Advances in Library Administration and Organization (Advances in Library Administration & Organization)

ADVANCES IN LIBRARY ADMINISTRATION AND ORGANIZATION

ADVANCES IN LIBRARY ADMINISTRATION AND ORGANIZATION Series Editors: Delmus E. Williams and Janine Golden Recent Volumes: Volume 1:

Edited by W. Carl Jackson, Bernard Kreissman and Gerard B. McCabe

Volumes 2–12:

Edited by Bernard Kreissman and Gerard B. McCabe

Volumes 13–20: Edited by Edward D. Garten and Delmus E. Williams Volume 21–24:

Edited by Edward D. Garten, Delmus E. Williams and James M. Nyce

Volume 25:

Edited by Edward D. Garten, Delmus E. Williams, James M. Nyce and Sanna Talja

Volume 26:

Edited by Edward D. Garten, Delmus E. Williams, James M. Nyce and Janine Golden

Volume 27:

Edited by William Graves III, James M. Nyce, Janine Golden and Delmus E. Williams

Volume 28:

Edited by Delmus E. Williams, James M. Nyce and Janine Golden

Volume 29:

Edited by Delmus E. Williams and Janine Golden

ADVANCES IN LIBRARY ADMINISTRATION AND ORGANIZATION VOLUME 30

ADVANCES IN LIBRARY ADMINISTRATION AND ORGANIZATION EDITED BY

DELMUS E. WILLIAMS Northcentral University, Prescott, AZ, USA

JANINE GOLDEN Texas Woman’s University, Denton, TX, USA

United Kingdom – North America – Japan India – Malaysia – China

Emerald Group Publishing Limited Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK First edition 2011 Copyright r 2011 Emerald Group Publishing Limited Reprints and permission service Contact: [email protected] No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying issued in the UK by The Copyright Licensing Agency and in the USA by The Copyright Clearance Center. No responsibility is accepted for the accuracy of information contained in the text, illustrations or advertisements. The opinions expressed in these chapters are not necessarily those of the Editor or the publisher. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-78052-014-8 ISSN: 0732-0671 (Series)

Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Howard House, Environmental Management System has been certified by ISOQAR to ISO 14001:2004 standards Awarded in recognition of Emerald’s production department’s adherence to quality systems and processes when preparing scholarly journals for print

CONTENTS LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

vii

INTRODUCTION

ix

A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE DISCOURSE ON ACADEMIC LIBRARIES AS LEARNING PLACES Catherine Closet-Crane THE RURAL PUBLIC LIBRARY AS PLACE: A THEORETICAL ANALYSIS Linda R. Most

1

51

A FRAMEWORK FOR INSTITUTIONAL REPOSITORY DEVELOPMENT Jennifer Campbell-Meier

151

INTERAGENCY COOPERATION IN JUVENILE DETENTION CENTER LIBRARY SERVICES: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE ISSUES Jennifer K. Sweeney

187

PERCEPTIONS OF SCHOOL LIBRARY MEDIA SPECIALISTS REGARDING THE PRACTICE OF INSTRUCTIONAL LEADERSHIP Virginia D. Martin

207

v

vi

CONTENTS

THE PERCEPTIONS OF HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS ON THE ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF LIBRARY MEDIA SPECIALISTS Kelli Steverson Ragle

289

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

335

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS Jennifer Campbell-Meier

School of Library and Information Studies, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, USA

Catherine Closet-Crane

School of Library and Information Management, Emporia State University, Emporia, KS, USA

Virginia D. Martin

Director of Media and Technology Integration, Savannah-Chatham County Public Schools, Savannah, GA, USA

Linda R. Most

MLIS Program, Odum Library, Valdosta State University, Valdosta, GA, USA

Kelli Steverson Ragle

Media Specialist, Ware County High School, Blackshear, GA, USA

Jennifer K. Sweeney

College of Information Science and Technology, Drexel University, Center for Graduate Studies, Sacramento, CA, USA

vii

INTRODUCTION I am thrilled to have been offered the opportunity to write the introduction for Volume 30. My beginnings with ALAO date back to 2008 when I was invited to assist with the editing of Volume 26 of the series. Since then I have seen a number of excellent research pieces submitted to this series for publication by distinguished scholars in the library field. This volume is no different. This series has always sought to appeal to practitioners, library and information science graduate students, and those working in associated fields of information management, and this volume continues that tradition What I do find in this particular volume that is a bit different, however, are research pieces that illustrate clear evidence of the nature of collaboration and cooperation within libraries and between libraries and the communities they serve. It features works that examine the relationship between space and place, institutional academic libraries and the faculty, school library media specialists and their colleagues and administrators in the schools, librarians serving juvenile offenders and others working in the facilities that house them, and library funding raising and university development offices. In the first chapter Catherine Closet-Crane discusses the constitution of interpretative repertoires and offers comment about how one constructs an academic library as a learning place. Her discussion of the introduction and design of the information and learning commons and libraries designed for learning is an important contribution to our understanding of the space we occupy and its effects on our operations and those we serve. Her analysis of the extensive literature produced by the library and information science (LIS) community as it sorts through space utilization in academic libraries provides a basis for future discourse on the information and learning commons; the construction of new types of libraries on the commons model proposed by Beagle; and the metamorphosis of the library into a business organization, summarizing past contributions into a more understandable body of theory. She concludes that the discourse so far has taken a facilities management perspective dominated by concerns with technology, equipment, and space requirements and that we must next build on this to develop an understanding of the physical, psychological, and environmental qualities of library space design. Her research suggests that architectural programming techniques should be used in library planning and design that consider the architectural ix

x

INTRODUCTION

features and environmental design factors contributing to the creating that facilitates learning. Like Closet-Crane, Linda R. Most’s chapter discusses the library as place, but her focus is on public rather than academic libraries. Ms. Most’s goal for her study was to understand how the Gadsden County Florida Public Library System’s adult users view and use their public library buildings as places. While Closet-Crane drew on a large number of studies relating to academic library space and while some large metropolitan libraries have examined their space, very little work has been done to determine the role of the physical library in defining small towns and rural counties. Most questions how these newly constructed buildings in Florida are viewed by their users and the roles these places play in defining their communities. Most investigates the role of public library buildings as destinations, physical places where people go for various reasons ranging from making use of the library’s resources and services or seeking to fulfill an information or reading need to less easily identified reasons to include using the library’s building as a place to make social or business contacts, to build or reinforce community or political ties, or to create or reinforce a personal identity. In so doing, she provides a good analysis of the library as both a service agency and an institution at the center of places that might otherwise be difficult to identify. The Campbell-Meier and Sweeney chapters follow. Although the studies concern two very different types of libraries, both focus on emerging challenges that can best be addressed by fostering the kinds of cooperation and collaboration between librarians and other elements within their environments that are necessary for libraries to address their user’s needs. Campbell-Meier talks about how libraries at academic institutions are working with faculty to develop institutional repositories designed to help these institutions retain the rights to self-archive and redistribute scholarly work produced on campus. In this way, they are moving to become ‘‘aggregators and distributors’’ of information. By coordinating this effort, institutional libraries increase ‘‘institutional visibility and prestige’’ and help to develop a new publishing paradigm for scholarly communication. Even so, according to Campbell-Meier, repositories have been slow to develop in the United States, and many librarians involved in the IR developmental process are frustrated by the pace at which they are developing. Sweeney summarizes the results of interviews with librarians in the field who are working with institutionalized juvenile offenders to see how cooperative efforts can improve the effectiveness of these efforts. She defines cooperation and collaboration using interagency literature drawn from the literature of library and information science, public administration, and the

Introduction

xi

social services to develop a case for the kind of cooperative efforts required to provide library services to young people in detention. She notes that library cooperation with other detention facility departments has been noted as raising issues for libraries in several areas, to include: (1) working with complex administrative policies and structures for housing, educating, and treating youth, (2) understanding the various roles of corrections staff and in communicating with them, (3) sorting out differences in expectations and understanding of basic library purpose, and (4) integrating library services into educational and other programs. The next two pieces relate to issues arising from the work of the school library media specialist. Martin provides a study on school library media specialists’ view of the roles they were being asked to play, and the importance of the areas in which the school library media specialists (SLMSs) were expected to exhibit leadership and the opportunities provided for them to actually practice those roles. The results of Martin’s research indicated that SLMSs perceived all the leadership roles to be more important than the emphasis they could place on them. In addition, they concluded that supportive administrators were the most essential factor in providing SLMSs the opportunity to practice and expand their roles as instructional leaders. Concluding the volume, Kelli Steverson Ragle’s study discusses teachers’ perceptions of how effectively their school media specialists are performing various roles within the school and how those ratings relate to the importance they (the classroom teachers) perceive those roles to be. She also addressed the correlations between high school teachers’ demographic information and both the importance of and the practice of the roles of the high school library media specialist. Del and I hope that as you read through these chapters you appreciate the ways in which library services in all these areas depend on and reinforce the environments in which these organizations work. The spirit of cooperation and collaboration running through these pieces between libraries and the larger community reinforces the idea that library work must fit within and reflect its environment spawning broad partnerships with other professionals. When this happens, services improve, for, as Sweeney noted, ‘‘Working together can produce more value. Contributions of different entities can create a synergy where the final product becomes more valuable than the accomplishments of any one individual or organization working alone.’’ Janine Golden Editor

This page intentionally left blank

A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE DISCOURSE ON ACADEMIC LIBRARIES AS LEARNING PLACES Catherine Closet-Crane ABSTRACT The professional discourse on academic library planning and design is examined. A critical realist philosophical stance and a constructionist perspective constitute the theoretical framework that, paired with Fairclough’s methodology for critical discourse analysis, is used to examine the constitution of interpretative repertoires and of a discourse constructing the academic library as a learning place. The information commons, learning commons, and library designed for learning repertoires are described and the effects of discursive activity are analyzed. Three types of effects are presented: (1) the production by the LIS community of discourse on academic libraries of a sizable body of literature on the information commons and on the learning commons, (2) the construction of new types of libraries on the commons model proposed by Beagle, and (3) the metaphorization of the library as business. The study concludes that the existing discourse takes a facilities management perspective dominated by concerns with technology, equipment, and space requirements that does not address the physical, psychological, and environmental qualities of library space design. Consequently, it is suggested that architectural programming techniques should be used in library planning and design that consider the architectural features and environmental Advances in Library Administration and Organization, Volume 30, 1–50 Copyright r 2011 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0732-0671/doi:10.1108/S0732-0671(2011)0000030004

1

2

CATHERINE CLOSET-CRANE

design factors contributing to the making of a place where learning is facilitated. Keywords: Library as place; academic library; learning commons; critical discourse analysis; library planning and design In the last 15 years, there has been a rise in academic library construction and renovation projects on university campuses throughout North America. Allegedly supporting the current student-centered technology-enabled approach to undergraduate education, information and learning commons equipped with the latest information technologies (ITs) have become important new features of academic library design. In the professional literature, a number of monographs written or edited by academic library administrators and librarians attest to the development of a discursive stream on the information and learning commons within the profession (e.g., Beagle, 2006; Bailey & Tierney, 2008; Shader, 2008; Forrest & Halbert, 2009). Meanwhile, a discursive stream on the value of the ‘‘academic library as space and place’’ has also emerged in the professional literature (e.g., Acker & Miller, 2005; Bennett, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007a, 2007b, 2008; Boone, 2003, 2004; Shill & Tonner, 2003a, 2003b, 2004). Being a library and information science (LIS) educator who also has a background and professional experience in architecture, I have been particularly interested in discussions of library planning and design. In several conversations at library organization conferences in regional, national, and international contexts, librarians shared with me the challenges they encountered with the architectural design process and communication with architects and their own frustrated attempts at translating the concept of library as place into service and building planning practices. While librarians were lamenting that ‘‘architects just don’t get it’’ I was wondering about what is happening during professional exchanges between librarian and architects and whether librarians ‘‘get’’ what architects need to know, how they work, and what they can/cannot do. Because it seemed impractical to travel around Northern America and spend time observing what takes place during library design projects from beginning to end in order to understand how librarians talk about library architecture, design, and the library as place, I decided instead to explore the existing discourse developed in the professional literature on library planning and design. In this chapter, I describe the exploratory research I completed as part of my doctoral dissertation (2008–2009). Pairing critical realism and social constructionism to constitute a metatheoretical framework for using critical

A Critical Analysis of the Discourse on Academic Libraries

3

discourse analysis (CDA) as methodology, I attempted to answer the simple question: What is going on in professional discussions of library planning and design that attempt to (re)-define the academic library as space and place in the 21st century? Three secondary research questions guided my analysis Q1: How is a discourse about the academic library as space and place constituted in LIS discussions of academic library planning and design? Q2: What are possible explanations for the formation of this discourse? Q3: What are possible outcomes and effects of constituting the academic library in this way for the future of academic librarianship and the planning and design of academic libraries? My intended contribution with this chapter is to provide to library professionals a description of the existing discourse and to bring attention to the fact that it carries implications for the way our community conceives of academic library planning and design. While the results of discourse analysis show the construction of the academic library as a learning place as an object of discourse, critical analysis highlights discursive mechanisms that effect the metaphorization of the academic library as business against the backdrop of the marketization of higher education (the university as a business). Analysis also shows that academic library design tends to be conceptualized from a space management perspective; it is suggested that it would be useful instead to bring in an architectural programming perspective and an environment-behavior approach to design.

THE LIBRARY AS SPACE AND PLACE IN THE LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SCIENCE LITERATURE Within the LIS literature of the last 15 years, themes can be identified that describe various aspects of the library as space and place. Dominant themes include accessibility to information resources and information and communication technologies (e.g., Beagle, 1999, 2002), symbolism (e.g., Jackson & Hahn, 2008), academic community building (e.g., Davenport, 2006), learning place (e.g., Bennett, 2006, 2008), public place (e.g., Leckie & Hopkins, 2002), and third place (e.g., Fang, 2008). Within a discourse analytical perspective, these new ways of talking and writing about the library constitute interpretative repertoires and orders of discourse.

4

CATHERINE CLOSET-CRANE

The term library as place is ‘‘a phrase much in vogue in the library world’’ (Stoeger Wilke, 2006, p. 1). It has been liberally used as if its meaning were transparent; however, there is no consensus on a definition. Instead, as evidenced in Library as Place: Rethinking Roles, Rethinking Spaces (CLIR, 2005) and The Library as Place; History, Community, and Culture (Buschman & Leckie, 2007) there is a range of perspectives on the concept of the library as space and place. The term library as place has sometimes been used simply to differentiate the physical, architectural, and sometimes monumental embodiment of the library as opposed to the library as institutional entity (e.g., Bjarrum & Cranfield, 2004; Delambre, 2004; Dowlin, 2004; Foote, 2004). In many instances, it has also been used to place the physical library in opposition to the digital library and the digital world of the library (e.g., Templeton, 2008). Sometimes, the expression library as space and place has been used to refer to the functions of the library as archive and repository (Ross & Sennyey, 2008), while at others, concerns for space planning, facilities management, and other aspects of the physical plant have been emphasized (e.g., Beagle, 1999; Connaway, 2005; Kratz, 2003; Martin, 2004; The´lot & Mayeur, 2004; Thomas, 2000; Wills, 2004). The more theoretical or conceptual writings have situated the library as place by relating it to the purpose the library fulfills or the function it performs for a community of users, and to the role the library plays in its community and in society (e.g., Alstad & Curry, 2003; Bennett, 2006; Bulpitt, 2004; Eigenbrodt, 2008; Fisher, Saxton, Edwards, & Mai, 2007; Gayton, 2008; Hersberger, Sua, & Murray, 2007; Leckie & Hopkins, 2002; Leckie, 2004; Owusu-Ansah, 2001; Templeton, 2008; Waxman, Clemons, Banning, & McKelfresh, 2007). More rarely, the term library as place has been used to refer to the environment the library offers in ways that evoke the concept of sense of place as it is used in the fields of cultural and human geography, architecture, environmental design, and planning. In those fields, concepts of space and place are associated with a phenomenological perspective that allows the study of emotional or affective connections between people and places. The experience of space and place that is the focus of such studies has been defined by Yi Fu Tuan as ‘‘sense of place’’ (1977). Such an approach to research on the library as space and place has been extremely rare in the field of LIS research; however, the pioneering work of Gloria Leckie and her collaborators is noteworthy for bringing this perspective into the scholarly discourse on libraries as places (Leckie & Hopkins, 2002; Given & Leckie, 2003; Leckie, 2004).

A Critical Analysis of the Discourse on Academic Libraries

5

ACADEMIC LIBRARY PLANNING AND DESIGN IN THE LIS LITERATURE Library practitioners and administrators have regularly discussed the planning and design of academic libraries and their buildings in the professional literature. Publications by professional organizations, international conferences, seminars, and courses in the LIS programs at some North American universities are further evidence of the existence of a field of discourse around that topic. Theoretical, conceptual, and some programmatic issues have been examined; nevertheless architectural programming and design have seldom been discussed in any depth. Academic Libraries: Their Rationale and Role in American Higher Education (McCabe & Person, 1995) provides a point of departure for understanding the evolution of the discourse on academic libraries since 1995. Two of the chapters in this book are genealogically relevant in that they discuss the place and role of the library in the institution (Euster in McCabe & Person, 1995, pp. 1–13) and the future of academic libraries and librarians (Scepanski in McCabe & Person, 1995, pp. 165–175). Since the year 2000, three important reports have provided directions for envisioning the roles that academic libraries can play in the digital age (CLIR, 2002, 2003, 2005). They have made a case for designing academic libraries as spaces and places that support learning (CLIR, 2003) and called for new ways of thinking about the roles and spaces of the library (CLIR, 2005). In 2005, an important essay written by Bennett called for a paradigm shift from ‘‘a service to a learning culture’’ to guide planning and design of the academic library of the future (CLIR, 2005, p. 11). In it, Bennett presented a constructive critique of academic library directors’ space planning methods focusing on library service and operation (2005, p. 11). He pointed to the need to develop planning principles that would incorporate the social dimension of learning, focus on the nature of the desired educational experience, and be based on a systematic knowledge of how students learn (CLIR, 2005, pp. 11–13). To illustrate his views, Bennett reported on an exemplary case where a systematic study of student learning behaviors on campus had been undertaken as part of planning for a new library (CLIR, 2005, pp. 13–21). He pointed to the importance of the emotional and psychological aspects of people–place relationships and suggested that library space design should integrate elements of design that emotionally connect people with feelings of domesticity (CLIR, 2005, p. 21).

6

CATHERINE CLOSET-CRANE

Over 80 journal articles were collected and scanned in the course of this study, and about 75% of them were carefully reviewed in the process of selecting suitable texts for discourse analytical research. Most of the periodical literature relevant to my study was found in four sources that target a professional audience: The Journal of Academic Librarianship (JAL), New Library World, Research Strategies, and ACRL publications. Fig. 1 summarizes the distribution of journal articles. Because the LIS literature on academic library planning and design was the focus of my research, a discourse analytical perspective is taken to describe it in terms of its dominant authorial figures, genres, and themes found to be relevant features of this segment of the LIS literature. Dominant Authors in the Area Donald Beagle, Director of Library Services at Belmont Abbey College since 2000, and Scott Bennett, a University Librarian Emeritus from Yale University, are the most frequently cited authors in the 64 papers that were reviewed. Beagle is a dominant voice in a discursive thread on the information commons. He published the seminal article for the conceptualization of information commons in 1999 using concepts of strategic fit and functional integration from Strategic Alignment theory. Beagle (1999, p. 82) proposed a framework for developing the information commons service model and associated space planning and design. In 2004, using the concept of change dynamics, Beagle presented a new framework to explain the evolution from the information to the learning commons at the Leavey Library Conference

Journal of Academic Librarianship 20 ACRL publications 7 Research Strategies 7 New Library World 5 Other LIS 22 Other non-LIS 3

Fig. 1.

Distribution of Reviewed Articles Across Journals.

A Critical Analysis of the Discourse on Academic Libraries

7

2004 in Los Angeles (Beagle, 2004). In 2006, he published The Information Commons Handbook (Beagle, 2006), offering a guide for librarians who seek to ‘‘[position their] library to take advantage of collaboration, technology, and educational movements’’ (de Jong, 2007). Most recently, Beagle (2009) discussed the historical evolution of the learning commons out of the information commons movement. Bennett (2006, 2007a, 2007b, 2008) is one of the leading voices of a thread in the literature on the library designed for learning (LDL), and published four of the articles reviewed. He is also the author of the CLIR (2003) report Libraries Designed for Learning and of the essay ‘‘Righting the Balance’’ in the CLIR (2005) report Library as Place: Rethinking Roles, Rethinking Space. Genres The articles reviewed belonged predominantly to the ‘‘position paper’’ or ‘‘conceptual paper’’ genre. In addition, a few of the articles were strategyoriented and written in a prescriptive style, and the rest were of the genre ‘‘research paper’’ and reported on empirical studies and library case studies. One article was a mixed genre research/position paper that made prescriptive recommendations based on the results of surveys (Bennett, 2007b). Table 1 provides a summary of the genre analysis of this literature. With few exceptions, research papers included studies of library users’ behavior, library usage patterns, library space use, and users’ perceptions of the academic library. Bolin (2005) examined organizational patterns at land grant universities. Boone (2003) surveyed the paradigm shift ‘‘in our understanding of the form and functions of library facilities’’ (p. 358) as it is reflected in the move away from the traditional repository conception of the library to complex, enhanced, interactive, and multifunctional research environments. Finally Shill and Tonner (2003a) reviewed the physical improvements in library buildings and facilities for the period 1995–2002. Their article was followed by a presentation on facility improvements and library usage at the ACRL 11th National Conference (2003b) and a companion article reviewing usage patterns in new and remodeled libraries over the period 1995–2002 (Shill & Tonner, 2004). Together the articles by Shill and Tonner (2003a, 2004) provided a background for changes in academic library planning, design, and uses over nearly half of the period covered in my research. A notable characteristic of the research papers reviewed was the use by a few of the researchers of methodologies uncommon in LIS. Potthoff et al. (2000) used personal construct theory and chose the Role Repertory Grid

8

CATHERINE CLOSET-CRANE

Table 1.

