Today, I visited the Library Fair & Forum. It was a very lively exhibition. Just walking around the booths was enjoyable. I realized that there are various library operations, and there are solutions for each of them. It is fascinating to see how many things are being implemented in areas we usually don’t pay much attention to.
This time, I gave a Report on cases from Kanazawa University and overseas at the session “Current Status and Challenges of Learning Support in Libraries,” moderated by Professor Yuhei Yamauchi of the University of Tokyo. Among national universities, Kanazawa University is quite proactive in providing support for informal learning, and due to the structure of the cafe, it is easy to collaborate with the university library to hold events. I talked about the events held there, as well as proposals for university library designs as “learning spaces” in the “Learning Environment Design Project” course that I teach. Regarding overseas cases, I also briefly discussed the results of my survey of university libraries and learning commons in Hong Kong and Singapore, which I visited this March, as well as examples from libraries in Australia and the United States.
There are many examples from various universities, and as was mentioned in the session following ours, coordinated by Professor Nozue of Aoyama Gakuin University, I felt that we must think about, clarify, and take action on how university libraries can contribute to education. For national universities, there are the second mid-term plans and annual plans, and Japanese universities have published admission policies, curriculum policies, diploma policies, and curriculum maps. I felt that we need to think about what we can do within those frameworks.
I will continue to work hard to produce good results in learning support at university libraries. The results of the field survey from this March are published below, so I hope you will take a look.
This Library Fair & Forum was very stimulating. Thank you very much.
Report on Overseas University Library Surveys by a Three-University Collaboration Project for Promoting Learning Support: Current Status of Learning Commons Development and Learning Support in University Libraries in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Australia
