School libraries have a totally different clientele and subsequently, they will have a different set of organisational principles.
One connection between public and school spaces is described as café society (McWilliam, 2011), where the opening up of learning spaces can provide a sense of community, bringing people together in a space, allowing for “spatial diversity” (p.266). These spaces create positive messages about learning and show students that they are valued.
When young people enter a space for learning – whether physical or virtual or a combination of both – they receive strong messages about what their experience of learning is likely to be. If the messages they receive tell them that “something interesting might happen here”, that “people who are like me seem to enjoy being here” or that “there is something special going on here”, then they are much more likely to engage with the experiences that the environment affords.
(McWilliam, 2011, p.265)
However, do these attitudes to library and learning space design mean that the school library has to wholly reject “traditional” norms and become an extension of the playground? Have the norms of library usage changed? Do they differ substantially between public libraries and school libraries?
Implications
The perception of the school library as a “communal, public space” (Boyce, 2003, p.25) creates its own set of challenges, related to both the organisation of the learning spaces within and the behaviours of the users. The tension between preserving the needs of those students and staff who want to learn and work in a quiet space and those who see the space as an exciting and engaging place where they can interact with their peers and socialise is intensified when the space does not allow for the two to co-exist.
The issue might be related to the arrangement of the spaces, i.e. what space is located where within the building itself, and it might be related to the nature of the building itself, i.e. its construction materials and acoustics. The second of these, building materials and the nature of the built environment, is beyond the capacity of the school to re-engineer or alter. The original library was two rooms which were then extended in the late 1960s with extensive use of brick. The 2010 extensions simply added to the space and joined rooflines as best they could. This did not allow for much in the way of acoustic design.
The needs of the wider school community, mainly to have a large meeting space for staff, was another consideration in the redesign. Prior to this, the school had the assembly hall, opened in 1970 but it has no air-conditioning, poor acoustics and seating and limited audio-visual display options. Staff had also met in a double teaching space but that was also limited for holding over 100 teachers. The new space in the library can just hold the teaching staff but it is also approaching its limitations.
Originally, the redesign plans had located part of the resource collection in this space, mainly to separate some of the teaching areas to reduce noise. Having to cater for the staff meetings meant that this feature was lost.
Another implication, though, relates to the attitude of the users of the space. Many, seeing a space that accommodates them and others like them, seem to continue with their behaviours from the playground. This is especially so during the breaks. The ideal of the café-like classroom, with small clusters of students chatting amicably and reading quietly is quickly lost as they share excitement about a game on their device, or a game of chess, or just some item of school gossip. The design of the space with high ceilings and an atrium in the centre of the building means that voices carry very clearly from one end of the building to the other. The nature of the clientele, and a fair percentage of the junior student body has either been diagnosed with learning disabilities or special needs, mean that socialisation skills are often forgotten or adjusted as they mix with others.
Conclusion
From here, the school needs to consider how it will use the library space and whether there are more effective ways of achieving the desired outcomes. The library is an engaging space and it is certainly the hub of much of what happens in the school. However, in achieving that one goal, it is now worth considering at what cost?
References
Australian School Library Association. (2013). Future learning and school libraries. Canberra, ACT: ASLA.
Boyce, S. (2003). Spatial readings: the geopolitics of libraries, literacies and communications. In S. La Merca (Ed). Effective Learning Spaces (pp.21-36). Carlton, Victoria: School Library Association of Victoria.
Department of Education and Training (DET). (2014). Role of the school library. Available: http://education.qld.gov.au/library/support/role.html. Retrieved April 5, 2016.
Johnson, L., Adams Becker, S., Estrada, V., and Freeman, A. (2015). NMC Horizon Report: 2015 K-12 Edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium.
McWilliam, E. (2011). From school to café and back again: responding to the learning demands of the twenty-first century. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 14(3), 257-268.
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