Periodical Articles and Essays: Summary of Genres.

Article Genre Position/conceptual

Strategy oriented Research Topics: library users’ behavior, library usage patterns, users’ perceptions of the academic library, and library space use.

References Bailey and Tierney (2002), Bailey-Hainer and Forsman (2005), Beagle (1999, 2009), Bennett (2006, 2007a, 2008), Bosseau (1998), Braverman (2000), Carlson (2001), Connaway (2005), Davenport (2006), Gayton (2008), Hartman (2000), Hernon (2002), Kohl (2006), Kratz (2003), Mann (2007), O’Connor and Bennett (2005), Riggs (2000, 2001, 2002), Ross and Sennyey (2008), Seadle (2002), Snavely (2000), Spencer (2006), Van Pelt (2000). Dodsworth (1998), Hiller (2004), Thomas (2000). Antell and Engel (2006), Bennett (2007b), Bolin (2005), Boone (2003), Engel and Antell (2004), Freund and Seale (2007), Gust and Haka (2006), Houlihan (2005), Lefebvre (2002), Ludwig and Starr (2005), Malenfant (2006), Meernik (2004), Pavlovsky (2005), Potthoff , Weis, Montanelli, and Murbach (2000), Revill (1997), Shill and Tonner (2003a, 2004), Simons, Young, and Gibson (2000); Spencer (2007), Suarez (2007), Waxman et al. (2007), Whitmire (2001).

Procedure to evaluate patrons’ perceptions of library space to help solve a real library space problem. Whitmire (2001) examined the use patterns of undergraduate students during their first three years of college by analyzing statistical data that was collected for the National Study of Student Learning for the period 1992–1995. In the area of health sciences librarianship, Ludwig and Starr (2005) used the Delphi Group approach to study the library as place. They used a technique similar to focus groups for gathering data and for generating ideas among 30 experts who participated in a panel that included librarians, architects, designers, space planners, and administrators. Suarez (2007) examined ‘‘study behavior as example of educationally purposeful activities’’ in a case study that focused on study areas in an academic library. She used ethnographic methods of participant observation and semistructured interviews. To examine the academic library as place, Waxman et al. (2007) used mixed methods – observation, interviews of library administrators, and the answers to a questionnaire and field notes of 44 students sent out in the ‘‘field’’ to document the location and physical characteristics of their third place spaces.

A Critical Analysis of the Discourse on Academic Libraries

9

Themes Two broad themes clearly dominated the literature reviewed, the library as learning space and the library as information center for the digital age (Table 2). After closer examination, it appeared that, within the library as information center themed segment of the literature, the term information commons was used to designate a service model, and a particular type of space within the library where computer workstations are used to access electronic resources for learning, research, and knowledge production (Cowgill, Beam, & Wess, 2001; Samson & Oelz, 2005). According to Crockett, McDaniel, and Remy (2002, p. 16), the initial service model for the information commons was the Leavey Library, which opened in 1994 at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and was heralded as a gateway library. In the library as learning center themed segment of the literature, the term learning commons tended to be used in relation to discussions of physical library facilities that combined a variety of services that focused on learning activities and knowledge creation and included the information commons. However, another discursive thread presented the academic library more simply as a space designed for learning (Albanese, 2006; Bennett, 2003, 2006, 2007a, 2007b; Forrest & Hinchliffe, 2005; Seaman, 2006). Therefore, a closer reading of the literature highlighted the further subdivision of the broad themes of library as learning space and library as information center

Table 2.

Summary of Themes Developed in Periodical Articles and Essays.

Article Theme Library as learning space

Library as digital age information center

References Baker (2000), Bennett (2006, 2007a, 2007b, 2008), Forrest and Hinchliffe (2005), O’Connor and Bennett (2005), OwusuAnsah (2001), Pelster (2000), Revill (1997), Seaman (2006), Simons, Young, & Gibson (2000), Snavely (2000), Spencer (2007), and Van Pelt (2000). Bailey and Tierney (2002), Beagle (1999), Cowgill, Beam, and Wess (2001), Crockett, McDaniel, and Remy (2002), Dewey (2002), Forrest and Hinchliffe (2005), Halbert (1999), Kratz (2003), MacWhinnie (2003), Malenfant (2006), Samson and Oelz (2005), Spencer (2006), Tramdack (1999).

10

CATHERINE CLOSET-CRANE

for the digital age into three major discursive threads: (1) the learning commons, (2) the information commons, and (3) the LDL. A few authors advocated the design of libraries jointly used by different types of patrons – public and academic – (Riggs, 2000, 2002), or of library buildings jointly used by two or more distinct service providers (Kratz, 2003; Bolin, 2005; Seaman, 2006). Thomas (2000) and Connaway (2005) advocated the design of physical space inside the library adapted for the coexistence of virtual services and collections in the spirit of the information commons.

PHILOSOPHICAL FRAMEWORK Roy Bhaskar’s critical realist philosophy recognizes the mind-independent reality of objects of knowledge as well as individual and social perceptions of their reality (for a compilation of essential readings on critical realism, see Archer, Bhaskar, Collier, Lawson, & Norrie, 1998). Although the constructionist stance dominates a large proportion of LIS research, the practice of research activities relies, de facto, on a realist ontological view of research objects (Smith, 2006). Among LIS scholars, some have been struggling with this contradiction, and in the last six years, leading an emerging trend, a few scholars have called for the use of realist or critical realist perspectives in LIS research. Criticizing much of the LIS research for ignoring real and actual dimensions (in the critical realist sense) of the information world, Hjørland (2004) has argued for the reintroduction of realism, which claims the existence of a mind-independent reality, as a philosophical framework in LIS research. Others in LIS have built a strong case for the fruitfulness of critical realism as philosophy and social theory for interdisciplinary LIS research (Wikgren, 2005; Dobson, 2002; Mingers, 2004; Smith, 2006; Jashapara, 2007). More recently, Budd, Hill, and Shannon (2010, p. 269) have proposed a realist approach to answering LIS ‘‘[research] questions that matter’’ that explicitly uses Bhaskar’s critical realism to build the ontological basis with which a phenomenological approach to inquiry and method can be combined. These authors convincingly showed that it was not only possible but also desirable to supplement the social constructionist metatheoretical framework generally associated with qualitative research in LIS with a realist ontological stance. Like them, I have approached my research from a framework that couples a critical realist ontological perspective with a social constructionist epistemological approach and is hospitable to a discourse analytical methodology.

A Critical Analysis of the Discourse on Academic Libraries

11

In LIS, Tuominen, Talja, and Savolainen (2002) have made a convincing argument for their version of constructionism that is based on an understanding of discourse, cognition, and reality contingent on the premise that ‘‘we produce and organize social reality together by using language’’ (p. 278, emphasis added). According to Tuominen (2005), the adoption of constructionism as a metatheory shifts the focus of LIS research on to discourse practices such as talk, interaction, and language use in various contexts. Suominen (2008) describes the discourse analytical social constructionist view taken by Talja, Tuominen, and Savolainen as being ‘‘perhaps the most vital approach among the metatheoretical trends within LID [library, information, and documentation studies]’’ (p. 175). The scholarly works of Savolainen, Talja, and Tuominen have been seminal in the development of the philosophical framework for my dissertation research, although Talja was probably the most powerful source of inspiration for me. From outside LIS, the work of critical discourse analyst Norman Fairclough has also been of essential importance to the full elaboration of my research approach and my decision to combine a critical realist ontological stance with a social constructionist epistemology in order to conform better to my beliefs about the nature of my research object and of the available ways of knowing about it.

METHODOLOGY The methodological framework surrounding my research design was CDA as it was developed by Fairclough (1992a, 1992b, 1993, 2001b, 2001c, 2003, 2005a, 2005b, 2005c, 2005d). Derived from Foucauldian analysis, Fairclough’s version of CDA is textually oriented discourse analysis based on a critical realist’s ontology that focuses on the social character of texts (Fairclough, 2005c). The researcher’s role is to map relationships between discourse and social practices, to critique these relationships, and to suggest directions for initiating change in the real world if desirable. To guide the design of my study, I used the five stage methodological approach for practicing CDA outlined by Fairclough (2001b, pp. 236–239, 2003, pp. 209–210).  Stage 1: articulation of the research problem and identification of a sample of texts (corpus) that embody the object of analysis.  Stage 2: discourse analysis and description. This stage consists in analytical work on three levels: social practice, discursive practice, and text (Fairclough, 1992a, pp. 231–238). The analysis of discursive practices

12

CATHERINE CLOSET-CRANE

is oriented along three lines: (a) structural analysis focuses on the identification of a network of interpretative repertoires or of orders of discourse; (b) textual analysis examines what goes on in the text, what goes on between texts, and how discourses and genres are worked together or articulated (Chouliaraki & Fairclough, 1999, p. 63); and (c) the analysis of texturing aims to examine what the text ‘‘does’’ and how it does it (Fairclough, 2003, pp 209–210).  Stage 3: interpretation and critique. In order to develop an explanatory critique, the researcher must (a) examine the function the discourse under study may have in the social practice (what purposes it serves) and (b) consider what the possible real effects of discourse are or could be (Fairclough, 2003, pp. 209–210).  Stage 4: explanation and more critique. This is the last stage of the critical analysis of discourse. The analyst examines the effects of discourse and hypothesizes as to the effects of its alternatives. The kinds of questions the analyst must ask are ‘‘What alternative discourses are being suppressed by the discourse under study? What possibilities for action are being ignored as a result of the discourse? Are there possibilities for change?’’  Stage 5: self-analysis. The researcher needs to reflect critically on stages 1–4 of the analysis and must be able to explain how she or he is socially positioned (Fairclough, 2003, pp. 209–210). The self-reflective process aims to answer axiological concerns regarding the positioning of the analyst toward the research object; it takes place throughout the analytical process. The analyst works at the same time, or back and forth, and repetitively on each stage of the analysis and on different texts. A great deal of time and effort go into reading and rereading texts at every stage of the discourse analytical process, which is fundamentally recursive (see Fig. 2). Research Design Assumptions and Guiding Research Questions From the very beginning, three assumptions guided the articulation of my research design: 1. Academic librarianship is an area of social life associated with a network of social practices that ‘‘articulate discourse together with non-discoursal social elements’’ that are action and interaction, social relations, and the material world (Fairclough, 2003, p. 25). 2. There exists a discourse or field of discourse in academic librarianship.

13

A Critical Analysis of the Discourse on Academic Libraries

Definition of research problem Data selection texts selection constitution of corpus

Textual analysis Discourse description genre(s) discourses called upon creation of identity

Discourse analysis Interpretation & critique interdiscursivity intertextuality critique

Critical discourse analysis Explanation & critique Social analysis,

Analytical stages

Feedback loops correspond to iterative analyses

Problem identification

function of discourse effects

Alternative discourses?

Fig. 2.

Fairclough’s Methodological Process for Critical Discourse Analysis.

3. Within this field of discourse, there exists an order of discourse about the academic library as space and place. Based on those assumptions, the overarching research question was Q: What is going on in professional discussions of library planning and design that attempt to (re)-define the academic library as space and place in the 21st century?

14

CATHERINE CLOSET-CRANE

A series of relatively simple questions were developed to give direction to my analysis of discourse. Q1: How is a discourse about the academic library as space and place constituted in LIS discussions of academic library planning and design? Q1.1: How is the discourse about the academic library as space and place constituted in a corpus (sample) of LIS texts from 1995 to 2009? Q1.2: Who constructs the discourse? Q1.3: To whom is this discourse directed? Who is the targeted audience? Q1.4: How is the discourse disseminated? Q1.5: What is constructed through the discourse? Q1.6: What is left unsaid or suppressed in and through the discourse? Q2: What are possible explanations for the formation of this discourse? Q3: What are possible outcomes and effects of constituting the academic library in this way for the future of academic librarianship and the planning and design of academic libraries? Data Selection The primary data used for discourse analytical research are texts. However, the constitution of a sample of texts (also referred to as a corpus) is value laden. Taylor (2001a) warns that ‘‘discourse analysis is not a neutral, technical form of processing but always involves y decision making’’ (p. 24). In keeping with the theoretical principles of CDA, the primary criteria established for the consideration of a text to be included in the corpus are that it should have ‘‘an obvious social or institutional significance’’ (Taylor, 2001b, p. 316) and that it should present interesting discursive features and mechanisms that can be analyzed using Fairclough’s approach to CDA. For each text considered for inclusion in this corpus, the following questions had to be answered in the affirmative: Is this text significant in regard to the discourse on academic librarianship? Is this text significant in planning and designing the academic library as space and place? Is there something interesting and worth examining going on here? Identifying Important Texts Important texts are those associated with changes in practices or produced in relation to a particular event, and they can be easily compared or contrasted (Phillips & Hardy, 2002, pp. 73–74). The preliminary analysis of the themes developed in the literature on academic library planning and

A Critical Analysis of the Discourse on Academic Libraries

15

design showed that three discursive threads – the information commons, the learning commons, and the LDL – have dominated discussions of academic library planning and design since 1995. Therefore, texts that took up one or more of these dominant topics were first isolated. Positioning myself both as a discourse analyst seeking to describe and explicate discourse formation about the ‘‘academic library as place,’’ and as an architect seeking to understand from that discourse librarians’ vision of the academic library as a particular type of environment, I extracted 12 texts for potential study from the body of texts that discussed the information commons, the learning commons, or the LDL. Texts by Beagle (1999, 2004, 2009) and Bennett (2003, 2005, 2006, 2007a, 2008) were automatically included because the dominance of these writers as authorial figures had already been established. The texts by Halbert (1999) and Tramdack (1999) were included based on Bailey and Tierney’s (2002) judgment that ‘‘in 1999, Donald Beagle, together with commentators Martin Halbert and Philip Tramdack, presented substantive theoretical and applied road maps for an integrated Information Commons in an academic environment.’’ Also, the three texts by Beagle (1999), Halbert (1999), and Tramdack (1999) constitute a series of interrelated articles published together in one issue of the JAL. The texts by Bailey and Tierney (2002), Boone (2003), and Spencer (2006) were retained based on a preliminary analysis of their content and for the intertextual and interdiscursive relationships existing between them and the other texts. In order to assess the importance of all the texts, I also performed citation analyses using ‘‘Social Science Search’’ and ‘‘Google Scholar’’ for comparison (results of citations analyses performed in 2009 are presented in Table 3). Finally, one more text by Beagle (2009) was added for analysis at the time of its publication, late in the research process, because it articulates the evolution of the academic library as learning commons. For each of the texts for which the data was available, I also studied the controlled vocabularies used to describe them in the ‘‘Library Literature & Information Full Text’’ database. This last step helped me select eight texts to constitute the text sample for the CDA corpus (Table 4). The articles by Bailey and Tierney (2002) and Spencer (2006) were eliminated from the text sample after close reexamination of their content because they do not discuss issues of academic library planning (this was further reinforced by the absence of the descriptor ‘‘Architecture & Buildings’’ from the controlled vocabulary). The article by Boone (2003) was also eliminated because, although it discusses a paradigm shift in the design and development of academic library buildings, its main focus is on a new service concept.

16

CATHERINE CLOSET-CRANE

Table 3.

Citation Analyses (Performed December 2008).

Author and Date of Texts Considered

Times Cited Social Science Search

Google Scholar

8 19 No data 12 2 2 1 No data No data 6 No data 3

56a 103 11 26 10 6 2 1 10 19 9 5

Bailey and Tierney (2002) Beagle (1999) Beagle (2004) Bennett (2003) Bennett (2005) Bennett (2006) Bennett (2007a) Bennett (2008) Boone (2003) Halbert (1999) Spencer (2006) Tramdack (1999) a

Note: 27 of the works citing Bailey and Tierney linked to web pages written in Chinese.

Table 4.

Summary of Relevant Controlled Vocabularies Describing Potential Texts.

Text

Bailey and Tierney (2002) Beagle (1999) Beagle (2004)a Beagle (2009)a Bennett (2003)a Bennett (2005)a Bennett (2006) Bennett (2007a) Bennett (2008) Boone (2003) Halbert (1999) Spencer (2006) Tramdack (1999) a

Descriptor: College & University Library

Descriptor: Architecture & Building

Descriptor: Learning Commons

KeywordPlus: Information Commons

X X

X

X X

X X

X X X X X X X

Note: There was no data for these texts.

X X X X X

X X

X

X X

X X X

17

A Critical Analysis of the Discourse on Academic Libraries

Two texts by Beagle (1999) and Bennett (2003) were selected because of their seminal character and because they represent points of departure for discussions of the information commons and of the LDL. Four other texts by Beagle (2004, 2009) and Bennett (2006, 2008) in which the authors elaborate on the discourse of the commons were retained for they contributed to an understanding of the development of the discourse under study. Finally, the texts by Halbert (1999) and Tramdack (1999) were also retained because they were written as answers to Beagle’s ‘‘Conceptualizing an Information Commons’’ (1999) and because the three texts (Beagle, 1999; Halbert, 1999; Tramdack, 1999) formed a unit worthy of analysis. Table 5 summarizes information about the texts selected for CDA.

Table 5. Author and Date, Text Title

Texts Chosen for the CDA Corpus. Articles’ Provenance The Journal of Academic Librarianship

Beagle (1999). Conceptualizing an information commons. Beagle (2004). From information to learning commons. Beagle (2009). The learning commons in historical context. Bennett (2003). Libraries designed for learning. Bennett (2006) The choice for learning. Bennett (2008). The information or learning commons: Which will we have? Halbert (1999). Lessons from the information commons frontier. Tramdack (1999). Reaction to Beagle.

Annals of Nagoya University

Others Conference presentation

Report CLIR

X X

X

X X X

X

X

18

CATHERINE CLOSET-CRANE

Approach to Critical Discourse Analysis To analyze discourse formation in all the texts in the corpus, I followed Fairclough’s guidelines for textual analysis. The purpose of textual analysis is to examine and describe a text by identifying its origins and the participants in discursive activity, its style, discursive themes and the perspective or point of view from which these are represented, discourses drawn upon, and how all these characteristics of the text are worked or mixed together. Critical analysis is then performed, supported by the secondary data created using textual analysis and involving a critical interpretation of discourse. In order to construct an analytical toolbox for performing CDA, I combined analytical approaches and lines of questioning borrowed from Jørgensen and Phillips, (2002), Locke (2004), Phillips and Hardy (2002), Van Leeuwen (2008), and Wood and Kroger (2000). In order to let the data talk to me without the filter of an ideological lens and to heighten a sense of possibilities, I consciously avoided taking a Marxist approach to CDA with its a priori focus on power relationships. In taking that approach, I was inspired by Talja’s approach to discourse analysis in LIS for whom ‘‘the aim of discourse analysis is not only to identify interpretative repertoires, but to point out the power and influence of particular narratives and to analyze their potential societal and institutional functions and effects’’ (Talja, 1999, p. 474). In my analysis, I relied on both my library education and my professional training and experience as an architect to examine the tensions and contradictions that may arise in the context of academic library practice from the discursive construction of the academic library as space and place. Presentation of critical interpretive work takes the form of a narrative concluding with suggestions for future action.

FINDINGS Discourse Description Context The social context surrounding the production of the eight texts studied and of the discourse they construct fits into the institutionalized structure of scholarly activities focused on research, knowledge production, writing, and publishing or presenting at conferences. The majority of texts in the research corpus were published in peer-reviewed journals; only two texts were produced in the course of other scholarly activities and made available for free on the World Wide Web. In this context, before being published or

A Critical Analysis of the Discourse on Academic Libraries

19

presented, the texts have all passed through a selection process that guarantees the relevance and believability of the arguments developed. Thus, the narratives developed in the texts studied have acquired power of persuasion. Three types of social actors are considered participants in the discourse studied. These include the writers who produce texts; the audience (or readers) who interpret the texts; and, finally, participants in the discourse, those persons who are explicitly named in the texts or whose speech is reported directly or indirectly. The four articles that were published in the JAL provide biographical information that establishes the authors’ social identities, something that contributes to establishing the authority of the writers and reinforces the power of the narratives. Set apart in an insert in italic letters below the text of the article, this information is given visual preeminence. All four authors are men identified as high-ranked professionals with administrative responsibilities in academic libraries. The texts in the inserts also inform us that Beagle and Bennett have been engaged in library planning consulting activities. Based on the analysis of the texts’ contents, the audience targeted by the writers consists primarily of library professionals. In the texts of their JAL articles, Beagle (1999) and Bennett (2006, 2008) establish a relationship of solidarity with their audience by making repeated use of the first person plural pronouns we, us, and our. Since the credentials of the writers have been previously established, this discursive device also contributes to positioning them as advisors or mentors in regard to the audience. The third category of social actors divides participants into two groups – those who are named in the text and those who are called upon by means of reported speech and whose names may appear outside the main body of the texts. A great many participants named in notes and references were found irrelevant to understanding the constitution of discourse. However, a few participants named or quoted in the body of the texts were found to have a preeminent role as social actors in the context of the discursive activity studied in the corpus. Fig. 3 summarizes the distribution of participants in the discourse identified. The prominent participants called upon are scholars or distinguished professionals from within and outside LIS to whom the writers refer in order to build and strengthen their arguments. However, other participants are called upon in the texts who are less relevant to the discourse studied. Beagle (1999, p. 85) calls upon Hurt and quotes extensively from a C&RL News article by her (Hurt, 1997) to support his description of the need for new and varied types of study and work spaces in the academic library that

20

CATHERINE CLOSET-CRANE

LISPARTICIPANTS

NON LIS PARTICIPANTS

Writers

Targeted Audience

Participants called upon

Academic librarians

Beagle

Beagle

University library administrators

Bennett

Hurt

Halbert

Henderson & Venkatraman Bruffee Seeley Brown

LIS professionals Tramdack

Fig. 3.

Foote

Participants in the Discourse Identified in the Texts.

can accommodate collaborative teaching and learning. From outside LIS, Beagle (1999, p. 82) calls upon Henderson and Venkatraman whose theory of strategic alignment he uses to explain the need for developing a new model for library services. He also quotes extensively from a 1996 article by Seely Brown and Duguid who were then both at the famed Xerox Palo Alto Research Center to argue that the traditional academic reference desk does not satisfy the needs of a ‘‘highly demanding user community’’ (Beagle, 1999, p. 88). Bennett also calls upon Seely Brown to advocate for the transformation of academic library space into ‘‘an on-campus social learning environment’’ (Bennett, 2006, p. 8). Other relevant named participants from outside LIS who were called upon in Bennett’s texts are Bruffee and Foote. To buttress his argument for effecting a change from ‘‘teacher-centered learning in higher education y [to a] learner-centered paradigm’’ (Bennett, 2006, pp. 7–8) aligned with a nonfoundational view of knowledge (Bennett, 2003, p. 3), Bennett draws arguments from Bruffee’s book on collaborative learning (e.g., Bruffee, 1999). Bennett (2003, 2006) calls upon Steven Foote, ‘‘an architect with extensive experience with libraries and president of [the architecture and design firm] Perry Dean Rogers’’ (Bennett, 2003, p. 10, note 12), quoting him directly in order to introduce the idea of spaces designed to accommodate and support collaborative learning (Bennett, 2006, p. 13). Fig. 4 illustrates the discursive relationships between writers and participants called upon.

A Critical Analysis of the Discourse on Academic Libraries

Writers Halbert Tramdack Beagle Bennett

21

Participants called upon Beagle (LIS) Venkatraman & Henderson (Business) Hurt (LIS) Seely Brown (IT Research) Bennett (LIS) Bruffee (English) Foote (Architecture)

Refers to self Calls upon

Fig. 4.

Discursive Relationships Between Writers and Participants Called Upon.

Themes The texts in the corpus were chosen as research data because they took up one or more of the following dominant themes: information commons, learning commons, and library (or libraries) designed for learning. However, a number of other themes are activated within the texts in the corpus. The most relevant of the themes found were the traditional library, the digital-age environment, change, and library space. These constitute secondary themes that have ancillary functions in the process of building arguments and explanations. Table 6 summarizes the distribution of themes in the corpus studied. The traditional library theme is used by both Beagle (1999) and Bennett (2006) to buttress the argument for designing libraries for learning. For Beagle, the traditional library is dominated by books; ‘‘[it]has grown up around the print tradition’’ (1999, p. 82). Bennett provides a much richer and multifaceted vision of the traditional library. On the one hand, he judges it to be conventional and unable to adapt to the digital environment (Bennett, 2006, p. 3); on the other hand, he describes it in superlative terms, and provides illustrations of its monumental architectural features in the text (Bennett, 2006, Figs. 1 and 2, p. 4). Each of the writers activates the digital age environment theme to describe changes in academic library planning and design. The digital age environment is described as highly complex, fluid, and rapidly evolving (Beagle, 1999, pp. 82–83), and dominated by the virtual (Bennett, 2006). In this environment,

22

CATHERINE CLOSET-CRANE

Table 6. Distribution of Themes. Text

Primary Themes

Secondary Themes

Information Learning Library Traditional Digital-age Change Library commons commons designed for library environment space learning Beagle (1999) Beagle (2004) Beagle (2009) Bennett (2003) Bennett (2006) Bennett (2008) Halbert (1999) Tramdack (1999)

X X X

X X X

X

X

X X

X

X X X

X

X X X X X

X X X

X X

the use of the new technologies requires changes in library planning and design (Beagle, 1999; Halbert, 1999; Bennett, 2006). Academic libraries that have been ‘‘among the earliest adopters of information technology and multimedia’’ (Tramdack, 1999, p. 92) have ‘‘demonstrated an impressive ability to remain current in a rapidly changing telecommunication infrastructure’’ (Bennett, 2006, p. 6). Halbert delivers a ground-level vision of the academic library as space and place in the digital age environment as a ‘‘new building featuring a variety of high technology areas y [and] coordinated facilities providing comprehensive access to information technology y with a variety of centers for facilitating faculty hypermedia and full-texts projects’’ (Halbert, 1999, p. 90, emphasis added). Taking different perspectives, Bennett and Beagle introduce a change theme into the discourse on library planning and design. For Beagle (1999, 2004, 2009), change is seen in management terms as an organizational evolutionary process of ‘‘change dynamics’’ (Beagle, 2004) spurred by ‘‘academic change initiatives’’ (Beagle, 2009) and resulting in ‘‘institutional alignment’’ and ‘‘strategic fit’’ (Beagle, 1999, 2004). For Bennett, change accompanies fundamental revisions in ways of thinking about learning and teaching (Bennett, 2003, 2006) as well as about planning and designing library services and facilities (Bennett, 2006). For him, the aim of change is to cause a ‘‘revolution in our thinking about library design’’ (Bennett, 2006, p. 6, emphasis added) and a ‘‘paradigm shift in library space design’’ (Bennett, 2006, p. 8, emphasis added). The library space theme is activated by Bennett (2006), Tramdack (1999), and Beagle (2009). Tramdack (1999, p. 92) writes about ‘‘the physical space

A Critical Analysis of the Discourse on Academic Libraries

23

of the IC’’ and its ‘‘working spaces.’’ Bennett’s preoccupation with space is rendered explicit through the frequent collocation of the words space and library and the collocation of the word space and qualifying terms that differentiate between types of library spaces such as space for learning, shelving space, study space, librarian’s workspace, or reader’s workspace (Bennett, 2006, pp. 3, 4, 6, 10, 11). Bennett also provides the most developed descriptions of the academic library environment in regard to its spatial qualities. For him, ‘‘complexity, or the perceived capacity of the space to occupy interest and stimulate activity, and mystery, or the perception that entering the setting will lead to increased learning, interaction, or interest’’ (Bennett, 2006, p. 4), are qualities conducive to creating learning environments in the academic library. Bennett (2006) and Beagle (2009) both incorporate visual representations of library spaces into their texts. Beagle illustrates the reorganization of the spaces in an academic library evolving into a learning commons with four complete floor plans (Beagle, 2009, Figs. 6–9). Bennett uses six photographs and one diagram for furniture arrangement (Bennett, 2006, Figs. 1–7) to effectively depict the environmental qualities of the libraries he describes; the atmosphere of the spaces photographed is made so palpable as to convince the reader of the superiority of the traditional monumental library design for inspiring a yearning for learning over functional library designs dictated by service and storage functions.

Discourse Interpretation Construction of Interpretative Repertoires Interpretative repertoires are discursive assemblages corresponding to dominant themes identified in the texts analyzed. In the corpus, three repertoires construct visions of the academic library as place around the following metaphors: (a) the academic library as information commons, (b) the academic library as learning commons, and (c) the academic library as space designed for learning. Academic Library as Information Commons Interpretative Repertoire The information commons (IC) repertoire is elaborated primarily in a group of five texts referred to as the IC corpus (Beagle, 1999, 2004, 2009; Halbert, 1999; Tramdack, 1999). Three of these texts were published together in the JAL in 1999 (Beagle, 1999; Halbert, 1999; Tramdack, 1999). Together they form a collective point of departure for the constitution of the IC repertoire.

24

CATHERINE CLOSET-CRANE

Of these three texts, that written by Beagle is the most often cited in the LIS literature on information commons and emerges as a seminal reference. Naming and evaluation (Fairclough, 2003, p. 109) are two discursive devices that play an important role in terms of identity building and validation in the three texts published in the JAL by Beagle (1999), Halbert (1999), and Tramdack (1999). Naming is calling upon a social actor by name and evaluation refers to the subjective nature of statements. Instances of both are found in the texts: ‘‘Don Beagle has correctly identified the key features of this multifaceted concept [of the IC]’’ (Halbert, 1999, p. 90, emphasis added) and ‘‘Donald Beagle provides a thought-provoking conceptual structure for implementing both the virtual and physical manifestations of the Information Commons’’ (Tramdack, 1999, p. 92, emphasis added). In discourse analytical terms, these utterances have expressive value; they represent ‘‘a trace or cue of the producer’s evaluation y of the bit of reality y [a feature] relates to’’ (Fairclough, 2001c, p. 93). In the above text excerpts, choice of vocabulary expresses the writer’s approval of and adherence to Beagle’s construction of the IC conceptual model. Naming Beagle not only constitutes his identity as a participant in the IC repertoire but also establishes his authority by giving credence or truth value to his argument. The three texts by Beagle (1999, 2004, 2009) are those that most actively construct the information commons as an object of discourse. They share a common vocabulary and discursive style. In all of them, the term ‘‘Information Commons’’ is capitalized; this rhetorical device does discursive work that constructs a category of library-thing and gives it a name, Information Commons. In a self-referencing practice that contributes to the discursive continuity of the IC repertoire over time, the author reinterprets his explanation of the academic library’s evolution by introducing variations in the theme of change. Beagle’s (2004, 2009) texts form a discursive continuum. They constitute a narrative that explains the transformation of the traditional academic library into the Information Commons and its subsequent morphing into the Learning Commons by a process Beagle calls ‘‘phased evolution’’ (2009, p. 18). Thus, the introduction of the academic library as learning commons interpretative repertoire is made possible by the activation of an ancillary change-themed discursive thread woven into the fabric of the IC repertoire. Interdiscursivity is the presence within a text of a mix of elements of other discourses (Fairclough, 2003, p. 218). Beagle’s use of terms borrowed from the management theory area of discourse within the IC interpretative repertoire is a characteristic example of interdiscursivity. In effect, such

A Critical Analysis of the Discourse on Academic Libraries

25

terms as ‘‘change dynamics’’ (2004, paragraph 2), ‘‘functional integration’’ (1999, p. 83, 2004, paragraphs 2 and 7), ‘‘strategic fit’’ (1999, p. 82, 2004, paragraph 2), and ‘‘strategic alignment’’ (Beagle, 1999, pp. 82, 87, 2004, paragraph 2) are lexical immigrants in the LIS vocabulary. The concept of alignment stands out in the elaboration of the change theme. First introduced in the composite term ‘‘Strategic Alignment’’ (Beagle, 1999, p. 82), it reoccurs as a verb in combination with the adverb ‘‘better’’ (twice in Beagle, 2004, paragraph 5, and twice in 2009, pp. 18–19). In Beagle’s (1999) article, the adjective ‘‘strategic’’ and the noun ‘‘alignment’’ are both capitalized in reference to the origin of the term in a management theory developed by Henderson and Venkatraman in the 1980s (Beagle, 1999, p. 82). Beagle’s indirect reporting from a discourse outside that of academic librarianship situates his own argument in a larger social context. The rhetorical move to call upon Henderson and Venkatraman serves to give credibility to the constitution of the IC model as a strategically necessary organizational change for academic libraries. Beagle also uses more familiar terms from the LIS discourse on organization management such as ‘‘organizational planning,’’ ‘‘organizational scope,’’ ‘‘organizational domains,’’ and ‘‘corporate learning organizations’’ (Beagle, 1999, pp. 82, 83, 88). Thus, by locating the IC repertoire within an existing order of discourse on library administration and management in LIS, this has the effect of redirecting the text’s message more specifically to social actors within the audience who occupy managerial positions in the academic librarianship hierarchy. In the research corpus, there are also two texts in which Bennett (2003, 2008) activates the IC repertoire. It is significant that in them the term information commons is not capitalized. What is the difference, then, between an Information Commons and an information commons and why is this important? As constructed by Beagle (1999, 2009), the Information Commons is a physical manifestation of a concept of service. As constructed by Bennett, the information commons is constructed as a glorified computer lab. In effect, the author uses a device that is a form of rewording to restructure, discursively the information commons as ‘‘a cluster of network access points and associated IT tools’’ (Bennett, 2008, p. 183). Rewording is a strategy where new wordings are ‘‘set up as alternatives to y existing ones’’ (Fairclough, 1992b, p. 194); in another instance of discursive rewording used by Beagle, the Information Commons, in its embryonic form, is typified as the ‘‘computer lab on the first floor of the library’’ (Beagle, 2004). Thus, the term ‘‘information commons’’ can be interpreted as representing either a conceptual entity (concept of service) or a physical space or place, or both when it is Beagle’s Information Commons.

26

CATHERINE CLOSET-CRANE

Bennett’s texts (2003, 2008) introduce in the IC interpretative repertoire a voice that has a critical perspective. In them, the physical information commons is constituted as a lower order library type than the learning commons to help buttress Bennett’s argument in favor of designing the academic library for learning (in 2003 and mostly 2008). Academic Library as Learning Commons Interpretative Repertoire The learning commons (LC) repertoire is elaborated on in three texts of the research corpus (Beagle, 2004, 2009; Bennett, 2008). The construction of the learning commons as an object of discourse is effected primarily in two texts by Beagle (2004, 2009). These texts form a discursive continuum that constitutes a narrative explaining the progressive transformation of the traditional academic library into the Learning Commons by a process Beagle calls ‘‘phased evolution’’ (Beagle, 2009, p. 18). In that process, the information commons constitute an intermediary phase. The learning commons is conceptualized as an organizational unit of greater institutional mission than the traditional academic library. It is constructed as a higher order commons that combines the services of the academic library, the IC, and other academic support units as well. Beagle’s version of the physical LC is a facility housing all those units under one roof. From a genealogical perspective, Beagle’s (2004) text constitutes the point of departure for the development of the LC repertoire, and he elaborates on it further in his 2009 article where the learning commons is viewed in the ‘‘historical context of academic change initiatives’’ (p. 18). In these texts, the Learning Commons is constructed as an object of discourse in the same fashion as the Information Commons. First, the term ‘‘Library Commons’’ is capitalized and contracted into the acronym LC in a manner that parallels Beagle’s introduction of the ‘‘Information Commons’’ concept. Then the LC model is presented as the result of far-reaching organizational change (Beagle, 2004, 2009) that occurs when the academic library ‘‘aligns itself with changing campus-wide priorities’’ (Beagle, 2004). The management-based ‘‘Strategic Alignment’’ perspective used to explain the development of the information commons model (Beagle, 1999) is substituted for the alternative ‘‘change dynamics’’ (Beagle, 2004) perspective, and, ultimately, the ‘‘academic change initiatives’’ (Beagle, 2009). These borrowed perspectives serve as explanatory models for the progressive adaptation of the academic library to a changing social, educational, and technological context. This discursive move positions again the texts in relationship to the order of discourse on library administration and management.

A Critical Analysis of the Discourse on Academic Libraries

27

In Bennett’s (2008) text, the LC model is presented as a desirable evolution of an outdated service-focused IC model into a learning-focused LC model, which responds to learner-centered trends in higher education and to the evolving needs of library users. Bennett’s text presents some interesting semantic characteristics: in particular, extensive over wording and repetition express the author’s preference for Beagle’s learning commons concept. In fact, strong intertextual relationships exist between Bennett’s text and The Information Commons Handbook (Beagle, 2006). Bennett’s argument rests entirely on using definitions of the information and learning commons taken from Beagle’s Handbook (2006). Bennett also calls upon the IC interpretative repertoire as it is developed in the Handbook (Beagle, 2006) in order to build his argument in favor of conceiving the learning commons as a library space designed for learning. In Bennett’s text, interdiscursivity and intertextuality are tightly intertwined.

Academic Library as Space Designed for Learning Interpretative Repertoire The theme of the LDL is activated in three texts by Bennett (2003, 2006, 2008) in which the academic library as space designed for learning interpretative repertoire unfolds. Textual analysis brings to light the author’s versatility in constructing persuasive texts that reach different audiences and contribute to the diffusion of the LDL repertoire as ideology. In texts published between 2006 and 2008 in particular, the discursive style calls to mind political discourse and its propaganda. The titles of the essays – ‘‘The Choice for Learning’’ (Bennett, 2006) and ‘‘The Information or the Learning Commons: Which Will We Have?’’ (Bennett, 2008) – sound like those of manifestoes. They have the flavor of advertising slogans used in political campaigning to outline the choice that must be made for a certain future to emerge or change to take place. One could easily imagine a banner floating behind a speaker with the exclamation ‘‘Candidate xx: The choice for learning!’’ However, Bennett’s tone is conversational, and the use of the first and second person singular pronouns, as in ‘‘I ask you to bring a picture to mind y ’’ (Bennett, 2006, p. 3, emphasis added) helps create an intimate mood. Meanwhile, the use of the pronoun ‘‘we’’ has the effect of bringing all discourse participants together in a spirit of solidarity. A community of common experience and purpose is thus constituted and it is given the power to choose what kind of library the academic library of the future will be. All in all, the ideological quality of the LDL repertoire constructs Bennett’s identity as guru; that is ‘‘a specific form of the character of Expert’’ (Fairclough, 2003, p. 166).

28

CATHERINE CLOSET-CRANE

The LDL is constituted at once as the object of discourse in the title of Bennett’s (2003) text. The writer’s vision of the library as ‘‘space to advance learning and teaching’’ (pp. 3–4) is constructed by way of categorization, comparison, and contrast of ‘‘two conceptions of the library as a place.’’ The library as a space ‘‘where learning is the primary activity and where the focus is on social exchanges through which information is transformed into the knowledge of some person or group of persons’’ is constituted as a library category contrasted against ‘‘libraries as service places’’ (p. 4). In turn, the discursive construction of the ‘‘library as service place’’ category rests on the description of yet another library category that is the ‘‘traditional library, [a place] where we shelve material, circulate things to readers, assist readers with questions about information resources, create instruments such as the catalog for navigating information, and teach readers how to master the complexities of both printed and networked information’’ (p. 5). Thus, the traditional library is constructed as an undesirable outdated model with a bibliocentric service ethos that serves primarily as a document warehouse or a sacralized book repository. In the process of constituting the LDL repertoire, Bennett pulls in an education-based interpretative repertoire that is used to justify the need for a paradigm shift in academic library planning and design (Bennett, 2003, pp. 3–4, 2006, pp. 7–8). In his texts written between 2003 and 2006, Bennett assumes that his audience knows about the latest learner-oriented educational theories. He uses this assumption to make the claim that ‘‘quietly but powerfully, American higher education acknowledged and began to engage with the social dimensions of learning and of knowledge’’ (Bennett, 2003, p. 3). Bennett also presents a value-laden description of the foundational view of knowledge to explain away the ‘‘obstacles to developing a new paradigm shift for library space’’ (Bennett, 2006, pp. 7–8). This serves to buttress his argument for choosing to support collaborative learning in the library over choosing to remain an ‘‘information organization primarily supporting information use-information consumption’’ (Bennett, 2006, p. 8). Terms imported from the education discourse establish an interdiscursive relationship that aims to validate Bennett’s argument for the design of learning-centered library facilities.

Construction of an Order of Discourse Over time, a dialogical process is enacted predominantly in the texts by Beagle and Bennett. A progression of coherent arguments explains the need

A Critical Analysis of the Discourse on Academic Libraries

29

to plan and design academic library services and spaces that respond to the new conditions of the digital age (Beagle, 1999, 2004, 2009; Bennett, 2006), ‘‘the unique management challenges and demands of information technology’’ (Beagle, 1999), accommodate changing trends in teaching and learning approaches in higher education (Beagle, 2009; Bennett, 2006), and acknowledge the focus on information literacy in the practice of academic librarianship (Beagle, 2009; Bennett, 2008). The respective visions of Beagle and Bennett converge to construct the academic library as learning place (ALLP) as an object of discourse. The concept of the ALLP is enacted in a model of the academic library as a digital age commons that provide not only access to traditional and emerging tools for the dissemination of knowledge but also adequate and updated spaces to support collaborative knowledge work in a high tech environment. Its purpose is to provide a learning place aligned with the trend in higher-education toward learner-centered practices (Beagle, 2009; Bennett, 2008). As such it caters primarily to an undergraduate student population. Fig. 5 summarizes the constitution of the ALLP order of discourse at the intersection of the IC, LC, and LDL repertoires.

Academic Library as Learning Place order of discourse LC repertoire

IC repertoire Beagle-99

Beagle-04

Halbert-99 Tramdack-99

Beagle-09 Bennett-08 Bennett-03

Bennett-06

LDL repertoire

Fig. 5.

Constitution of the Academic Library as Learning Place Order of Discourse.

30

CATHERINE CLOSET-CRANE

CRITICAL ANALYSIS For Talja (1999), ‘‘the aim of discourse analysis is not only to identify interpretative repertoires, but to point out the power and influence of particular narratives and to analyze their potential societal and institutional functions and effects’’ (p. 474). What follows is a critical analysis of the ‘‘academic library as learning place’’ (ALLP) order of discourse and its constitutive interpretative repertoires. Its aim is to bring to light some of the influence and effects of this discourse in the world of practice.

