Purposely Repurposed: Duke's Link
This is a special guest contribution to :: repurposed :: by Shawn Miller, Academic Technology Consultant at Duke University's Center for Instructional Technology.
Sometimes it seems like everything I do is meta. As an Academic Technology Consultant for Duke University, I often find myself conducting research on researchers, learning about learning technologies and/or teaching teachers. My center (CIT) is also part of Duke Libraries, which means that I've been privy to the world of research librarians, without of course actually being a librarian. This also means that I can't resist reflecting on the library and its very fragile place within the academy.
People tend to think of the library as an archive (which it is) or a print media repository (which it also is). More recently, many libraries have adopted (and implemented) what's generally described as a "digital commons." The concept being - replace (some of) the books, but provide conduits to the same information. Where a row of books used to represent accumulated knowledge, we can now assume a computer terminal/kiosk does the same thing. However, once we reach the point where students no longer need to access desktop computers (as mobile devices and laptops reach near ubiquity) - what do we do with the space? Certainly the idea of students not needing to print is hard to imagine - but with e-ink and other technologies becoming more mature and affordable, it's only a matter of time.
Many of us now think of the library as a gathering place - a 'shared' space for accessing information, be it via computer terminal or conversation. But what about the library as a teaching space? The last few semesters, I've worked directly with faculty, staff and administrators to help open an experimental teaching and learning space built within Duke's Perkins Library. This space, called the Link, is a teaching space, first and foremost, created in some part as a means to test new pedagogies and technologies - in other words, the library also now has a direct role as an incubator for new ideas.
In looking at pictures of the Link, you may quickly dismiss it as another attempt to create a 'high-tech' set of classrooms to attract new students, donors, etc. The Link surely serves this purpose, even though the actual technology available in the Link is more modest than one might assume. The really impressive aspects of the Link are also its most individually banal: tables, chairs, whiteboards. What never ceases to amaze me is how several units came together to create this space, and managed to come up with something so supportive of what we've been calling "flexible learning."
Let's start with the furniture. Furniture in the Link is light and durable. Most of the chairs are equipped with wheels. The furniture itself is discursive. It strongly suggests to faculty new to the space that it should be moved, rearranged, reconfigured - whatever needs to be done. Here's an example of what I'm talking about. This Flickr set shows the same classroom reconfigured in four different ways to support four different pedagogical approaches:
Certainly many faculty prefer to try to arrange these classrooms to suit a traditional forward-facing lecturing style - but the mobility of the furniture remains a constant, whispering reminder that they could "try something different, try something new," and many in fact, do.
Open, glass walls show activity in the classrooms and in the halls. Many faculty and staff - who, during construction, strongly discouraged the use of glass walls - now prefer the energy and light provided by allowing the classroom to be 'opened up.' These spaces suggest interactivity, collaboration and interdisciplinarity...they do not, however, necessarily promote traditional, lecture-based pedagogies or the focused isolation of the lone library patron.
My favorite aspect of being involved with the Link project has been discovering students' reactions to, and interactions with, the space. Students constantly reinvent and re-interpret the space. For example, the Link features large whiteboard-filled walls (called "Walltalkers") that suggest work to be done - perhaps not just by the faculty, but by students as well. This 'Walltalker' set on Flickr reveals more than student work alone, however, but also their determination, humor, ingenuity and social strategies:
