ALIA West

June 2005

Building libraries for the twenty first century

A Library Week event hosted by the Academic and Research Libraries Group (WA)

The Academic and Research Libraries Group (WA) hosted an evening on 'Building libraries for the twenty first century' during library week. Our wonderful guest speakers were Jane Long from UWA's Biological Sciences Library, Sylvie Huveneers from Central TAFE's Learning Resource Centre and Dan Archibald from Edith Cowan University. We had a great attendance of 45 people who were interested in knowing more about library buildings.

Jane Long has been investigating library designs for a new science library to be built at UWA. It will combine five separate libraries and is due to open first semester 2008. She showed us University of Queensland's Ipswich campus library which is rather innovative with a rainforest and stream through the middle of the building. You can view photos at: http://www.library.uq.edu.au/ipswich/photogallery/photogallery2004.html.

She also talked about the University of Sydney's plans for a new science and technology library (due for completion mid-2007). Details are available at http://www.library.usyd.edu.au/libraries/scitech/.

The main considerations that Jane has seen as important are: meeting a range of individual requirements, an increase in group study areas, a large and well-equipped training room, facilities for other ancillary services, wireless enabled, video conferencing to support collaborative research and the library being seen as a learning space rather than a storehouse.

Sylvie Huveneers talked about Central TAFE's plans to have a new learning resource centre (LRC) in the next five years. The learning centre staff are being proactive and stating what is wanted to ensure their needs are met. The new LRC will be highly visible and at the centre of all student services. The project team are using a WIKI to get input from staff and students to ensure the LRC meets everyone's needs (go to http://www.seedwiki.com and search for 'Perth').

Sylvie also talked about the Technical University of Delft (where she used to work) which has a very unique design (see http://www.library.tudelft.nl/ws/113/f_EN.html and http://www.library.tudelft.nl/ws/185/f_EN.html) - so unique that they had to stop tourist buses and wedding groups from visiting! It is considered one of the most progressive libraries in the Netherlands. Other photos by the architect are available at http://www.mecanoo.com/ (click on English -> library and mouseover to find the libary for the Delft University of Technology).

Dan Archibald provided observations on the Edith Cowan University experience. He talked about today's students as being social, highly technical, multi-tasking, customer service expected, working 24x7, connected and demanding. This all must be considered when designing a new library building. Dan also talked about good library examples such as University of Otago Library (http://www.library.otago.ac.nz/admin/photos.html). While he has grand ideas for the new Joondalup Library (due to start construction in June this year and due for completion at the end of 2006), there are of course budget constraints. The new library will be a student focus for the university with group study rooms and a variety of seating, a combined library/IT facility, a megalab open 24x7, wireless enabled and including media services. The architects want all paths to lead to the library and are therefore wanting three entries/exits. Sorting out the security will be challenging! The aim is to be flexible (it's hard to predict the future) and get right those things that can't easily be changed.

The evening concluded with our guest speakers answering questions from the audience. All speakers agreed on the need for a 'wow' factor for their libraries and the importance of flexible spaces to help accommodate future needs. We all came away enthused (and envious) for those who are going to get to work in new library buildings!

Gill Westera, ARL committee member