Effects of the ‘‘Academic Library as Learning Place’’ Discourse To understand the effects of discourse on social practices related to academic libraries, it is of importance to recognize the agency of Beagle and Bennett in the translation of the IC, LC, and LDL interpretative repertoires into the implementation of the IC and LC conceptual models in (a) the planning and design of library services and facilities, (b) the construction of information and learning commons on many North American campuses, and (c) the reconceptualization of the academic library as a learning place. Beagle (1999) proposes that strategic alignment is both the cause for change and the explanation for how the academic library, ‘‘an institution that has grown up around the print tradition’’, needs to adapt in order to ‘‘manage service delivery in the highly complex and fluid digital environment’’ (p. 182). The alignment of the library is meant to fit in the framework of academic change initiatives developed by the American Council of Education in the 1990s (Beagle, 2004, 2009, p. 18). Alignment should steer the library into evolving from being a traditional ‘‘storehouse of the printed record of humanity’’ (Beagle, 2009, p. 17), to be an information commons, and ultimately to become a learning commons. The intended effect of this discourse is to prompt library managers to overhaul traditional academic libraries. The narrative unfolding in Beagle’s three texts (1999, 2004, 2009) promotes ‘‘the emergence of a new model for service delivery in the academic library’’ (Beagle, 1999, p. 82). It is oriented toward producing action with real effects in the everyday-life world of practice in academic libraries. Recommended action consists of adding new digitally oriented library services into traditional academic librarianship (Beagle, 1999, pp. 82, 83); integrating technology in the design of a networked instructional and learning environment (Beagle, 1999, pp. 82, 83, 84, 85); reorganizing the physical library space to make room for varied study and work spaces

A Critical Analysis of the Discourse on Academic Libraries

31

inclusive of environments planned and designed to accommodate information literacy instruction (Beagle, 2009, p. 17), collaboration (Beagle, 1999, p. 85, 2009, p. 17), a new focus on student learning (Beagle, 2009, p. 17); and, finally, changing the library’s organizational structure to align the information/learning commons with ‘‘the interests and needs of the larger institutional and technological environment’’ (Beagle, 1999, p. 87). Delivered in installments, Beagle’s (1999, 2004, 2009) descriptions of the IC and LC models constitute a continuous narrative that culminates in the construction of the learning commons as the ultimate transformation of the academic library. This discourse is inserted in a process of diffusion of innovation in the area of academic library planning and design where the innovation is the model of the commons. In Beagle’s narrative, change is necessary because the academic library needs to embrace ITs and enter the digital age. Adopting the Learning Commons model is presented as a means to ‘‘revitalize,’’ ‘‘reinvigorate,’’ and ‘‘reposition’’ (Beagle, 2009, p. 18) traditional libraries. As an institution, the academic library is thus implicitly constructed as a sickly physical entity that needs to be submitted to some kind of regenerative treatment in order to be ‘‘fixed.’’ In Beagle’s texts, discursive activity serves to disseminate a road map for achieving the regeneration of the academic library and transform it into ‘‘a more active agent of collaboration in support of learning outcomes’’ (Beagle, 2009, p. 18). For Bennett (2006), the traditional library has been rendered obsolete by the digital revolution and needs rejuvenating as well. While the IC and LC repertoires developed by Beagle construct change as evolutionary, the LDL repertoire (in particular as activated in Bennett, 2006) constructs change as essentially revolutionary. Bennett’s solution to obsolescence is to produce a paradigm shift that will result in aligning academic library services and practices with learner-centered educational trends. In Bennett’s texts, discourse is oriented toward strategic action. In fact, his 2006 and 2008 texts are doctrinal manifestoes where the repetitive collocation of the words ‘‘library,’’ ‘‘space,’’ and ‘‘learning’’ creates the effect of a mantra-like incantation from which emerges the seductive expression ‘‘library designed for learning’’ that performs as a ‘‘brand mantra.’’ Keller (1999) defines brand mantras as ‘‘three to five word phrases that capture the irrefutable essence or spirit of the brand positioning’’ (pp. 44–45); he explains that brand positioning is about creating the optimal location for the organization’s identity in the minds of customers and of the organization’s employees so that they think of the brand in the ‘‘right way.’’ From a marketing perspective, the LDL repertoire provides academic library administrators

32

CATHERINE CLOSET-CRANE

with a palatable and institutionally acceptable argument that could enable them to influence ‘‘the willingness of academic administrators to invest in library facility improvements’’ (Shill & Tonner, 2003a) and to ‘‘sell’’ the library within the academic community. The effects of the discourse that incorporates Beagle and Bennett’s narratives can be seen in different areas of social practice in the domain of academic libraries. At the discursive level, a community of discourse has emerged where practitioners acting as writers have contributed to the growth of the literature on information commons, learning commons, and library spaces designed for learning. From the perspective of facilities planning and design as practice, the effect of discourse has been the diffusion of new models for thinking about the academic library that have translated into the construction of new and remodeled library facilities predominantly called information or learning commons. From a marketoriented perspective, another effect of discourse has been the construction of the IC and LC brands with the ‘‘library designed for learning’’ functioning as a brand mantra. I will discuss these three effects of discourse in the following sections. The ALLP Discourse and the LIS Discourse on Academic Libraries To quote Albanese (2006), ‘‘the concept of an information commons or learning commons has been the buzz for the last five years in talking about the new wave of academic libraries’’ (p. 7). Over the last 10 years a number of practitioners have contributed to the development of a considerable body of texts that discuss the new types of libraries built on the concepts and models advocated by Beagle, Bennett, Halbert, and Tramdack (e.g., Albanese, 2006; Bailey & Tierney 2002; Boone, 2003, 2004; Cowgill et al., 2001; Crockett et al., 2002; Haas & Robertson, 2004; Houlihan, 2005; Lefebvre, 2002; Lippincott, 2004; Malenfant, 2006; MacWhinnie, 2003; Nikkel, 2003; Spencer, 2006, 2007). These practitioner-writers constitute a discourse community. They have also contributed to the diffusion of the IC and LC models and have participated in the evolution of the discourse on libraries as learning places. The texts they have produced describe different aspects of the planning, design, organization, and operation of existing information and learning commons and constitute a rich source of information for academic librarians and administrators who are in the planning stages of a library design or redesign project. Adding to this body of literature, a handbook by Beagle (2006) has contributed extensive guidelines for the implementation of information and learning commons. New books on the information commons that were

A Critical Analysis of the Discourse on Academic Libraries

33

published recently present case studies (Bailey & Tierney, 2008) and discuss more examples from the field (Forrest & Halbert, 2009). As proof that this discourse has an international audience, there are also more and more articles reporting on case studies outside the geographic boundaries of North America. Included in these are articles by Watson (2007) from England, King (n.d.) from Australia, and Mountifield (2003) from New Zealand. Physical Enactment of the ALLP Discourse It can be argued that there is a dialogic relationship between the constitution of a discourse on the ALLP deployed in a sizable body of literature and the remodeling of existing libraries as well as the construction of new libraries designed as information or learning commons. Internet browsing of the websites of North American academic libraries brings up dazzling presentations of improved and new facilities that generally include photographs. Such documents provide observable evidence of the physical effects the ALLP discourse has had on the transformation of library spaces. Articles centering on case studies that were published between 1999 and 2009 and the websites of academic libraries provide ample documentation of the transformations, remodeling, or construction of many library buildings called information or learning commons. Whether this phenomenon can be directly attributed to the texts by Beagle (1999, 2004), Halbert (1999), and Tramdack (1999) that are included in the corpus might be difficult to ascertain. However, Bailey and Tierney (2002) believe that together Beagle, Halbert, and Tramdack presented in their 1999 articles ‘‘substantive theoretical and applied roadmaps for an integrated Information Commons in an academic library environment’’ (p. 277, emphasis added). Moreover, Bailey and Tierney report that Beagle’s conceptual framework shaped the development of the Information Commons at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte, thus demonstrating unambiguously the legacy of Beagle’s (1999) article. Branding Branding is a marketing tool that aims at constructing an identity for a product in order to capture the minds of customers with what makes it special and unique (Dempsey, 2004). I have already explained how the capitalization of the two terms Information Commons and Learning Commons (Beagle, 1999, 2004, 2009; Halbert, 1999; Tramdack, 1999) establishes them as lexical items that contribute to the discursive construction of the information and learning commons concepts in the LIS community of

34

CATHERINE CLOSET-CRANE

discourse. Furthermore, the reduction of these terms into the acronyms IC and LC contributes to the constitution of library brands. According to Stimson (2007), ‘‘a library brand has been defined as ‘all the things that come to mind, all the expectations they have, when they hear the word library,’ and how you wish people to perceive your library.’’ The diffusion of the IC and LC brands has been so effective that the labels information commons and learning commons are now used by many institutions in the name of their libraries. Milewicz (2009, p. 5) provides one explanation. The phenomenon of the information commons is remarkable not simply for its novelty and its widespread adoption, but also for the cachet of the term itself. The appeal of this label, and the decision by so many institutions to adopt the title for their collaborative workspaces, implies shared beliefs about the role of libraries and informational resources in building knowledge. (Emphasis added)

The concept of branding the library was originally imported into librarianship during the 1990s. Articles in the LIS literature (e.g., Dempsey, 2004; Rowley, 1997; Stimson, 2007), postings on library blogs (e.g., Dempsey, 2005), entries on ACRLog (entry dated January 23, 2006) and on Library Success: A Best Practice Wiki (2008), and finally a whole chapter on developing brand strategies in the recently published Marketing Today’s Academic Library: A Bold New Approach to Communicating with Students (Mathews, 2009) demonstrate the relevance of the topic for library practice. According to Mathews (2009, p. 87), ‘‘branding is what makes the product identifiable: the name, symbol, tagline, or design.’’ Through Beagle’s narrative, the Information Commons and the Learning Commons are constructed as brands of libraries for which Bennett’s felicitous coining of the expression ‘‘library designed for learning’’ (2003) functions perfectly as a ‘‘brand mantra’’ (Keller, 1999) or ‘‘tagline’’ (Stimson, 2007; Mathew, 2009). Altogether, one of the effects of the discourse developed in the corpus is the construction and branding of a new corporate identity of the academic library for the 21st century that calls for the examination of the suppressed metaphor library as business. The ALLP Discourse and the Silent Metaphorization of the Library as Business Prima facie, Beagle’s ‘‘Conceptualizing an Information Commons’’ (1999) provides general guidelines for change toward planning and designing a new ‘‘conceptual, physical and instructional space’’ (p. 82). However, it can be argued that the undeveloped theme of the library as business is introduced in

A Critical Analysis of the Discourse on Academic Libraries

35

Beagle’s discourse, albeit indirectly. In effect, calling upon Henderson and Venkatraman’s theory to introduce the concept of ‘‘strategic alignment’’ (Beagle, 1999, p. 82) unequivocally sets up an interdiscursive relationship with the discourse of management. Yet, while adopting and adapting this theory to call for the evolution of academic libraries, Beagle leaves out of his argument the fundamental assumptions at the origin of the strategic alignment model as it was described by its creators: [Assumption] one, economic performance is directly related to the ability of management to create a strategic fit between the position of an organization in the competitive product-market arena and the design of an appropriate administrative structure to support its execution y [Assumption] two, we contend that this strategic fit is inherently dynamic y Thus, strategic alignment is not an event but a process of continuous adaptation and change. (Henderson & Venkatraman, 1999, pp. 472–473)

For Henderson and Venkatraman, strategic fit is a business goal that exists in response to the pressures of the market economy. [It] recognizes the need for any strategy to address both the external and internal domains. The external domain is the business arena in which the firm competes and is concerned with decisions such as product-market offering and the distinctive strategy that differentiate the firm from its competitors. (p. 474)

They argue that ‘‘the inability to realize value from I/T [information technology] investments is, in part, due to the lack of alignment between the business and I/T strategies of organizations’’ (p. 472). Lastly, they propose that, for an organization or firm to remain competitive, strategic fit should be extended from the business domain to include the IT domain. Within the business domain, the fit between external positioning and internal arrangement has been argued to be critical for maximizing economic performance. We adopt this logic to argue that the fit between external positioning and internal arrangement is equally relevant within the I/T domain. More specifically, we contend that I/T strategy should be articulated in terms of an external domain – how the firm is positioned in the I/T marketplace – and an internal domain – how the I/S (information systems) infrastructure should be configured and managed. (p. 474, emphasis added)

In light of this, what does it mean that, in Beagle’s argument, concepts of business domain, market/marketplace, and competition are made to disappear while only mentions of ‘‘customer service’’ delivery and maximization of ‘‘fiscal resources’’ remain? (Beagle, 1999, p. 83). As in many instances in which a theory is imported from another domain of knowledge into the LIS discourse, it appears that elements have been omitted that do not fit with the traditional vision of the library as an altruistic, nonprofit, service organization. This omission has the effect of suppressing the possible

36

CATHERINE CLOSET-CRANE

metaphorization of the library as a business, a theme that a more complete description of Henderson and Venkatraman’s work would have introduced in Beagle’s article and in the IC and LC interpretative repertoires. In fact, the interdiscursive relationship established between the construction of the IC model and Henderson and Venkatraman’s construction of the strategic alignment model is based on an intertextual relationship with an essay by Henderson, Venkatraman, and Oldach (1996) cited in the footnotes of Beagle’s article (1999, p. 88) that was published in an edited volume entitled Competing in the Information Age: Strategic Alignment in Practice and addresses an audience of business and IT managers. It presents aligning business and IT as a means to secure a ‘‘competitive advantage’’ (Henderson, Venkatraman, & Oldach, 1996, p. 21). In Beagle’s narrative (1999), the discussion of the ‘‘networked collaborative study room’’ (p. 85) designed to align the IC environment with corporate learning environments addresses the strategic alignment of the library with the external corporate model of the learning organization where there is an increasing reliance on IT. Common sense dictates, and Beagle’s text supports, placing the academic library’s business domain within that of ‘‘the larger institution’’ (Beagle, 1999, pp. 82, 87) – that is the university. Furthermore, the description of the Information Commons as ‘‘instructional space’’ (Beagle, 1999, p. 82) makes explicit that the library serving as information commons is in the business of teaching. Thus, the argument goes that, in the IC model, the library’s objectives have been aligned with those of the university. In texts written at a later date (Beagle, 2004, 2009; Bennett, 2008), refocusing of discourse serves to reorient the library’s support mission from a teaching toward a learning perspective that follows educational trends in higher education. This discursive activity fits in with current universities’ marketing strategies that promote a student-centered educational experience. It ensures the alignment of the academic library’s new corporate image and taglines with those of its parent institution. In fact, this argument fits within a larger academic library management discourse that addresses the need for library leaders to ‘‘seek out new models of library service’’ (Lynch et al., 2007, p. 213) as they are asked by university administrators to demonstrate their library’s value to the institution in terms of return on investment (Kaufman, 2008, p. 424). Lynch et al. (2007) have shown that the symbolic positioning of the library as ‘‘the heart of the university’’ that emerged in the 19th century does not carry as much weight as it once did. The library’s centrality to the university’s rests more on the visibility it affords to the university, technological innovation, and its educational

A Critical Analysis of the Discourse on Academic Libraries

37

mission. Seen in this light, Beagle’s perspective is actually that of an academic library administrator considering lucidly the challenges faced by the library as it must increasingly compete for institutional funding with academic and research units from within the institution. If the metaphorization of ‘‘library¼business’’ is apparently suppressed in the discourse activated in Beagle’s texts, it is nevertheless implicitly understood. It parallels perforce the marketization of universities – a phenomenon that is widely studied, explained, and critiqued (for an overview of recent treatments of this topic, see Levy, 2006). As a business, one of the university’s goals is to secure an edge over its competition (i.e., other universities and colleges). A 2006 study supported by the Center for Facilities Research of the Higher Education Facilities Officers, reviewing the impact of facilities on recruitment of students, showed that the brickand-mortar academic library placed second as a facility that is ‘‘extremely or very important’’ in students’ university selection decision process (Cain & Reynolds, 2006, Fig. 2). From a market perspective, this implies that the library has to keep a competitive advantage in terms of the services it offers, not only to its community but also to prospective students and faculty that the university may want to attract. Strategic alignment can therefore be understood both as the IT management issue described by Beagle (1999) and as a marketing issue. As a result, the buildings designed or redesigned to accommodate new library facilities and services come to perform as marketing tools for their institutions and within their institution. Prominent library changes, such as a building renovation, provide the perfect opportunity to re-examine the library ‘‘brand’’ y and try to position the library relative to the competition (other information resources and services) favorably in users’ minds. In the case of a building renovation, the branding process can also influence decisionmaking regarding new building spaces, library services and collections. (Stimson, 2007)

Treatment of Space Design and Place Making in the ALLP Discourse The use of the descriptors ‘‘architecture and building’’ in the bibliographic descriptions for the texts by Beagle(1999), Bennett (2006), Halbert (1999), and Tramdack (1999) is deceptive. The design of new library services is covered much more extensively than the building design attributes of the new models for academic libraries that are proposed. Discussions of library design concentrate on operational space planning and focus on the types of library spaces that are needed to accommodate activities and equipments required in these spaces. There are in the corpus a few examples of space diagrams with furniture arrangement sketches, floor plans, and photographs from successful library spaces (e.g., Bennett, 2006, Figs. 4–7; Beagle, 2009,

38

CATHERINE CLOSET-CRANE

Figs. 6–9). However, from an architectural design standpoint, these illustrations communicate very little information about the environmental characteristics desirable for library learning spaces. Even though Bennett (2006) deplores that ‘‘the knowledge base that guides library space planning is y poorly balanced, tilted heavily towards library operations’’ (p. 7), he, like others, concentrates on just that. Developing a design of a good library building involves much more than developing a few functional space diagrams and hiring an architect to produce a pleasing ‘‘wrapping’’ to contain those spaces. ‘‘Design is about the creation of form that integrates aesthetic intention, functional performance, and material durability into a spatial entity’’ (Shih, 2004, p. 217). This definition integrates the qualities of architecture that were first defined by Vitruvius as ‘‘firmitas, utilitas, venustas,’’ translating as firmness, commodity, and delight. However, the critical analysis of the texts studied brings into focus an outdated vision of design as being a simple matter of form following function. As it is constituted in the research corpus, the ALLP discourse fails to address design goals in conceptual terms that address aesthetic intentions (delight), environmental qualities (comfort), and structural requirements (firmness) that are all important rubrics of the architectural program. In the research corpus and elsewhere in the LIS literature, consideration of design issues tends to focus on the types of library spaces that are needed to accommodate users’ activities, operational needs, and required equipment. This conceptualization of design as space planning is both limited and limiting. It dwells on the specifics of a space program where the building is a behavior setting reduced to its nonpsychological components, and it ignores the psychological and affective dimensions of place design. Beagle and Halbert fail to consider psychological and affective factors in their discourse on the information and learning commons. Tramdack (1999) describes the information commons as an environment ‘‘where curiosity, creativity, and lifelong learning are sparked and nurtured’’(p. 92). Bennett (2006) touches upon the cognitive values present in traditional library buildings designed in the idiom of churches. He identifies coherence, legibility, complexity, and mystery as values that draw people to space in general. However, he does not show how those values might relate to the design of academic libraries as learning places. It would have been particularly useful to elaborate on the architectural and environmental qualities library spaces might have that foster learning. One of the goals of architecture is to create a physical/material place. According to Yi-Fu Tuan (1977), ‘‘place is a center of meaning constructed

A Critical Analysis of the Discourse on Academic Libraries

39

by experience’’ (pp. 151–152), where ‘‘experience is a cover-all term for the various modes through which a person knows his world’’ (p. 161). For him, architecture also creates a place in the imagination. Sadly, the discourse developed in the research corpus provides only a tenuous framework for its audience to imagine the library as a place. The discourse analyzed covers what librarians generally know through the mind about a library – its role and location on campus and the functions of spaces and their contents; however, it fails to discuss what users could learn about the library as place through their senses.

CONCLUSION, LIMITATIONS, AND IMPLICATIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH Conclusions of the Study CDA of a corpus of eight significant texts from the academic library planning and design literature showed that important discussions of architectural design and place making are omitted from the discourse on the academic library designed as a learning place they construct. The terms Architecture and Buildings used in databases as descriptors for half of the articles that were analyzed were found to be misguiding indicators of the articles’ contents. In effect, none of these texts addresses architecture or building design in any detail. Texts’ narratives tend to focus instead on space planning issues related to new types of services offered in academic libraries that incorporate information and learning commons. The information commons and the learning commons are constructed as necessary evolutionary stages in the realignment of the library with the educational mission and the changing needs of universities and colleges as they refocus on student-centered teaching and learning. As a primary stage in the evolution of academic libraries, the information commons model is constructed as an adaptation to the changing technological context of the digital age. The learning commons is constructed as a higher level of the academic library’s evolutionary development. It is designed as space and place for learning, thereby becoming an institutional player in the overall educational mission of the university. The repertoires on the information and learning commons are inserted in a diffusion of innovation process. They also support the marketing function of the discourse on the ALLP. The explicit purpose of the ALLP discourse is to

40

CATHERINE CLOSET-CRANE

promote the planning and design of new facilities and services that respond to student-centered educational trends and to the needs of students and educators in a changing digital environment. Yet, implicitly this discourse offers a new corporate identity for academic libraries by proposing to the library community the adoption of one of two brands – the information or the learning commons. In this discourse, Bennett’s ideological discursive activity effectively constructs the ‘‘library designed for learning’’ as a brand mantra.

Limitations of the Study This study was exploratory and relied on a descriptive, interpretive, analytical, and critical study of discourses deployed in a small number of publicly available texts that were purposefully selected. Limitations arise from using CDA as a research method. Doing discourse analysis is labor intensive and time consuming that constitutes a limitation in that it restricts the amount of data that it is manageable to analyze. Respected discourse analysts Potter and Wetherell (1987), however, consider that ‘‘it is not the case that a larger sample necessarily indicates a more painstaking or worthwhile piece of research’’ (p. 161). Like that of all critical analyses of discourse, the validity of this study needs to be evaluated on the strength of the interpretative argument, its believability, and its coherence with the data and its context. The second limitation resides in the types of texts chosen as data. In the methodological framework of discourse analysis, there is no prescription on what counts as acceptable source of data as long as the texts are socially, politically, organizationally, or institutionally significant to the problem the analyst wants to study. For my study, I decided to use texts that were written as part of the social practices of the academic library professional community and that were publicly available. Numerous articles were collected, carefully reviewed, and discarded after evaluation of their potential for analysis. It would have been an unwieldy task to analyze them all in the same way I analyzed the texts selected for my study. I opted to select a corpus that included journal articles, essays in published reports, and texts of conference presentations. Other types of texts could have been used such as transcripts of interviews or focus groups with librarians and library directors/managers, or internal documents produced during an academic library design project. In future studies, I plan to get closer to the participants in the discourse and use interview and focus group data.

