Recently, I have been very fortunate to be invited to give reports and seminars on themes related to university libraries, learning commons, and learning research, and I have also had the opportunity to serve as a coordinator myself. I have been able to meet people I had wanted to meet but never had the chance to before. At the Library Fair in November, I was able to meet Professor Toshihiko Nozue of Aoyama Gakuin University, and at a seminar held in Kanazawa on December 8th, I met Riko Modegi of the University of Tokyo Komaba Library (Thank you, Ms. Modegi, for coming all the way from Tokyo in such stormy weather). These are people I have wanted to talk to for a long time. Thank you.
I myself am thinking about how university libraries can become more vibrant and serve as a “place of learning” that is appreciated not only by students but also by faculty and staff. When I was an undergraduate, I participated in English discussions in the ESS and used group discussion rooms for gathering information and confirming the logic of our arguments. I think the change since the days when we couldn’t engage in such activities without booking a group discussion room is unbelievable.
I have also had more opportunities to exchange opinions with library staff at seminars and symposia. Personally, through a three-university collaborative project for learning support involving the libraries of Nagoya University, Shizuoka University, and Kanazawa University, I have been cooperating with the Information Librarian project led by Section Chief Okabe of Nagoya University, and I have also been speaking with library staff from the Nagoya University Library and the Shizuoka University Library.
These are my thoughts based on these seminars. You might say, “I already know that,” but I want to write them down because I believe they are things we must not forget when considering the future of learning commons.
(1) There is a disparity in awareness among library staff
This is true for anything, but when an organization tries to accomplish something, there is a difference in awareness among the staff. This is not limited to staff; it is the same among faculty, just like faculty awareness regarding FD. There are library staff who think, “Isn’t it fine to keep doing things the way we have until now?” or “I want to keep doing my current job as much as possible,” and there are actually quite a few library staff who are potentially not proactive about learning support, even when the term “learning commons” comes up. However, building a learning commons involves a huge investment. If the topic of building a learning commons comes up within a university, it is necessary to unify awareness organizationally (I will explain later why I think this awareness is necessary). If you are organizationally against it, I would like you to list proactive reasons for not building a learning commons and actively bring it to a meeting to shift the direction. You would need to explain with objective information that “a learning commons does not fit our university’s educational policy and is unnecessary.” Also, if you personally dislike the increase in work, there is a right person for the right job in personnel placement, so shouldn’t you convey your placement request to your supervisor? What is worse is that even if a wonderful learning commons is built, there are library staff who only work with minimum effort. I recognize this as a very large and deep-rooted problem.
(2) The persistent “box-building” mentality
There may be something similar to the “delusions” about e-learning that appeared for a time. There was a period when delusions spread that “if you do e-learning, students will study outside of class, their grades will improve, and they will become proactive,” or “lesson preparation will become easier.” If such things were actually true, university faculty and staff would be having a much easier time by now, wouldn’t they? (laughs) Perhaps we Educational Technology researchers would be able to do research more easily (big laughs). There is no way that is the case. Learning is an affective behavior of a person. Even if you just prepare a box, whether they access it or whether they engage in effective learning is a different dimension. This is the same for learning commons. The idea that “if there is a learning commons, students will become proactive!” might create some excitement at first due to the novelty effect, but it does not mean it will be used successfully on an ongoing basis or that learning support services will continue. In fact, universities that are “seriously” thinking about learning support in learning commons are struggling. Many people participate in seminars thinking, “We are also thinking of building a learning commons,” but it is better to first understand the actual situation of other universities and what kind of awareness the staff in your own organization have.
(3) Continuous evaluation and improvement activities are required for the operation of a learning commons
Recently, I think the word “evaluation” is appearing at every university. I think every university library is starting various things, but what about the evaluation and improvement activities for them? It is better to consider them, including the evaluation methods. If you view learning support measures as a single service, you need to consider service evaluation and improvement. In companies, they evaluate and improve services as well as the forms and media that provide those services. That is normal. If a university library has a stance of providing learning support as a “place of learning,” it becomes necessary. If there are psychology faculty members on campus, you could ask them for consultation (they might refuse, as some faculty members can be difficult). However, please be sure to consult with them from the time of creating the questionnaire (survey) after clarifying what you want to investigate. It is troublesome if you come to consult only on analysis methods after collecting data. Through that, I would like you to also learn about questionnaire methods and statistical methods. If you want to involve faculty, proposing joint research related to education and learning is one option. This is also related to (4).
However, the effects of investments such as curriculum reform and the enhancement of spatial facilities do not appear immediately. We have experienced that it takes time for the effects of educational investment to appear during the period of compulsory education in elementary and junior high schools, and even in high schools and universities. This is something that the university management level must absolutely understand, but for those on the front lines, I want you to understand that it takes time for results to appear, and to continuously conduct quantitative and qualitative evaluations to track changes. It does not necessarily show up neatly in numbers. Also, I want you to understand that the characteristics of students change year by year. There are media that students are exposed to and educational experiences they have received in the past. There are many parts of the educational experiences we received that are no longer applicable. I recommend analyzing the current situation before considering learning support service plans (I have often talked about this at seminars, etc.).
(4) Toward reliable faculty-staff collaboration
At the 10th University Education Seminar held on December 8th the other day, Ms. Modegi from the University of Tokyo brought up the topic of building trust between faculty and staff during a panel discussion. As a university library with a learning commons, there may be a desire to collaborate with centers in charge of learning support, FD-related centers, foreign language education-related centers, or regional collaboration-related centers. There are also staff members who ask, “What should we do?” I recommend “proposal-based sales,” where you develop a public relations strategy and promote public relations activities, while at the same time proposing library usage plans and learning support plans suitable for each department. However, to do that, you need a channel. This is especially necessary to put it on the agenda in committees where faculty members are the main participants. Here, I think it is best to proceed at the grassroots level. Specifically, one idea is to bring the conversation to educational researchers under the framework of conducting joint research.
However, as I wrote in (1), to have reliable and continuous faculty-staff collaboration, a unified awareness among library staff is required. If you say things like, “Well, I’m being told by the upper management… (Are you doing it reluctantly?)” or “We don’t know anything… (Are you just dumping it on us?)”, the faculty side being consulted will naturally not feel good (this is true even if it’s not faculty, right?). If your attitude changes depending on who you are talking to, or if the person in charge is transferred and the successor’s way of thinking changes, trust will drop at once. In particular, many center-affiliated faculty members are engaged in quite high-load work. Including center-affiliated faculty, we faculty are not an outsourcing company. If you are going to request cooperation, you cannot build a continuous relationship unless you properly unify the system and awareness from the department head and section chief level.
It is troublesome to bring negative talk to such a place. The reason things went well in Kanazawa is largely because I felt the enthusiasm, the desire to change, the various idea proposals, and the strong desire to conduct joint research from Section Chief Okabe (currently the Information Service Section Chief at Nagoya University Library). It makes me think, “If there is such a staff member, let’s definitely cooperate!” One of the wonderful things about Section Chief Okabe is his way of thinking of “learning new things and putting them to use” and his ability to take action. This is something we faculty must not forget either.
That is all I have written about various things I thought. I think there are many people who think it is realistically difficult. However, thinking that way also means that the foundation for building a learning commons as a “place of learning” has not been built. To continuously build a learning commons as a wonderful “place of learning,” it involves a certain amount of hardship and work load. I think it is good to start a learning commons with that in mind. I would like to write again if I think of anything else.