A Critical Analysis of the Discourse on Academic Libraries

41

The constitution of a corpus for analysis is value laden. Which texts are included depends on the research problem of interest and the types of questions the analyst wants to be able to answer. Those questions are in turn dependent on the researcher’s perspectives on the world, social life, and discourse analysis. In my study, my knowledge and experience of libraries and librarianship together with my theoretical and experience-based knowledge of architecture have probably influenced at cognitive and affective levels how I have selected the texts in the corpus. Ideology can limit the kind of interpretations and critique that CDA yields. Because my research was exploratory, I chose to avoid the traditional approach to CDA that focuses on power relationships. My goal was to let the data talk to me without the filter of an ideological lens. However, it is unavoidable for my discourse interpretation and critical analysis not to have been influenced by my professional training, my work experience, my personal values, and my views on academia, libraries, and architecture.

Recommendations and Directions for Future Research In the discourse on the academic library as place, the lack of consideration being given to the import of architectural design in place making suggests that academic library managers would benefit from a deeper understanding of architectural programming and post occupancy building evaluation. The introduction of post occupancy evaluation techniques from the field of environmental design into library evaluation practices would also help the profession develop a body of data that could lead to the practice of evidence-based library planning and design in the future. Studying how human behavior is impacted by architectural and environmental factors in a variety of library spaces would make an invaluable contribution to the library and architecture professions. Ideally, such studies should be made by interdisciplinary teams of architects, psychologists, and librarians. In the future, empirical data should be collected on the characteristics of library spaces that are conducive to the behavior deemed desirable by librarians and deter what may be in contrast considered undesirable behavior and activities. It is my hope that my study has shown that critical analysis of the professional discourse in the academic librarianship community is a useful means to raise self-consciousness among members of the profession in regard to the way the library is discursively constructed as a learning place. Critical analysis of the discourse on the IC and LC primarily reflects the point of view that the academic library has to reassert its role on its campus

42

CATHERINE CLOSET-CRANE

or lose relevancy. However, my analytical interpretation of this discourse raises questions as to the character and value of the IC and LC constructs. Further study is projected that will analyze the importance of the IC and LC in the lexicon of their advocates and their value to the profession.

REFERENCES Acker, S. R., & Miller, M. D. (2005). Campus learning spaces: Investing in how students learn. ECAR (Educause Center for Applied Research) Research Bulletin, 2005(8), p. 11. Albanese, A. R. (2006). Breaking ground. Library by Design, 1(Spring), 4–7 Supplement to Library Journal. Alstad, C., & Curry, A. (2003). Public space, public discourse, and public libraries. LIBRES, 13(1). Antell, K., & Engel, D. (2006). Conduciveness to scholarship: The essence of academic library as place. College & Research Libraries, 67(6), 536–560. Archer, M., Bhaskar, R., Collier, A., Lawson, T., & Norrie, A. (Eds). (1998). Critical realism: Essential readings. New York: Routledge. Bailey, R., & Tierney, B. (2002). Information commons redux: Concept, evolution, and transcending the tragedy of the commons. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 28(5), 277–286. Bailey, R., & Tierney, B. (2008). Transforming library service through information commons: Case studies for the digital age. Chicago: American Library Association. Bailey-Hainer, B., & Forsman, R. B. (2005). Redefining the future of academic libraries: When the definition of ‘public good’ changes. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 31(6), 503–505. Baker, B. (2000). Values for the learning library. Research Strategies, 17, 85–91. Beagle, D. (1999). Conceptualizing an information common. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 25(2), 82–89. Beagle, D. (2002). Extending the information commons: From instructional testbed to Internet 2. The Journal of Academic librarianship, 28(5), 287–296. Beagle, D. (2004). From information commons to learning commons. [Online] Available at http:// www.usc.edu/isd/libraries/locations/leavey/news/conference/presentations/presentations_ 9-16/Beagle_Information_Commons_to_Learning.pdf. Retrieved on November 23, 2008. Beagle, D. (2006). The information commons handbook. New York: Neal Schumann Publishers. Beagle, D. (2009). The learning commons in historical context. Annals of Nagoya University, Library Studies, 7, 15–24. [Online] Available at http://libst.nul.nagoya-u.ac.jp/pdf/ annals_07_03.pdf. Retrieved on April 2, 2009. Bennett, S. (2003). Libraries designed for learning. CLIR Report (Pub. 122). Council on Library and Information Resources, Washington, DC Bennett, S. (2005). Righting the balance. In: Library as place: Rethinking roles, rethinking space. CLIR Report (Pub. 129). Council on Library and Information Resources, Washington, DC. Bennett, S. (2006). The choice for learning. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 32(1), 3–13. Bennett, S. (2007a). First questions for designing higher education learning spaces. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 33(1), 14–26.

A Critical Analysis of the Discourse on Academic Libraries

43

Bennett, S. (2007b). Designing for uncertainty: Three approaches. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 33(2), 165–179. Bennett, S. (2008). The information or the learning commons: Which will we have? The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 34(3), 183–185. Bjarrum, C. & Cranfield, A. (2004). The future is now – library re-engineering in the 21st century. In: M. F. Bisbrouck et al. (Eds), Libraries as places: Buildings for the 21st century. Proceedings of the 13th Seminar of IFLA’s Library Buildings and Equipment Section co-organised with IFLA’s Public Libraries Section-Paris, France, 200 (pp. 39–63). Munich: Saur Verlag. Bolin, M. K. (2005). The library and the computer center: Organizational patterns at land grant universities. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 31(1), 3–11. Boone, M. D. (2003). Monastery to marketplace: A paradigm shift. Library Hi Tech, 21(3), 358–366. Bosseau, D. L. (1998). Where are we now? Journal of Academic Librarianship, 24(5), 390–391. Braverman, B. (2000). Libraries and theme parks: Strange bedfellows. Research Strategies, 17, 99–105. Bruffee, K. A. (1999). Collaborative learning: Higher education, interdependence, and the authority of knowledge (2nd ed.). Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. Budd, J., Hill, H., & Shannon, B. (2010). Inquiring into the real: A realist phenomenological approach. Library Quarterly, 80(3), 267–284. Bulpitt, G. (2004). Inspiring and teaching: The new integrated learning center at Sheffield Hallam University. In: M. F. Bisbrouck, et al. (Eds.), Libraries as places: Buildings for the 21st century. Proceedings of the 13th Seminar of IFLA’s Library Buildings and Equipment Section co-organised with IFLA’s Public Libraries Section. Paris, France, 200. (pp. 65–72). Mu¨nchen: Saur Verlag Buschman, J., & Leckie, G. J. (Eds). (2007). Library as place: History, community and culture. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited. Cain, D., & Reynolds, G. (2006). The impact of facilities on recruitment and retention of students. Facilities Manager (March/April), 54–60. Carlson, S. (2001). The deserted library. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 48(12), 35–38. [Online] Available at http://chronicle.com/free/v48/i12/12a03501.htm. Retrieved on July 8, 2008. Chouliaraki, L., & Fairclough, N. (1999). Discourse in late modernity: Rethinking critical discourse analysis. Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press. CLIR (The Council on Library and Information Resource). (2002). Diffuse libraries: Emergent roles for the research library in the digital age. (CLIR Report) (Pub 108). Washington, DC: Council on Libraries and Information Resources. CLIR. (2003). Libraries designed for learning. (CLIR, Report) (Pub. 122). Washington, DC: Council on Library and Information Resources. CLIR. (2005). Library as place: Rethinking roles, rethinking space. (CLIR, Report) (Pub. 129). Washington, DC: Council on Library and Information Resources. Connaway, L. S. (2005). Physical space for virtual services and collections. Portal: Libraries and the Academy, 5(1), 127–131. Cowgill, A., Beam, J., & Wess, L. (2001). Implementing an information commons in a university library. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 27(6), 432–439. Crockett, C., McDaniel, S., & Remy, M. (2002). Integrating services in the information commons: Towards a holistic library and computing environment. Library Administration & Management, 16(4), 181–186.

44

CATHERINE CLOSET-CRANE

Davenport, N. (2006). Place as library? Educause Review, 41(1), 12–13. de Jong, C. J. (2007). Book review: The information commons handbook. Partnership: The Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research, 2(1). Available at http://gir.uoguelph.ca/index.php/perj/article/view/268/368. Retrieved on November 30, 2008. Delambre, R. (2004). The library is the message. French Cultural Studies, 15(2), 190–205. Dempsey, B. (2004). Target your brand: Build an identity that works in the age of the superstore. Library Journal, 129(13), 32–35. Dempsey, L. (2005, August 13). Standing and branding. Lorcan Dempsey’s weblog. On libraries, services, and networks. Available at http://orweblog.oclc.org/archives/ 000760.html. Retrieved on July 2, 2009. Dewey, B. I. (2002). Social, intellectual, and cultural spaces: Creating compelling library environments for the digital age. Journal of Library Administration, 48(1), 85–94. Dobson, P. J. (2002). Critical realism and information systems research: Why bother with philosophy? Information Research, 7(2)Available at http://informationr.net/ir/7-2/ paper124.html. Retrieved on August 2, 2008. Dodsworth, E. (1998). Marketing the academic library: A necessary plan. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 24(4), 320–322. Dowlin, K. (2004). The library as place: Challenges in the digital age. In: M. F. Bisbrouck, et al. (Eds), Libraries as places: Buildings for the 21st century. Proceedings of the 13th Seminar of IFLA’s Library Buildings and Equipment Section co-organised with IFLA’s Public Libraries Section. Paris, France, 2003 (pp. 11–37). Munich: Saur Verlag Eigenbrodt, O. (2008). The constitution of library space through activity. [Online] IFLA 2008 Conference. Available at http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla74/Programme2008.htm#11August. Retrieved on August 24, 2008. Engel, D., & Antell, K. (2004). The life of the mind: A study of faculty spaces in academic libraries. College & Research Libraries, 65(1), 8–19. Fairclough, N. (1992a). Discourse and social change. Cambridge, UK: Blackwell Publishing. Fairclough, N. (1992b). Discourse and text: Linguistic and intertextual analysis within discourse analysis. Discourse & Society, 3(2), 193–217. Fairclough, N. (1993). Critical discourse analysis and the marketization of public discourse: The universities. Discourse & Society, 4(2), 133–168. Fairclough, N. (2001a). The dialectics of discourse. Textus, 14(2), 231–242[Online] Available at www.ling.lancs.ac.uk/staff/norman/2001a.doc. Retrieved on July 10, 2008.. Fairclough, N. (2001b). The discourse of new labour; Critical discourse: Textual analysis. In: M. Wetherell, S. Taylor & S. J. Yates (Eds), Discourse as data: A guide to analysis (pp. 229–266). London: Sage. Fairclough, N. (2001c). Language and power (2nd ed.). Harlow, UK: Pearson Education Limited. Fairclough, N. (2003). Analysing discourse: Textual analysis for social research. London: Routledge. Fairclough, N. (2005a). Critical discourse analysis. Marges Linguistiques, 9, 76–94. Fairclough, N. (2005b). Critical discourse analysis in transdiciplinary research. In: R. Wodack & B. Chilton (Eds), A new agenda in (critical) discourse analysis: Theory, methodology, and interdisciplinarity. Amsterdam: J. Benjamins. Fairclough, N. (2005c). Peripheral vision: Discourse analysis in organizational studies: The case for critical realism. Organization Studies, 26(6), 915–939.

A Critical Analysis of the Discourse on Academic Libraries

45

Fairclough, N. (2005d). Discourse in processes of social change: ‘Transition’ in Central and Eastern Europe. [Online] Available at http://www.ling.lancs.ac.uk/staff/norman/ paper1.doc. Retrieved on July 14, 2008. Fang, C. (2008). University library: The third place for students. [Online] IFLA 2008 Conference. Available at http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla74/Programme2008.htm#11August. Retrieved on August 24, 2008. Fisher, K. E., Saxton, M. L., Edwards, P. M., & Mai, J. E. (2007). Seattle public library as place: Reconceptualizing space, community, and information at the Central Library. In: J. Buschman & G. J. Leckie (Eds), Library as place: History, community and culture (pp. 135–160). Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited. Foote, S. M. (2004). Changes in library design: An architect’s perspective. Portal: Libraries and the Academy, 4(1), 41–59. Forrest, C., & Halbert, M. (Eds). (2009). A field guide to the information commons. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press. Forrest, C., & Hinchliffe, L. J. (2005). Beyond classroom construction and design – Formulating a vision for learning spaces in libraries. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 44(4), 296–300. Freund, L., & Seale, C. (2007). Transforming Library West at the University of Florida: A fairy tale makeover. Florida Libraries, 50(2), 14–16. Gayton, J. T. (2008). Academic libraries: ‘‘Social’’ or ‘‘Communal?’’ The nature and future of academic libraries. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 34(1), 60–66. Given, L., & Leckie, G. J. (2003). ‘‘Sweeping’’ the library: Mapping the social activity space of the public library. Library & Information Science Research, 25, 365–385. Gust, K. J., & Haka, C. H. (2006). Bringing users back to the library: A case history. New Library World, 107(1222/1223), 141–148. Haas, L., & Robertson, J. (2004). The information commons. Washington, DC: Association of Research Libraries. Halbert, M. (1999). Lessons from the information commons frontier. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 25(2), 90–91. Hartman, C. W. (2000). Memory palace, place of refuge, Coney Island of the mind: The evolving roles of the library in the late 20th century. Research Strategies, 17, 107–121. Henderson, J. C., & Venkatraman, N. (1999). Strategic alignment: Leveraging information technology for transforming organizations. IBM Systems Journal, 38(2 & 3), 472–484. First published in 1993, IBM Systems Journal, 32(1). Henderson, J. C., Venkatraman, N., & Oldach, S. (1996). Aligning business and IT strategies. In: J. F. Luftman (Ed.), Competing in the information age: Strategic alignment in practice. New York: Oxford University Press. Hernon, P. (2002). Editorial: First, embracing customer service and, second, moving beyond it: A client relationship. The Journal of Academic librarianship, 28(4), 189–190. Hersberger, J. A., Sua, L., & Murray, A. L. (2007). The fruit and root of the community: The Greensboro Carnegie Negro Library, 1904–1964. In: J. Buschman & G. J. Leckie (Eds), Library as place: History, community and culture (pp. 79–99). Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited. Hiller, S. (2004). Measure by measure: Assessing the viability of the physical library. The Bottom Line: Managing Library Finances, 17(4), 126–131.

46

CATHERINE CLOSET-CRANE

Hjørland, B. (2004). Arguments for philosophical realism in library and information science. Library Trends, 52(3), 488–506. Houlihan, R. (2005). The academic library as congenial space: More on the Saint Mary’s experience. New Library World, 106(1208/1209), 7–15. Hurt, C. (1997). Building libraries in the virtual age. College & Research Libraries News, 58(2), 75–76. Jackson, H., & Hahn, T. B. (2008). The library as sacred place: Applying the psychology of religion to the academic library as a sanctified space and implications for measurement and evaluation. [Online] Available at http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla74/Programme2008 .htm#11August. Retrieved on August 24, 008. Jashapara, A. (2007). Moving beyond tacit and explicit distinctions: A realist theory of organizational knowledge. Journal of Information Science, 33(6), 752–766. Jørgensen, M., & Phillips, L. (2002). Discourse analysis as theory and method. London: Sage. Kaufman, P. T. (2008). The library as strategic investment: Results of the Illinois return on investment study. Liber Quarterly, 18(3/4), 424–436. December. Keller, K. L. (1999). Brand mantras: Rationale, criteria and examples. Journal of Marketing and Management, 15, 43–51. King, H. (n.d.).The academic library in the 21st century – What need for a physical place? [Online] Available at http://www.iatul.org/doclibrary/public/Conf_Proceedings/2000/ King.rtf. Retrieved on October 25, 2010. Kohl, D. (2006). Where’s the library? The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 32(2), 117–118. Kratz, C. (2003). New realities, new relationships. Transforming the delivery of service: The joint-use library and information commons. C&RL News, 64(2). Leckie, G. J. (2004). Three perspectives on the library as public space. Feliciter, 50(6), 233–236. Leckie, G. J., & Hopkins, J. (2002). The public place of central libraries: Findings from Toronto and Vancouver. Library Quarterly, 72(3), 326–372. Lefebvre, M. E. (2002). The library as congenial space: The Saint Mary’s experience. New Library World, 103(1172/1173), 21–29. Levy, D. C. (2006). Market university? Comparative Education Review, 50(1), 113–124. Library success: A best practices wiki. (2008). Branding. Available at http://www.libsuccess.org/ index.php?title ¼ Branding. Retrieved on July 2, 2009. Lippincott, J. K. (2004). New library facilities: Opportunities for collaboration. Resource Sharing & Information Networks, 17(1-2), 147–157. Locke, T. (2004). Critical discourse analysis. London: Continuum. Ludwig, L., & Starr, S. (2005). Library as place: Results of a delphi study. Journal of the Medical Library Association, 93(3), 315–326. Lynch, B. P., et al. (2007). Attitudes of presidents and provosts on the university library. College & Research Libraries, 68(3), 213–227. MacWhinnie, L. A. (2003). The information commons: The academic library of the future. Portal: Libraries and the Academy, 3(2), 241–257. Malenfant, C. (2006). The information commons as a collaborative space. Reference Services Review, 31(2), 279–286. Mann, T. (2007). The research library as place: On the essential importance of collections of books shelved in subject-classified arrangements. In: J. Buschman & G. Leckie (Eds), Library as place: History, community and culture (pp. 191–206). Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited.

A Critical Analysis of the Discourse on Academic Libraries

47

Martin, D. (2004). Supporting independent learning: The pioneering new design at the University of Hertfordshire. In: M. F. Bisbrouck, et al. (Eds), Libraries as places: Buildings for the 21st century, Proceedings of the 13th Seminar of IFLA’s Library Buildings and Equipment Section co-organised with IFLA’s Public Libraries Section-Paris, France, 2003 (pp. 73–88). Mu¨nchen: Saur Verlag. Mathews, B. (2009). Marketing today’s academic library: A bold new approach to communicating with students. Chicago: American library Association. McCabe, G. B., & Person, R. J. (Eds). (1995). Academic libraries: Their rationale and role in American higher education: Contribution in librarianship and information science, No. 84. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Meernik, M. (2004). Library as place: Library users speak up, LibQUALþSurvey Findings. Ypsilanti, MI: Eastern Michigan University, Bruce T. Halle Library. [Online] Available at http://www.emich.edu/halle/libqual_articles_library_as_place.html. Retrieved on February 17, 2008. Milewicz, E. J. (2009). Origin and development of the information commons in academic libraries. In: C. Forrest & M. Halbert (Eds), A field guide to the information commons (pp. 3–17). Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press. Mingers, J. (2004). Realizing information systems: Critical realism as an underpinning philosophy for information systems. Information and Organization, 14(2), 87–103. Mountifield, H. (2003). Learning with a latte, The Kate Edger Information Commons – Providing student-centered learning support, EDUCAUSE in Australasia. [Online] Available at http://www.information-commons.auckland.ac.nz/content_files/publications/ educause_article.pdf. Retrieved on June 30, 2009. Nikkel, T. (2003). Implementing the Dalhousie learning commons. Feliciter, 49(4), 2212–2214. Owusu-Ansah, E. (2001). The academic library in the enterprise of colleges and universities: Toward a new paradigm. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 27(4), 282–294. O’Connor, R. A., & Bennett, S. (2005). The power of place in learning. Planning for Higher Education, 33, 28–30. Pavlovsky, L. (2005). Understanding the role of values in library design. Advances in Library Administration and Organization, 22, 157–274. Pelster, N. (2000). Editorial. Research Strategies, 17, 77. Phillips, N., & Hardy, C. (2002). Discourse analysis: Investigating processes of social construction. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Potter, J., & Wetherell, M. (1987). Discourse and social psychology: Beyond attitudes and behaviour. London: Sage. Potthoff, J. K., Weis, D. L., Montanelli, D. S., & Murbach, M. M. (2000). An evaluation of patron perceptions of library space using the role repertory grid procedure. College & Research Libraries, 61(3), 191–202. Revill, D. (1997). The Avril Robarts Learning Resource Centre: Liverpool John Moores University. New Library World, 98(1138), 258–266. Riggs, D. E. (2000). Joint use libraries: Thinking out of the box. College & Research Libraries, 61(2), 96–97. Riggs, D. E. (2001). Oversimplified speculation on the demise of libraries. College & Research Libraries, 62(4), 304–305. Riggs, D. E. (2002). New libraries remain an excellent investment. College & Research Libraries, 63(2), 108–109.

48

CATHERINE CLOSET-CRANE

Ross, L., & Sennyey, P. (2008). The library is dead: Long live the library’ The practice of academic librarianship and the digital revolution. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 34(2), 145–152. Rowley, J. (1997). Managing branding and corporate image for library and information services. Library Review, 46(4), 244–250. Samson, S., & Oelz, E. (2005). The academic library as full-service information center. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 31(4), 347–351. Seadle, M. (2002). Editorial: The physical dimension of information space. Library Hi Tech, 20(1), 6–7. Seaman, S. (2006). The library as learning environment: Space planning in an academic library. Colorado Libraries, 32(1), 5–7. Shader, B. (2008). Learning commons: Evolution and collaborative essentials. Oxford, UK: Chandos. Shih, C. (2004). Between concept and form: Learning from case studies. Journal of Asian Architecture and Building Engineering, 3(1), 217–221. Shill, H. B., & Tonner, S. (2003a). Creating a better place: Physical improvements in academic libraries, 1995–2002. College and Research Libraries, 64(6), 431–466. Shill, H. B., & Tonner, S. (2003b). Does the building really matter? Facility improvement and library usage, ACRL 11th National Conference, Charlotte, NC, April 12, 2003. [Online] Available at http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/events/pdf/shill.pdf. Retrieved on September 15, 2008. Shill, H. B., & Tonner, S. (2004). Does the building still matter? Usage patterns in new, expanded, and renovated libraries, 1995–2002. College and Research Libraries, 65(2), 123–150. Simons, K., Young, J., & Gibson, C. (2000). The learning library in context: Community, integration, and influence. Research Strategies, 17, 123–132. Smith, M. L. (2006). Overcoming theory-practice inconsistencies: Critical realism and information systems research. Information & Organization, 16(3), 191–211. Snavely, L. (2000). Learning library. Research Strategies, 17, 79–84. Spencer, M. E. (2006). Evolving a new model: The information commons. Reference Services Review, 34(2), 242–247. Spencer, M. E. (2007). The state-of-the-art: NCSU libraries learning commons. Reference Services Review, 35(2), 310–321. Stimson, N. F. (2007). Library change as a branding opportunity: Connect, reflect, research, discover. C&RL News, 68(11), 694–698. Stoeger Wilke, J. (2006). The ‘‘library as place’’. In Brief, 24(2), p. 1. [Online] Available at http:// www.unk.edu/uploadedFiles/academics/library/inbrief/IB%20Fall%202006.pdf. Retrieved on May 14, 2008. Suarez, D. (2007). What students do when they study in the library: Using ethnographic methods to study student behavior. Electronic Journal of Academic Librarianship, 8(3). [Online] Available at http://southernlibrarianship.icaap.org/content/v08n03/suarez_d01. html. Retrieved on October 25, 2010. Suominen, V. (2008). Social constructionism, hermeneutics, conceiving of the user and use, and the issue of the Cartesian subject. In: M. L. Huotari & E. Davenport (Eds), From information provision to knowledge production. Proceedings of the International Conference for the Celebration of the 20th Anniversary of Information Studies, Faculty

A Critical Analysis of the Discourse on Academic Libraries

49

of Humanities, University of Oulu, Finland, June 23–25 (pp. 175–192). Finland: University of Oulu. [Online] Available at http://herkules.oulu.fi/isbn9789514288432/ isbn9789514288432.pdf. Retrieved on August 3, 2008. Talja, S. (1999). Analyzing qualitative interview data: The discourse analytic method. Library & Information Science Research, 21(4), 459–477. Taylor, S. (2001a). Locating and conducting discourse analytic research. In: M. Wetherell, S. Taylor & S. J. Yates (Eds), Discourse as data: A guide for analysis (pp. 5–48). London: Sage. Taylor, S. (2001b). Evaluating and applying discourse analytic research. In: M. Wetherell, S. Taylor & S. J. Yates (Eds), Discourse as data: A guide for analysis, (pp. 311–330). London: Sage. Templeton, T. C. (2008). Placing the library: An argument for the phenomenological and constructivist approach to the human geography of the library. Library Quarterly, 78(2), 195–209. The´lot, D., & Mayeur, N. (2004). Les mesures de se´curite´ et leur impact sur la construction des bibliothe`ques: l’exemple de la bibliothe`que de l’Universite´ Denis Diderot-ParisVII dans le baˆtiment des Grands Moulins de Paris [Security measures and their impact on the construction of libraries: The example of the library of Denis Diderot-ParisVII in the building Grands Moulins de Paris]. In: M. F. Bisbrouck et al. (Eds), Libraries as places: Buildings for the 21st century. Proceedings of the 13th Seminar of IFLA’s Library Buildings and Equipment Section co-organised with IFLA’s Public Libraries Section-Paris, France, 2003 (pp. 117–122). Mu¨nchen: Saur Verlag. Thomas, M. A. (2000). Redefining library space: Managing the coexistence of books, computers, and readers. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 26(6), 408–415. Tramdack, P. (1999). Reaction to Beagle. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 25(2), 92–93. Tuan, Y. F. (1977). Space and place: The perspective of experience. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Tuominen, K. (2005). The social constructionist viewpoint on information practices. In: K. E. Fisher, S. Erdelez & L. McKechnie (Eds), Theories of information behavior (pp. 328–331). Medford, NJ: Information Today. Tuominen, K., Talja, S., and Savolainen, R. (2002). Discourse, cognition, and reality: Towards a social constructionist metatheory for library and information science. In: H. Bruce, R. Fidel, P. Ingwersen and P. Vakkari (Eds), Emerging frameworks and methods CoLIS 4: Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Conceptions of Library and Information Science, Seattle, WA, July 21–25, 2002, pp. 271–283. Greenwood Village, CT: Libraries Unlimited. Van Leeuwen, T. (2008). Discourse and practice. New York: Oxford University Press. Van Pelt, P. (2000). Putting talent to work in the creation of the learning library. Research Strategies, 17, 93–98. Watson, L. (2007). Building the future of learning. European Journal of Education, 42(2), 255–263. Waxman, L., Clemons, S., Banning, J., & McKelfresh, D. (2007). The library as place: Providing students with opportunities for socialization, relaxation, and restoration. New Library World, 108(9/10), 424–434. Whitmire, E. (2001). A longitudinal study of undergraduates’ academic library experiences. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 27(5), 379–385.

50

CATHERINE CLOSET-CRANE

Wikgren, M. (2005). Critical realism as a philosophy and social theory in information science? Journal of Documentation, 61(1), 11–22. Wills, H. (2004). An innovative approach to the non-learning public: The new Idea Stores in London. In: M. F. Bisbrouck, et al. (Eds), Libraries as places: Buildings for the 21st century, Proceedings of the 13th Seminar of IFLA’s Library Buildings and Equipment Section coorganised with IFLA’s Public Libraries Section-Paris, France, 2003 (pp. 103–116). Mu¨nchen: Saur Verlag. Wood, L., & Kroger, R. O. (2000). Doing discourse analysis: Methods for studying action in talk and text. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

THE RURAL PUBLIC LIBRARY AS PLACE: A THEORETICAL ANALYSIS Linda R. Most ABSTRACT Research into the library as place investigates the role of public library buildings as destinations, physical places where people go for various reasons ranging from making use of the library’s resources and services or seeking to fulfill an information or reading need to less easily identified reasons that may include using the library’s building as a place to make social or business contacts, to build or reinforce community or political ties, or to create or reinforce a personal identity. This study asks: How are one rural US public library system’s newly constructed buildings functioning as places? The answer is derived from answers to subquestions about adult library users, user, and staff perceptions of library use, and observed use of library facilities. The findings are contextualized using a framework built of theories from human geography, sociology, and information studies. This case study replicates a mixed-methods case study conducted at the main public libraries in Toronto and Vancouver in the late1990s and first reproduced in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 2006. It tests methods used in large urban settings in a rural, small-town environment. This study also expands on its antecedents by using thematic analysis to determine which Advances in Library Administration and Organization, Volume 30, 51–149 Copyright r 2011 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0732-0671/doi:10.1108/S0732-0671(2011)0000030005

51

52

LINDA R. MOST

conceptualizations of the role of the public library as place are most relevant to the community under investigation. The study relies on quantitative and qualitative data collected via surveys and interviews of adult library users, interviews of library public service staff members, structured observations of people using the libraries, and analysis of selected administrative documents. The five sets of data are triangulated to answer the research sub-questions. Thematic analysis grounded in the conceptual framework finds that public realm theory best contextualizes the relationships that develop between library staff members and adult library users over time. The study finds that the libraries serve their communities as informational places and as familiarized locales rather than as third places, and that the libraries facilitate the generation of social capital for their users. Keywords: Public libraries; library users; Gadsden County, Florida; mixed methods; library as place

Research to the concept of the library as place attempts to understand the role of library buildings as destinations: physical places where people go for various reasons ranging from the most obvious – making use of the library’s resources and services or seeking to fulfill an information need – to less easily identified reasons that may include using the library’s building as a place to make social or business contacts, to build or reinforce community or political ties, or to create or reinforce a personal identity (Osburn, 2007). Public library leaders refer to their libraries as information institutions, and this is how people most typically understand public libraries. Statistics show that generations of Americans have used their public libraries as a source for reading materials. Nationwide, in 2008, users visited public libraries 1.50 billion times, or 5.1 library visits per capita; those visitors borrowed 7.7 library materials per person and used the libraries’ Internet PCs 1.21 times each (Henderson et al., 2010). From the work of Leckie, Hopkins, and Givens (Given & Leckie, 2003; Leckie & Hopkins, 2002), May (2007, 2009), and May and Black (2010) LIS researchers know something about how people use the physical resources of larger urban and suburban public libraries in places like Toronto,

Rural Public Library as Place: A Theoretical Analysis

53

Vancouver, and Halifax, Canada. Ongoing research generated by the Urban Libraries Council has explored public library use in many larger U.S. cities (Urban Libraries Council, 2007). Other examples of how people use libraries as place were provided by a study of the ways people use the reading rooms of some of the Israel’s urban public libraries (Shoham, 2001), and an inquiry into how women use public libraries differently than do men (Fidishun, 2007). A recent collection, The Library as Place: History, Community, and Culture (Buschman & Leckie, 2007), presents scholarly papers offering examinations into the nature of the library as place in multiple settings. However, none of these research studies address the contemporary role of the rural public library as place. Other than work conducted by the American Library Association’s Office for Literacy and Outreach Services and by the Center for the Study of Rural Librarianship (CSRL) at Clarion University, there is little scholarly research addressing the ways small rural and suburban libraries function in their communities. In 2004, the American Library Association (ALA) surveyed rural public, school, and tribal libraries in the United States to identify their key areas of concern, and respondents identified community poverty and lack of library funding as the key problems they faced (Leach, Jr., 2004). The study did not look at any of the positive effects of small rural libraries on their communities. Although the CSRL has published the journal Rural Libraries since 1980, covering all aspects of library service to rural communities and rural librarianship, it has yet to publish any research relating to the role of the rural public library as a community place. According to the 2008 IMLS survey of public libraries, of 9,221 public libraries in the United States, 77.7% (7,158 individual library service points) serve populations under 25,000 people (Henderson et al., 2010), indicating that this is a significant void in the literature. This study systematically investigates the role of the public library as place in Gadsden County, a small rural, majority African-American county with approximately 47,000 residents located in north-west Florida along the Florida-Georgia border. The goal of the study is to identify how the Gadsden County Public Library System’s (GCPLS) adult users view and use their public library buildings as place. Studying the GCPLS as place is important because the role of the public library as place in small towns and in the lives of rural African-American adult library users has not been closely studied. More has been written about the historical role of public libraries in African-American communities and the fight for access to their buildings and collections (Battles, 2009; Hersberger, Sua, & Murray, 2007; Tucker, 1998). Because GCPLS

54

LINDA R. MOST

built three new library buildings between 2000 and 2007, it offers a rare opportunity to expand LIS research about the contemporary role of the library as place in rural libraries. This study exploited that opportunity by replicating a tested research design in a new population. It also explores whether current library architecture and facilities design are meeting the needs of the community’s library users. Finally, it identifies the most relevant theoretical explanations of how library buildings function as place in a rural setting by contextualizing its findings within the theoretical literature that informs the concept of the library as place.

Study Setting Located in the Florida Panhandle along the Florida-Georgia border and just 20 miles from the state capital, Gadsden County is one of the United States’ 300 majority minority counties – counties in which members of minority groups make up the majority of the population (Abbady, 2007). Although Gadsden County is small, ranking 42nd of 67 counties in Florida in overall population, it is second only to large, urban Miami-Dade County in the percentage of that population that identifies itself as part of a protected minority.1 It has the highest percentage of African-American residents – 56.8% – and the highest percentage of female heads of household – 26.9% – in Florida (Dart, 2007; BEBR, 2007, pp. 1, 3). Despite its agricultural past, Gadsden County is now classified as a metropolitan county in a small metropolitan area of less than one million people (USDA ERS, 2003b), part of the Tallahassee Metropolitan Statistical Area (OMB, 2007, p. 50). The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service classifies Gadsden County’s economy as Federal or State Government Dependent, meaning 15% or more of the average annual labor and proprietor earnings were derived from the Federal or State government between 1998 and 2000 (USDA ERS, 2003a). The county is classified as experiencing housing stress, meaning ‘‘30 percent or more of households had one or more of these housing conditions in 2000: lacked complete plumbing, lacked complete kitchen, paid 30 percent or more of income for owner costs or rent, or had more than 1 person per room’’ (USDA ERS, 2003a). Because of its plantation history, agricultural economy, and some of its residents’ multigenerational family wealth, Gadsden County today is a study in contrasts (Heritage, 1988). According to certain key statistical indicators, Gadsden is the poorest county in the state, with the highest

Rural Public Library as Place: A Theoretical Analysis

55

percentage statewide of single female householders (26.9%) and the highest percentage of students eligible for the free/reduced price lunch program (Proctor, 2001; Center for Public Education, 2008; BEBR, 2007, p. 3, p. 6). These statistics tie directly to the high percentage of African-Americans in the county’s population (Proctor, 2001). Although Gadsden County is part of the Tallahassee Metropolitan Statistical Area rather than a micropolitan2 area in its own right, no municipality in the county has a population over 5,000 other than Quincy, the county seat, and the public library system serves people living in both small towns and unincorporated areas. The GCPLS describes itself as ‘‘a 25 year old library system located in rural North Florida’’ (Gadsden County Public Library, 2008). However, even though the county library system is only 25 years old, Gadsden County has a history of municipal and subscription public library service dating back to the early 20th century with libraries having been housed in a variety of loaned spaces, including an old private school, a storefront, and alongside the Sherriff’s office in the basement of a county building. Today the county library system consists of three new buildings and a bookmobile. The main library is located in Quincy, the county seat; and the two branches are located in the small towns of Havana and Chattahoochee. The Havana Public Library branch building opened in 2003 after previously occupying a rented storefront. It serves a town population estimated at 1,826 (BEBR, 2009), and is located two blocks away from the downtown antique stores, restaurants, and other tourist destinations, which is about 15 min from Tallahassee. The new William A. ‘‘Bill’’ McGill main library in Quincy opened in June 2006 after being housed in a series of borrowed and shared spaces. It serves a city population estimated at 7,384 (BEBR, 2009), and sits next to the main post office and the county Wal-Mart on a major thoroughfare into the city. It is about 30 min from Tallahassee. The new Chattahoochee Branch Library opened in April 2007 leaving behind an outgrown, obsolete wood building. It serves a city population estimated at 3,282 (BEBR, 2009) and sits about two miles away from downtown at a main crossroads and across from the Chattahoochee Elementary School. Chattahoochee is the furthest of the cities from Tallahassee, situated at the point where the Florida, Georgia, and Alabama state lines come together on the Apalachicola River just below the confluence of the Chattahoochee and the Flint Rivers. The unincorporated population of Gadsden county is estimated at 33,516 (BEBR, 2009). The libraries, a bookmobile, and other outreach programs serve the residents of the unincorporated communities of

56

LINDA R. MOST

the county. GCPLS ranks 51 of 74 in relative size of legal service population of public library entities in Florida (State Library & Archives of Florida, 2008).

INTRODUCTION TO THE LITERATURE The conceptual framework for this study is built on previous research into the role of the library as place and the role of the library in the life of the user. Zweizig (1973) observed that most library research before the early 1970s had been conducted from the perspectives of librarians and administrators and suggested that LIS research would be well served by investigating the roles libraries play in the lives of their users – in other words – developing a usercentered perspective. Thirty years later Wiegand (2005a) summarized three key roles public libraries play in the lives of their users: making useful information and recreational reading materials available to billions of people and providing ‘‘hundreds of thousands of places where users have been able to meet formally as clubs or groups, or informally as citizens and students utilizing a civic institution and cultural agency’’ (p. 77). This third role public libraries play for their users, providing a meeting place – examined from the perspective of broader theoretical interpretations of the roles of public places in society – provides the context for understanding the ways Gadsden County’s library users think about and use their public libraries as place. Osburn (2007) provides a theoretical and philosophical context for the concept of library as place, situating it in the fields of psychology, neurology, geography, philosophy, and architecture. His constructed definition of place is ‘‘a setting of any dimension and type in which an individual perceives a special spirit (genius loci) that is generated by the quality of experience related to the values and associations it recalls, and whose significance to the individual captures an extraordinary order and heightens related awareness that becomes an inspiration for imagination and behavior’’ (p. 63). Osburn’s definition of place contextualizes much of the literature cited in this study.

Library as Place Place Studies is a field of inquiry grounded in geography and in social and cultural studies. Cresswell (2004) offers five concepts to help understand place as a construct: location, locale, sense of place, space, and landscape. Location refers to fixed coordinates in space; locale refers to the boundaries

Rural Public Library as Place: A Theoretical Analysis

57

that define the places within which people conduct their lives as social individuals; sense of place explains people’s subjective attachments to locations to which they have attached meaning; space is the physical world before people attach meaning to it; and landscape is the topography of the spaces around people – the geography they look at rather than the place they live. Places all have significance in the social world and the field of place studies provides a fresh way of looking at the role of libraries in society. Drawing on the framework built in place studies, LIS scholars have used several theoretical perspectives to understand libraries as place. Leckie’s (Given & Leckie, 2003; Leckie & Hopkins, 2002) extensive study of public use of the main libraries in Toronto and Vancouver and social roles the buildings play as important community places is central in the scholarly research about library as place and provides the foundation for this project. Her study examines public use of the main libraries in those cities through a series of structured observations, library user surveys, library user interviews, and staff interviews. She and her colleagues report that the libraries are ‘‘highly successful as public spaces’’ (2002, p. 359), and attract a large and diverse user population. They ‘‘fulfill extremely important educational, informational, and social functions within their respective cities, providing community gathering, work, and study places that would be difficult to duplicate in any other manner’’ (p. 359). Their findings also indicate ‘‘important symbolic, cultural, and socioeconomic roles’’ for libraries in their cities and that the rise of information technology has only expanded the libraries’ role by adding another tool the public can use (p. 360). The most serious threat to the continued success of the downtown public library as an important community place ‘‘is the ongoing ideological shift within libraries away from their neutral status as public institutions toward that of an active agent for private interests in the market economy’’ (p. 360). Leckie and her co-authors see a danger in the ongoing commercialization of library services and facilities through corporate sponsorships and underwriting because commercial influence ‘‘has the real potential to transform the fundamental nature of libraries’’ and change the public library’s fundamental cultural mission to one that is no longer entirely public (p. 360). May (2007, 2009; May & Black, 2010) used Leckie’s (Given & Leckie, 2003; Leckie & Hopkins, 2002) study as the basis of her master’s thesis. She used Leckie’s overall design and instruments to study patterns of use in six small and medium sized libraries in Nova Scotia, asking whether the libraries are functioning successfully as public places and how people use and experience libraries as physical spaces. She finds that each library is

58

LINDA R. MOST

flourishing as a public place and that people are using them ‘‘to engage in a wide variety of activities from using computers to socializing, reading, and interacting with staff’’ (2007, p. xi). She concludes that the libraries she studied ‘‘are vibrant community spaces that are used in a multitude of ways and where the public feels welcome’’ (p. xi). May’s study provides the model for the methodology and instruments employed in this study. In 2007 Leckie and Bushman published The Library as Place: History, Community, and Culture featuring 14 research articles whose authors draw on various theoretical, historical, and sociological concepts to inform their work. Several of the theoretical perspectives featured in the book inform this study’s understanding of the public library as place.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK Leckie (2004) discusses three theoretical perspectives that inform her work on libraries as public space in a follow-up article to her study of the Toronto and Vancouver main libraries (Given & Leckie, 2003; Leckie & Hopkins, 2002). For Leckie, the key factors that make public libraries into public spaces serving the needs of their users start with the library’s physical presence including its architectural design and its location in the community. How libraries become successful public spaces depends on ‘‘a complex interplay of the actions and beliefs, of library users and library staff, library governance, particular ideologies, political maneuvers, power relations, and a number of other factors’’ (p. 234). Leckie identifies academic conversations about ‘‘the nature of the public sphere, the crisis in civil society, and the meaning of the library to its users’’ (p. 234) as especially helpful in understanding the role of the library as a meaningful public space. Briefly, the public sphere is a conceptual arena in which people can participate in the public, civic aspects of their lives not played out at home (the private sphere) or under direct control of government (the sphere of the state). The public sphere coalesces when people come together voluntarily to discuss important civic issues. Philosopher Jurgen Habermas (1974, 1991) is most closely associated with developing and exploring the concept of the public sphere and his work is often cited in discussions of the role of the public library in society. The crisis in civil society, according to political scientist Robert Putnam (1993, 1995a, 1995b, 1996a, 1996b, 2000) refers to a steady decline in civic participation, volunteer work, and philanthropy in the United States since World War II. Putnam attributes this decline to a steady decrease in the production of social capital, the intangible glue that

Rural Public Library as Place: A Theoretical Analysis

59

underpins social institutions and holds society together. Leckie completes her theoretical framework by discussing the meaning of the library to its users, referring to Zweizig’s (1973, 1976) argument that LIS scholarship should be thinking about the library in the life of the user rather than the user in the life of the library. Citing her own research (Leckie & Hopkins, 2002), Leckie supports Wiegand’s (2003) contention that libraries should be celebrating and encouraging reading as a public activity. Her research finds ‘‘that the majority of patrons in the library at any given time were engaged in reading and the number one reason for visiting [the libraries] was to use the large and complete collection of books and periodicals’’ (Leckie, 2004, p. 235). For Leckie, the threat to public libraries is less about the seduction of digital and communication technologies, tools that bring access to global knowledge and communication to personal computers, than an ideology that defines the library as business (Buschman, 2004), an ideology that undermines the library’s position as an expression of the Habermasian public sphere. Buschman’s (2003, 2004, 2005a, 2005b) theoretical research identifies the U.S. public library as a quintessential expression of the Habermasian public sphere. Library collections, he says, represent and preserve ‘‘the variety of arguments over the public’s issues and democratic culture over time, implicitly refuting notions of once-and-for-all solutions’’ and embody ‘‘the turbulent course of a democracy and its culture’’ (2005a, p. 11). He contends that, ‘‘By building diverse voices, perspectives, and arguments into our collections and services, we keep alive the means of realizing true democracy – by transcending our nation’s historical shortcomings of exclusion and discrimination, and our profession’s similar shortcomings, through the struggle to include censored works and underserved groups’’ (2004, p. 40).

Ju¨rgen Habermas and the Transformation of the Public Sphere Jurgen Habermas’ (1991) theory of the public sphere offers a philosophical grounding from which to interpret one of the roles public libraries play in society. For Habermas, the public sphere is a theoretical conceptualization of the part of the social world that sits between the private sphere – the home – and the sphere of public authority – the world of government and the state. The public sphere is that part of the social world outside of the direct control of the state where people can come together regardless of status or income. It often forms in commercial places but has a

60

LINDA R. MOST

noncommercial, nonmarket-focused perspective. The public sphere is the place in which public discourse on topics of general interest occurs and in which democracy is nurtured through social interaction. Some scholars use the concept of civic space to describe the public sphere (Schudson, 1998). Buschman (2003, 2005a, 2005b), Webster (2002), Wiegand (2000, 2003), and Williamson (2000) are among those who interpret the role of public libraries in their communities as an expression of the public sphere. They suggest that public libraries are among the few remaining places where people can come together regardless of race, class, gender, or income level. In their view the physical place of public libraries provides a setting in which democratic activity can occur in keeping with Habermas’ theory of the public sphere. Habermas’ theory may provide an insight into how people use the GCPLS locations, especially when they are understood as civic space. Habermas defines the bourgeois public sphere as a realm of the social world situated between the privacy of the home and the authority of the government in which citizens can participate in civic dialogue as a means of contributing to civic life. For Habermas, the public sphere is a construct of the middle class world. He conceives it ‘‘as the sphere of private people come together as a public’’ (1991, p. 27). Habermas says the public sphere rose out of 17th century social changes – especially in France, England, and Germany – as professional men created a new civil society by coming together in nongovernmental public places and forming voluntary associations (Calhoun, 1992; Fraser, 1992). Habermas describes the bourgeois public sphere as the result of a new emphasis on communicating ideas and information between members of a social world. He also describes how the bourgeois public sphere transforms over time as it is reshaped by the pressure of social change. He demonstrates this change by citing the transformation of newspapers from ‘‘a journalism of conviction to one of commerce’’ beginning in the 1830s in England, France, and the United States (Habermas, 1974, p. 53). Other transforming forces include a blurring of the distinction between the state and the social world (Calhoun, 1992). Habermas’ theory provides a normative ideal and a lens through which observers can gain insight into patterns of public life and social activity. ‘‘The public sphere – public press, public forums, public schools, public libraries, and other means of free discourse about social information’’ (Burnett & Jaeger, 2008, p. 9) is the essential expression of modern democracy, but many of its embodiments are under threat.

Rural Public Library as Place: A Theoretical Analysis

61

Urban Public Space as an Expression of the Public Sphere Mitchell’s (1995) examination of the 1991 struggle over access to People’s Park, a piece of undeveloped land owned by the University of California at Berkeley, offers a detailed analysis of conflicting visions of the role of public spaces in cities. Activists and homeless people saw the park as ‘‘an unconstrained space within which political movements can organize and expand into wider areas’’ (p. 115). The University’s representatives envisioned ‘‘open space for recreation and entertainment, subject to usage by an appropriate public that is allowed in’’ (p. 115, italics in original). Mitchell discerns a conflict between a vision of public space as a politicized environment in which risks of political confrontation and disorder are central to its function, and a vision of a planned, orderly, safe public space in which users are made to feel comfortable. Mitchell argues the normative ideal of the public sphere – ‘‘the suite of institutions and activities that mediate the relations between society and the state’’ (p. 116) and the reality of public space – are inherently in conflict. He bases his argument in Habermas’ conception of the public sphere as one in which all participants in social formations ‘‘should find access to the structures of power within a society’’ (p. 116, author italics). As Mitchell observes, the Habermasian ideal of the public sphere and the physical reality of public space are intrinsically in conflict. Zukin (1995), Sorkin (1992), and Wilson (1992) all have discussed the ‘‘Disneyfication’’ of North American public space – the process of ‘‘creating landscapes in which every interaction is carefully planned’’ (Mitchell, 1995, p. 119). Idiosyncratic and extemporaneous interactions between people engaged in common goals are displaced by interactions shaped by market and design considerations. The privatization of public space, according to Mitchell, is leading to a new, restricted definition of the public which excludes groups of people who are not able or willing to follow corporate restrictions on activities suitable for public spaces. The forces Mitchell identifies as threatening urban public spaces are also touching public libraries. Although corporate sponsorship of a youth summer reading program or an adult book club is not in itself threatening, it does offer corporations access to previously noncommercial public space. Banerjee (2001) asks about the future of public space in the United States and identifies causes for the decline of the public realm that include declines in social capital, a rise in public incivilities, and loss of territorial control. Privatization of existing public spaces is a continuing trend, and corporate

62

LINDA R. MOST

open spaces are minimally used. By contrast, shopping malls have become the most frequently visited nonfamily, nonwork places, but they usually exclude public activities typical of the traditional downtown public spaces. When those exclusions have been challenged, shopping centers and corporate plazas have not been determined to be public forums. Banerjee (2001) comments that shopping malls create the illusion of public space while isolating visitors from the risks and uncertainties of everyday life.

Public Libraries and the Public Sphere Buschman (2005a) identifies a series of trends in public librarianship that ‘‘represent a diminution – or dismantling – of the democratic public sphere’’ (p. 11). He states that a key danger lies in following the market-oriented, entrepreneurial practices that inform current public policy thinking, thereby creating a sort of ‘‘information capitalism’’ (p. 9) that transforms library users into customers. Buschman says public libraries have assumed ‘‘an entrepreneurial approach to funding shortages and library practices’’ (p. 9) by following this trend. He believes that this new approach encourages an economic bias toward networked resources and other cost-driven approaches to library management that has led libraries to adopt a new economics-focused public philosophy at odds with the philosophy of the democratic public sphere. Buschman (2003) counters the current influence of the economic model of library service with a vision of a library ‘‘democratically connected to its community’’ (p. 180). Because of the intangible long-term nature of the influence of the library in the lives of its users Buschman (2005b) suggests that any form of cost-based measurement will necessarily fall short of describing the impact of the public library as an expression of the public sphere. In contrast to the privatization of public spaces described by Mitchell and Banerjee, Alstad and Curry (2003) argue that public libraries today still function close to the public sphere ideal and summarize many of the arguments advocating on behalf of public space.

Place Theory in Sociology The normative ideal of the Habermasian public sphere informs the civic nature of the public library as place, but people use the public spaces public libraries provide for many social and personal purposes as well. Sociologists and political scientists often investigate the physical characteristics of the

Rural Public Library as Place: A Theoretical Analysis

63

places in which different types of social interactions occur and their various approaches provide a different perspective on the social nature of place. Taken together, the different perspectives can help provide a fuller understanding of what library as place means to library users. Third Places Oldenburg’s (1999) concept of third places has provided a popular framework for scholars to use when analyzing roles public libraries might play as community places (Fisher, Saxton, Edwards, & Mai, 2007; C. Harris, 2007; K. Harris, 2003; Lawson, 2004). For Oldenburg, home and family make up the first place, work and professional or business relationships happen in the second. The third places are the social sites where people go to experience community when they are at leisure or between home and work. Third places most often are free or inexpensive; are very accessible (ideally within walking distance); involve regular patrons whom habitue´s expect to encounter regularly; and are unprepossessing but welcoming and comfortable. He also suggested that they often feature food and drinks, something that is not essential, but nonetheless is important to their capacity to fulfill this role. Even though, by nature, third places benefit their communities, they have limits that grow out of their limited service areas and clientele. True third places are often heavily race and genderspecific. Public Libraries as Third Places In the late 20th and early 21st centuries public libraries attempted to claim third place status in their communities. Kevin Harris’ (2003) feature article analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of British public libraries as third places. He tests them against Oldenburg’s criteria and asserts their importance as local places in which certain types of community connections can be established or reinforced. He identifies public libraries as places ‘‘to which people can go without obligation, threat, or constraining expectations,’’ saying they fall at ‘‘the less interactive end of the third place spectrum, but they have an under-appreciated role in providing local support and generating trust’’ (p. 26). Karen Lawson (2004) also attributes certain aspects of the third place to public libraries saying third places ‘‘nourish relationships and a diversity of human contact by helping to create a ‘sense of place’ and a community’’ (p. 125). Lawson refers to 20th century public libraries by using Oldenburg’s alternate phrase, great good places, and says they are excellent examples of the concept because they ‘‘welcome members of their

64

LINDA R. MOST

particular communities regardless of age and economic status and provide them with access to information, services, and a responsive, usually safe, environment’’ (pp. 126–127). She continues on to note that ‘‘traditional libraries provide human contact and social experience and strive to foster service, social equality, and the appreciation of human individuality’’ (p. 127). A key feature of Oldenburg’s third places is access to coffee or other food and beverages while enjoying the company of others. Cathryn Harris (2007) positions public libraries as ‘‘increasingly becoming places for social interaction, with areas set aside as meeting spaces, training rooms, and art galleries’’ and describes these features and their activities as adding to the attraction of the library as a destination (p. 146). She does not mention that meeting rooms and other social spaces were important features of the original early 20th century Carnegie library buildings in the United States (Van Slyck, 1995). Fisher et al. (2007) developed the concept of informational places when they used Oldenburg’s (1999) third place theory as part of the framework for their study of the new Seattle Public Library central library facility. They asked library users and passers-by about their perceptions of the new building as a physical and social place, finding that, though the library only met three of Oldenburg’s eight characteristics of a third place, one of the key values of the library to its users was as the place to go when they needed to obtain information, read for pleasure, or study and learn. Although this is not surprising, these researchers concluded that the theoretical literature in place studies has not previously addressed place in relation to informationseeking behavior. They developed the concept of an informational place to add information seeking and information consumption as core attributes of place to be added to those in the theoretical literature. This characterization of Seattle’s library as an informational place may be helpful in understanding theoretical aspects of library as place in other communities as well. The public realm Lyn Lofland (1998) divides urban space into three realms – private, parochial, and public. The boundaries of these realms are fluid and their identities can change as peoples’ relationships change within a given space. The private realm is the world of intimate relationships among family members, extended families, and friends. The parochial realm is the world of neighborhoods and the workplace where people know each other socially or professionally and share a common purpose. The public realm is the world of the street where strangers find themselves face-to-face. While moving through the public realm people experience a variety of relationships with

Rural Public Library as Place: A Theoretical Analysis

65

those they encounter during their daily public activities and the nature of those relationships can change over time. As a social territory the public realm operates under a set of principles of normative behavior that include (1) cooperative motility, (2) civil inattention, (3) audience role prominence, (4) restrained helpfulness, and (5) civility toward diversity (Lofland, 1998, p. 30). These behaviors guide interpersonal conduct among strangers in the city and allow each person cooperatively to maintain his or her own privacy. People who do not know each other use these norms to establish the various kinds of relationships indigenous to the public realm. In the public realm fleeting relationships occur when looking for a seat on a bus or asking the time (p. 53). Routinized relationships are standardized relationships based on the roles people play like bus driver, cabby, grocery clerk, shopper, etc. They result from a specific interaction and end when the interaction ends, or they transform into another level of urban relationship (p. 54). Quasi-primary and intimate-secondary relationships develop when positive or negative emotion infuses a public relationship (pp. 55–56). Quasi-primary relationships appear to end when the interaction ends. Intimate-secondary relationships endure. They occur among people who connect to each other in some public way and place and then build on that connection, whether it is formed on the commuter bus or train or among those that one shares a public interest with, or at a park, hairdresser, retail store, or other similar space. They are meaningful, last a long time, and feel good, yet they are not necessarily intimate. In addition to person-to-person public realm relationships, person-toplace relationships also form. Significant places become memorialized locales, small spaces that take on an aura because of something that happened there (Lofland, 1998, p. 65). Familiarized locales become part of people’s daily routines (p. 66). The corner store, the newsstand, and the branch library are examples of familiarized locales that, for their habitue´s, become very important to ordinary public life. Finally, home territories may be public or private spaces where ‘‘regular participants have a relative freedom of behavior and a sense of intimacy and control over the area’’ (Lyman & Scott, 1967; cited in Lofland, 1998, p. 69). In spite of the ‘‘dominant rhetoric of antiurbanism’’ (Lofland, 1998, p. 229) that favors the rural and the suburban and privileges the private and the parochial realms over the public realm, Lofland identifies several examples of the public realm’s persistent positive social value and utility. First, the public realm provides ‘‘an environment for learning’’ (p. 232), not formal classroom learning but the everyday life lessons children and adults

66

LINDA R. MOST

need to learn to function in the social world, to interact successfully with people unrelated to them and from different cultures. The public realm provides ‘‘respite and refreshment’’ (p. 233), functioning as a positive play environment for children and adults who benefit from the experience of play. Lofland cites Oldenburg’s (1999) documentation of the psychic refreshment individuals experience in their third places as an example of the respite and refreshment obtainable in the locales of the public realm. The sociability of aspects of the public realm provides informal communication centers (pp. 233–234) for a variety of people and groups. Public communication enables the ‘‘practice’’ of politics (p. 234) in an informal sense in which people of different backgrounds and opinions learn to act together. Out of those informal political patterns, people learn to come together when formal actions are needed. ‘‘Finally,’’ as Wiegand (2005a, p. 79) states, ‘‘the public realm facilitates cosmopolitanism.’’ Lofland (1998) says the public realm uniquely has the capacity to teach its residents about tolerance and civility. In spite of its unique qualities, Lofland says, the public realm in North America is under threat from technology, tourism, and personal timidity. Increasing privatization keeps people from experiencing the unique qualities of the public realm and threatens its continuing vitality.

The Public Realm and the Public Library McKenzie, Prigoda, Clement, and McKechnie (2007) describe public library meeting rooms as neutral physical spaces that may serve variously as public or parochial realms reflecting the fluid nature of the relationships among the people using the spaces. The fluidity built into public realm theory may be useful in understanding how people experience public libraries as places. McKenzie et al. studied public use of an Ontario public library meeting room. They found that the members of the library’s weekly knitting group and those in the young children’s/caregivers story hour regularly transform the public space of a library meeting or program room into semiprivate or private realms. They apply Lofland’s (1998) theory to the relationships forming within the two groups and thereby identify those relationships as intimate secondary relationships. They also find several enactments of private family relationships taking place inside the library, especially with regard to the physical care of the children participating in the story hour. McKenzie et al. (2007) also observed the members of the two groups fulfilling what Lofland (1998) described as ‘‘quasi-primary and

Rural Public Library as Place: A Theoretical Analysis

67

intimate-secondary relationships [that] promote the informal exchange of information’’ (p. 130). Conversation topics ranged from the immediate focus on knitting and childcare into an ‘‘extremely wide variety of other topics’’ (p. 130). They conclude that, though the public library is considered a public space and a part of the world of strangers, those people using the public meeting room are transforming it into a world apart from the public realm. They propose that public libraries should be understood as sites that ‘‘support a variety of relationships and host a variety of realms’’ (p. 131).

Social Capital Public and academic libraries have been thoroughly researched as places where social capital is generated. Social capital is a theoretical concept that grows out of economic thinking but is used across many disciplines to describe the results of connections people make through participation in social networks. One of the core ideas of social capital is that social networking has value and that the action of social networking generates a form of capital that an individual can use to enhance personal or group productivity within the social world. Political science scholar Robert Putnam is among those credited with popularizing the concept of social capital in the United States, but his emphasis is on its influence on the relations between communities and nations rather than between individuals. Putnam is a leading proponent of using social capital to reinvigorate civic life in the United States. He defines social capital as ‘‘features of social life – networks, norms, and trust – that enable participants to act together more effectively to pursue shared objectives’’ (Putnam, 1995b, p. 664; 1996a, p. 35). Putnam (1995a, 1995b, 1996a) identifies social capital as important to furthering America’s domestic agenda but noted its ‘‘strange disappearance’’ in a series of much discussed and debated articles. He cites one statistic that inspired the catchphrase for his thesis: ‘‘more Americans are bowling today than ever before but bowling in organized leagues has plummeted in the last decade or so’’ (Putnam (1995a, p. 70). The image of the solo bowler, featured in Putnam’s (1995a) article title ‘‘Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital,’’ captured the national attention. Putnam continued to study the reasons why social capital was declining in American society and published a book-length study that rekindled the international discussion across popular and academic communities (Boggs, 2002).

68

LINDA R. MOST

Halpern’s (2005) work builds on and expands Putnam’s understanding of social capital and its role in social life. Halpern adds an international viewpoint to the discussion and says his British perspective gives him a different view than Putnam’s interpretation of U.S. events. Halpern interprets the American social capital narrative as one of the transformation rather than agreeing with Putnam’s narrative of decline ‘‘as more generalized social norms come to replace the informal understandings of traditional communities’’ (p. ix).

Public Libraries and Social Capital Following the publication of Bowling Alone, Putnam was invited to speak at the 2001 annual meeting of ALA (ALA breaks attendance records despite Marriott boycott despite Marriott boycott, 2001). ALA President Nancy Kranich described him as ‘‘taken aback when he discovered the extraordinary level of social capital resident in the room’’ (p. 2). Putnam’s appearance at the ALA meeting brought public libraries to his attention as places where social capital is generated as U.S. library leaders grabbed their opportunity to demonstrate the many ways libraries build social capital and to chide Putnam for missing libraries in Bowling Alone (Kranich, 2001; Preer, 2001). In Better Together Putnam and Feldstein, with Cohen (2003) visited the Chicago Public Library’s Near North Branch which they described as ‘‘an active and responsive part of the community and an agent of change’’ (p. 35). Audunson, Varheim, Abo, and Holm (2007), Bourke (2005), Cart (2002), Goulding (2004), and Hillenbrand (2005a, 2005b) have successfully used the theory of social capital to explain some of what happens between people who come together in public library buildings. Audunson et al. have categorized public libraries as low intensive meeting places, arenas where people can meet or be exposed to others with different interests and values. By contrast, high intensive meeting places are the places where people live out the majority of their lives engaged with others who share their interests, projects, or life goals (Audunson, 2005). Audunson et al. (2007) describe the public library as ‘‘an arena for informal social interaction, for the creation of weak ties, generalized trust, and bridging social capital’’ (p. 11). They say that the unique accessibility of public libraries to all members of the community as well as outsiders ‘‘should make it extraordinarily well suited for bridge building across diversities’’ (p. 11). Bourke (2005) also describes public libraries as ideally placed to encourage the networking between

Rural Public Library as Place: A Theoretical Analysis

69

different community groups and representatives that is the generating force required to build social capital. Goulding’s 2004 editorial in the British Journal of Librarianship and Information Science highlights the difference between British and U.S. governmental policy perspectives regarding the importance of social capital as a public good, saying that, ‘‘in the UK policy makers and academic commentators believe that the state and its institutions can create the conditions through which social capital can be generated’’ (p. 4). She believes that ‘‘the more optimistic British view is perhaps the result of evidence suggesting that associational life and civic participation in the UK is still strong in contrast to, for example, the United States (as documented by Putnam)’’ (p. 4). Goulding finds great opportunities for public libraries to contribute to civic renewal and community building and to emphasize their role in building social capital. ‘‘The very success of democratic public space lies in its embrace of conflict and plurality and libraries need to consider how to address any tensions inherent in their use whilst still ensuring that their capacity to help promote social capital is maintained’’ (p. 5). In Norway, Aabo (2005) focuses on the changing roles of public libraries in the digital era. She finds that they help meet the digital age’s challenges because of their potential and actual roles as public spaces that provide social and physical meeting places. The purpose ‘‘generally accepted for public libraries worldwide has not been changed by the ICT [information communication technology] revolution,’’ she says, ‘‘The purpose of public libraries is still to further democracy, equality and social justice, increase access to information, disseminate culture and knowledge, contribute to a meaningful and informative leisure time, and act as a communal institution and a social meeting place’’ (p. 210). Varheim (2007) calls for deeper ongoing research into the relationship of libraries and social capital. After reviewing many of the sources cited in the literature, Varheim concludes that ‘‘people mainly use the library for document-related activities. However, many find it a place they just want to be: a third place for informal low-intensive meetings’’ (p. 425). At the same time, Norwegian public library users ‘‘prioritize the equity of access for all and consider library buildings a symbol of government commitment’’ (p. 425). Varheim warns that outreach activities intended to bring in new library users must be ‘‘grounded in a library services perspective,’’ noting that, ‘‘if libraries turned into local community centers, merely functioning as hubs and recruiting areas for voluntary associations, there would be little evidence of their social capital-building properties’’ (p. 425). In contrast to Putnam’s (2000) firmly held belief in the importance of voluntary associations, Varheim

70

LINDA R. MOST

argues that ‘‘there is scant evidence that voluntary associations create social capital, regardless of their other positive effects’’ (p. 425). Varheim (2007) predicts public libraries will play three main roles in creating social capital: providing universal services built around the core purpose of access to documents and information; functioning as a public space that provides universal access for all on an equal footing; and as an informational institution, ‘‘bringing people together for knowledge and reflection’’ (p. 426). Varheim suggests that universal service and universal access without means testing are key features of public libraries that support social capital generation, but that ‘‘the library has a vital role in maintaining the public sphere in times of commercial and physical threats to the free formation of the public opinion’’ (p. 426) and, therefore, has a role in supporting ‘‘both the social and the political fabric of society and government’’ (p. 426). Varheim’s (2007) and Aabo’s (2005) conclusions about the role of public libraries in Norway reflect the split in the U.S. public library community between emphasizing the public library’s role as the locus of the public sphere and library decision makers’ need to document the economic value of public library services (Buschman, 2003, 2004, 2005a, 2005b). Audunson (2005, 2007a, 2007b) and Audunson et al. (2007) find that public libraries function as low-intensive meeting places that provide communities with ‘‘public spaces and meeting places filling different functions – for example, meeting places contributing to an undistorted communication in the Habermasian sense, meeting places with a potential of creating a minimum degree of community identity, and meeting places promoting social contact, making people go ‘bowling together’’’ (Audunson, 2007b, section 3.1, p. 8). As noted earlier, Audunson postulates that highintensity meetings are those between people who share their major interests and engagements and thus generate bonding social capital, and low-intensity meetings are those where people with different interests and values come together and generate bridging social capital. He and his colleagues have identified public libraries as an ideal site to support and encourage lowintensity meetings because of their ability to promote social inclusion and to create integrated and vital local communities (Audunson, 2005). He calls the public library ‘‘one of the few remaining cross-cultural meeting places’’ in an increasingly fragmented social world (Audunson, 2005, p. 437). Audunson et al.’s (2007) survey findings indicate that public libraries serve as important meeting places in several ways. The libraries function, most importantly according to respondents, as a ‘‘public square in the community where you meet friends and neighbours, enter into conversations

Rural Public Library as Place: A Theoretical Analysis

71

with friends and neighbours but also, to a very considerable degree, with strangers’’ (p. 25). Audunson et al. (2007) find that a wide range of types of meetings take place in public libraries, ‘‘informal meetings with friends, unplanned encounters, participation in virtual arenas, organized meetings with politicians and authors, etc.’’ (p. 3). They conclude that ‘‘the concept of low intensive meeting places where people become aware of each other across cultural heritages, and across differences in values and perspectives seems to be fruitful’’ (Conclusion section, p. 3). The conceptualization of low intensity meeting places offers an additional way to understand how public libraries function as places well suited to supporting social capital generating activities.

Public Libraries as Digital Informational Places Varheim (2007) describes public libraries as informational institutions functioning as both virtual and physical places where people come together around both document-driven and social activities. Audunson (2005) identifies public libraries as being simultaneously grounded in the geographically defined, local community while providing a bridge to the digital virtual world. Fisher et al. (2007) propose adding the concept of information seeking and consumption to Cresswell’s (2004) and Oldenburg’s (1999) frameworks for understanding libraries as place. Fisher et al. suggest that ‘‘an ‘informational place’ can be operationalized as comprising all themes regarding information finding and seeking, reading, life-long learning, learning resources, and learning environment’’ (p. 153). At the time of the 2007–2008 Public Libraries and the Internet study, 98.9% of public libraries offered public access Internet services (Libraries connect communities: Public library funding & technology access study, 2007–2008). In parallel with the rise of digital information technology, federal, state, and local governments have migrated more and more of their services to electronic-only applications – e-government – referring individuals without other Internet access to their public libraries for access and assistance rather than providing physical access points (Bertot, Jaeger, Langa, & McClure, 2006a, 2006b). As public libraries have become known as the place to go for access to e-government services, they have also become the first stop in times of emergencies. After the disastrous Gulf Coast hurricane seasons of 2004 and 2005, local people turned to the nearest open public library as a resource for information and communication access (Oder, 2006).

72

LINDA R. MOST

The authors of Long overdue: A Fresh Look at Public and Leadership Attitudes about Libraries in the 21st Century (2006) talked directly with library users about their perceptions of public libraries. They found that library users view libraries as ‘‘key players in our digitized future’’ (Wooden, 2006, p. 4). Although not explicitly framed as studying libraries as places, implicit in Long Overdue is a conception of the library as the physical place where people will go to connect to the Internet. The library users surveyed have not changed their expectations of public library programs and services from those of previous generations. They have merely added a need for libraries to provide digital services in addition to traditional services. ALA’s 2008 report on the state of America’s libraries identifies public libraries as ideally situated to meet evolving digital communication needs but warns that ‘‘growing patron enthusiasm for the computer and Internet services offered by public libraries has stretched existing Internet bandwidth, computer availability, and building infrastructure to capacity. Budgets have not kept up with demand, and many libraries cannot provide enough computers or fast-enough connection speeds to meet patron needs’’ (American Library Association, 2008, p. ii). Advances in digital communication technology and the proliferation of Internet-only resources are combining to add a new level of demand on top of other place-based public library programs and services. ALA’s current findings imply that it is crucial for public libraries to recognize their strengths and weaknesses as community places. Library managers must make decisions about which library roles they will emphasize and how they will use scarce resources to support them.

STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS This study asked ‘‘How are the Gadsden County Library System’s library buildings functioning as places?’’ as it explored ways adults who live in a small, rural, majority African-American county use their public libraries as place. The question was answered by addressing five research questions about library user demographics, library user and staff perceptions of library use, and observations of actual use of library facilities: RQ 1: Who are the users of the Gadsden County library buildings? RQ 2: How do Gadsden County’s adult library users describe their perceptions of their local library’s services and amenities?

Rural Public Library as Place: A Theoretical Analysis

73

RQ 3: What do Gadsden County’s adult library users think of the building design elements, layouts, and furnishings of their three libraries? RQ 4: What use do Gadsden County’s adult library users make of their library buildings? RQ 5: What insights can Gadsden County’s adult library users and staff provide about the role of the public library in their communities?

The answers to these questions – obtained through a mixture of research methods including structured observations of actual library use, a library user survey, interviews of library users and staff members, and a review of library meeting room reservations – provide answers to the guiding question and explain how Gadsden County libraries are functioning as place for the local community. The data are also analyzed within the context of the theoretical literature to deepen understanding of how people use the Gadsden County Library locations as place. The objective of the study is to provide a current picture of the uses Gadsden County’s adult citizens make of their new libraries to advance the field of place studies by demonstrating the applicability of the theories used previously to conceptualize larger urban public libraries as place to a small rural library system. This study replicates the mixed-methods case study designed and used by Leckie, Hopkins, and Given (Given & Leckie, 2003; Leckie & Hopkins, 2002) at the main public libraries in Toronto and Vancouver in the late 1990s to explore the role of the library as place in a community and replicated in 2006 by May (2007, 2009; May & Black,) at six smaller public library branches in and around Halifax, Nova Scotia. This study design features a single case – the GCPLS – using the three library branches, Main (in Quincy), Havana, and Chattahoochee, as units of analysis (Yin, 2003). The methodology employed a triangulated or convergence design that draws on four methods to collect both quantitative and qualitative data from two groups of people associated with the libraries: surveys and interviews of adult library users, interviews of library public service staff members, records analysis, and structured observations – seating sweeps – of the people using the libraries. The findings from each data collection method confirmed or disconfirmed the findings of the other data collection methods and then were combined to answer the research questions posed in the study. To facilitate eventual cross-case comparisons this study began by replicating the instruments and methods developed by Leckie, Hopkins, and Given (Given & Leckie, 2003; Leckie & Hopkins, 2002) and used later by May (2007, 2009, 2010) as closely as possible while at the same time

74

LINDA R. MOST

customizing the questions used to suit the demographic profile of the population of the current study site. May expanded Leckie, Hopkins, and Given’s original study design by incorporating an additional instrument designed by Curry, Dunbar, and Marshall (2004) to solicit public opinions about the design of recently constructed branch library buildings. Because Gadsden County’s public library buildings are new – they opened to the public in 2003, 2006, and 2007 – it was appropriate to include concepts from Curry’s library user survey here as well, just as May integrated it into her study, to ask how the libraries’ users feel about specific features of their new library buildings. During the library user and staff interviews, many respondents described having observed or participated in a variety of meeting room uses. After completing the original data collection plan, the study was expanded to include a review of the library meeting room reservation documents.

Participants and Data Collection The study focused on two principal subsets of library users. First, all library users age 18 or above who were physically present in the libraries during the period of the study were eligible to actively participate by completing self-administered questionnaires or by agreeing to be interviewed. Second, all library staff members who work with the public were invited to participate in the staff interview portion of the study. Three AfricanAmerican female staff members, two between ages 25 and 35 and one above 40, and 7 non-Hispanic white female staff members ranging in age from approximately 30–55 participated in the study. Children and teens under 18 years were counted during the observation periods but otherwise excluded from actively participating because the study was limited in collecting adult perceptions of public libraries as place, consistent with the design of the two previous studies. Around 337 unique adult library users participated either actively by completing a questionnaire or participating in an interview; or passively as among those observed using the library during the seating sweeps. The target data collection period for the study was autumn 2008, after public school had begun for the year but before Thanksgiving and winter holiday activities affected people’s schedules. Data collection began on September 10, 2008, and continued through November 24, 2008.

Rural Public Library as Place: A Theoretical Analysis

75

Study Instruments and Methods Seating Sweeps Seating sweeps, a way of structuring unobtrusive observations to document how people appear to be using the library at any specific time, were the first activity conducted at each site (Given & Leckie, 2003). These were conducted at each library during the week before the survey questionnaires were distributed or the interviews begun to attempt to capture undisturbed pictures of library use. Data were collected by walking through the library at scheduled times and recording the estimated age, gender, race, possessions (i.e., backpack, tote-bag, handbag, computer, baby carriage, music player, cell-phone, etc.), activities (reading, computer use by type, studying, talking, eating, participating in a program), and where the person was located in the library at the time of the observation for each person in the public areas of the library. For consistency, the categories of activity recorded were based on those used by May (2007) in her study but modified to suit the specifics of the Gadsden County public library locations. Five seating sweeps were conducted per location covering all the time periods during which each library location was open, including one weekday morning, one afternoon after school was dismissed for the day, and one evening; and once or twice – morning or afternoon – on a weekend day depending on the library location’s weekend operating hours. Observations of 174 individuals were documented across 3 library locations. Library User Surveys Posters announcing the study and asking adult library users to participate in the survey or be interviewed were placed at each location during the weeks the study was under way. The posters featured a gift-card drawing – an incentive for users to participate – that was held when each branch’s survey and public interviews were completed. The study design called for 200 questionnaires to be distributed during a two hour period three times during the week (morning, afternoon, and evening of different days) and twice during the weekend of the study week at each location. Additional questionnaires were left at the information desks next to the questionnaire return box for the period during which the survey was being conducted. One hundred and forty-three questionnaires were distributed across all three libraries following the data collection schedule and 109 usable completed questionnaires were returned, reflecting a 76% overall return rate. The text of the survey questionnaire is found in Appendix A.

76

LINDA R. MOST

Interviews of Library Users The interview guide uses the ‘‘standard open-ended’’ model (Johnson & Turner, 2003) in which the same wording and the same sequence of questions is used for each interview but the open-ended questions allow the interviewer room to probe for more details as appropriate. The text of the interview guide is found in Appendix B. The study proposal called for 20 interviews per library location for a total of 60 user interviews. The interviews were anticipated to take less than 10 min each. Adult interview subjects were recruited during time slots (including the weekends) when the survey questionnaire was not being actively distributed in order to expand the range of library users involved in the study. Interview participants were selected using purposive sampling in an attempt to reach representatives of the 12 most likely adult demographic groups to use the library (defined by approximate age group, apparent race, gender) and who spoke English well enough to participate in an interview. Any library users who appeared to belong to a different adult demographic group (e.g., of Asian or Hispanic origin) were specifically asked to participate. Interviews were recorded using a digital minirecorder and transcribed for analysis. Forty-one total public interviews were conducted across three locations. Population saturation became apparent when people entering the libraries declined to be interviewed by stating that they had already completed a survey form earlier in the study period. Interviews with Library Public Service Staff Members The library system’s managers allowed the staff interviews to take place during the participants’ scheduled work hours, and all public service staff members were invited to participate. The goal of this phase of the study was to secure participation from at least two public service staff members per library location, possibly including the location manager. Staff members were told that the interviews were voluntary, and that they were not required to participate if they did not wish to do so. All were offered the opportunity to review the questions in advance so that they could think through their responses. Ten staff members – all female – across three locations agreed to participate. The interviews were recorded using a handheld digital recorder and were transcribed for analysis. Meeting Room Reservation Logs Throughout the interviews participants referred in having seen people using the library public meeting rooms in a variety of ways or described having

Rural Public Library as Place: A Theoretical Analysis

77

personally participated in activities held in the meeting rooms. It became apparent that the meeting rooms contribute significantly to the role of the library as place for these communities. The original study design was therefore modified to include an analysis of meeting room reservations for the two months during which data collection took place.

Data Analysis Design The study data were analyzed following Creswell and Plano Clark’s (2007) concurrent triangulation, data convergence model of mixed methods study design. Yin (2003) refers to this analysis model as convergence of evidence and stresses the importance of triangulating the data obtained from all the lines of inquiry in the study to arrive at convincing and accurate conclusions that can be corroborated in the data. Quantitative Data Analysis The quantitative data resulted from the seating sweeps, the closed questions on the surveys, and the meeting room reservation sheets. The survey asked open-ended and forced choice questions (Fink, 2006) to capture library user demographics and opinions about the libraries’ services and facilities. These forced choice questions used formats including yes/no/why questions, scales of agreement questions, and a series of questions asking respondents to rank several sets of answers by various criteria. The meeting room reservations were kept on calendar pages at each branch. Reservations were sorted, tabulated, and totaled by category of use and location. Qualitative Data Analysis Textual data resulted from the open-ended survey questions and the interviews. The qualitative survey data were first coded descriptively to allow the themes and patterns relevant to the story the data were telling to emerge following the general tenets of in vivo coding (Strauss & Corbin, 1998) or verbatim coding (Saldana, 2009). Qualitative analysis of the library user interviews was conducted subsequent to the survey analysis, again following the general tenets of in vivo (Strauss & Corbin, 1998) or verbatim coding (Saldana, 2009). After the library user interviews were analyzed, the staff member interviews were coded and analyzed using the same methods. Intra-coder reliability testing was conducted by revisiting and recoding excerpts from the data coded at

78

LINDA R. MOST

the beginning of the analysis process after the first round of data analysis was complete. The second round of data analysis began by merging the quantitative and qualitative data sets to answer the study’s five research questions after which the theoretical analysis grounded in the study’s conceptual framework began. Theoretical analysis was intended to determine whether evidence of any of the previously identified theoretical roles public libraries play as place could be seen in the GCPLS’s locations. During the first round of data analysis, evidence of the social nature of reading as practiced at the public libraries became more and more apparent even though theoretical literature addressing the social nature of reading was not included in the study’s conceptual framework. Even without a theoretical context, the findings indicating that these public libraries support the social nature of reading could not be ignored completely (Fister, 2006; Ross, McKechnie, & Rothbauer, 2006; Wiegand, 2005b), and that supporting the social nature of reading must be acknowledged as one of the many functions of the library as place.

Validity The survey questionnaire demonstrated content validity because it was used and published previously (Leckie & Hopkins, 2002) and then modified and used again (May, 2007). To ensure content validity specific to the proposed study site, demographic questions were modified from previous iterations of the questionnaire to reflect characteristics of the current population. While using the questionnaire it became apparent that it had aged and would need further modification if used again. However, face validity of the questionnaire was still present: the questions looked like what they were asking about, and they reflected the community they were investigating and the environment in which they were being asked. Results of the questionnaires were compared with results from the interviews to determine whether people said different things when being interviewed than when filling out a questionnaire. Most responses to similar questions were consistent across both data collection methods. Seating sweeps observations both supported and contradicted the answers given on the questionnaires. For example, only one laptop computer was observed in use in a library building though library staff members explained in their interviews that people frequently bring laptops and work on them even though the libraries do not offer wireless Internet access and the staff

Rural Public Library as Place: A Theoretical Analysis

79

members feel this discourages patrons from using them in the library. A library user also mentioned the lack of wireless Internet access at the library and described it as a shortcoming during his interview. The example of different perspectives on use of laptop computers – observed compared to described – in small public libraries reinforces the importance of using multiple research methods to develop as full a picture of library use as possible. At the Gadsden County study sites, the staff interviews helped create a more accurate picture of laptop use than did the observations or survey questionnaires. Staff and library user interview responses provided a good picture of the need for the libraries to provide wireless Internet access and anecdotal evidence of the reasons they may have chosen not to do so. These and other examples of confirming and disconfirming evidence uncovered while triangulating the findings from the different components of the study help indicate the validity of the study because human behavior is never perfectly consistent (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2007).

FINDINGS Research Question 1 Research question 1 asked, ‘‘Who are the adult users of the GCPLS buildings?’’ Observations and answers to the relevant survey and interview questions were grouped by theme: gender, age, race, language spoken, education, employment, place of residence, and average length of trip to visit the library. Analyzed as a group these data offer a basic profile of the adult library users who visit the GCPLS libraries. They are majority female, between ages 30 and 60, and live within 15 min of their preferred library locations. The study included 337 participants who appeared to be, or selfcategorized as above the age 18; 32% were classified as being between ages 18 and 30, 41% between ages 30 and 60, and 17% were above the age of 60. Female study participants outnumbered males across all the data collection methods used and in all the age groups described in the study. The difference was greatest among those who actively participated in either the interviews or the surveys. Seating sweeps observations counted 58% female and 42% male. Interview respondents were 73% female and 27% male. Survey respondents were 78% female and 22% male.

80

LINDA R. MOST

Eighty-one percent of survey respondents indicated they live in the same town as the library branch they visit, and 12% live in another county or state from the library branch they visit. Eighty percent of library users reported that it takes them less than 15 min to get to the library from home, and an additional 16% travel between 15 and 30 min from home to get to their preferred library branch location. Three people – 3% – reported traveling more than an hour to get to the library branch they use, but one of these respondents indicated that the Havana library was close to her husband’s place of work. When asked why they used the library in question rather than any other library location, 65% indicated that it was close to home and an overlapping 13% indicated that it was convenient to them. The majority of GCPLS’s adult library users – 62% – reported having a high school diploma or having taken some university or college courses; an additional 20% reported having a university or college degree or diploma; and 11% reported at least some postgraduate study. Most of the survey respondents – 88% – reported that they spoke English as their only language, whereas 11% reported that they spoke English and some other language. Because the study was conducted in English, it is possible that many library users who speak Spanish as their first language did not choose to participate. Library users reported having a variety of occupations but some did not consider themselves as employed, calling themselves homemakers or retired. The most commonly reported primary occupation was other followed by a specific job title. Positions listed included nanny, state worker, pharmacy technician, truck driver, nurse, buffet cook, and others. After other the next most common category of primary occupation reported was professional, and the third most common response to the question was unemployed.

Research Question 2 Research question 2 asks how Gadsden County’s adult library users describe their perceptions of their local library’s services and amenities. Triangulating responses from the user survey and from user and staff member interviews provides a picture of library user perceptions of their local libraries’ services and amenities. Many library users indicate that their lives would change for the worse without access to the libraries. Many respondents consider access to computer technology to be the most important service the libraries provide; yet providing this service has complicated relations between library staff

Rural Public Library as Place: A Theoretical Analysis

81

members and library users. In addition to computer and Internet access, the libraries are used for many other purposes. Users reported that the key services the libraries provide include materials for recreational reading and entertainment and facilities to support educational and personal study and research. One group of library users appreciates the enrichment programs the libraries provide for children. Several other library users suggested that additional cultural and enrichment programs would be well received, as would newer computers and wireless Internet access. Asked about the primary purpose of the library, survey respondents provided multiple answers. The two most common categories of answers were to serve as a community resource and to support education or provide information. Social and recreational purposes were seldom specified, but they were implied as part of the definition of community resource. Interview respondents prioritized using the computer and borrowing library materials as the most common reasons they visit the libraries. Staff members agree with library users about the primary purposes of the libraries: serving as a community resource, providing educational support, and providing computer and Internet access. Staff members also recognize that there are limits to how well they can meet public expectations – especially for support of computer and Internet access – and that these limits can be a source of both user and staff frustration. Highlights from the Data Seventy-five percent of survey respondents indicated that their lives would change from somewhat to significantly without the libraries; 75% of survey respondents also report the libraries to be very or extremely user-friendly. Eighty-three percent of survey respondents reported that they talk with the staff while they are at the library and the conversations range from ‘‘exchanging friendly greetings’’ to asking for help with library-related concerns, to social ‘‘chit-chat,’’ to conversations that indicate long-standing public social relationships. Despite the range of topics addressed in their conversations with staff members, library users do not describe the libraries as places to socialize. Survey respondents indicated the three most important resources the libraries provide are access to technology – 37%, fiction/literature for recreational reading – 21%, and facilities to support personal study (homework, research, etc.) – 19%. The least important service the libraries provide according to 53% or respondents is places to socialize. The term socialize was not defined for respondents in the survey, but it is important to note that, though respondents did not consider the library as a place to socialize, they

82

LINDA R. MOST

indicated that they talk with the staff whenever they use the library (Figs. 1 and 2). Interview respondents indicated that they visit the libraries for a variety of reasons, including to use computers for job hunting, for school work, and for recreational purposes, or to use the libraries’ book and video collections. Some interview respondents placed special value on the libraries’ student enrichment programs. When reflecting on their library use over the previous month, respondents prioritized using computers, checking out books, and studying or other school-related activities as the reasons they visited their libraries. Staff perceptions of how library users react to the libraries were congruent with the way users described the libraries. When asked to choose a word or two that best describes the library where they work, staff member answers corresponded with public perceptions, describing the libraries variously as a central hub, a community asset, and a community place. Staff members described the library atmosphere as busy, helpful, and friendly or userfriendly. 18 16

Quincy, n=37 Havana, n=31 Chattahoochee, n=41

14

times chosen

12 10 8 6 4 2

ot he r

to

so ci al co iz e m m un ity lif co ev em en lo m ng ts un le ity ar in ni fo ng rm pe (e at rs du io on ca n al ti o st na ud ls y up fic (h om tio po n, rt) ew lit or er k, at re ur se e (re ar re ch cr fe ea ) re nc tio e na an lr d ea in di fo ng rm at io n se rv ic es

ad re to pl ac e

pl ac e

ac ce ss

to

te ch no l

og y

0

services

Fig. 1.

Most Important Library Service. Data Obtained from Survey Question 21.

83

Rural Public Library as Place: A Theoretical Analysis 25

times selected

20 Quincy, n=37 Havana, n=31 Chattahoochee, n=41

15

10

5

ot he r

to

so ci al co iz e m m un ity lif co ev em en lo m ng ts un le ity ar in ni fo ng rm pe (e at rs du io on ca n al t i o st na ud l y su fic (h pp om tio or n, ew t) lit o er r k at ,r ur es e ea (re re rc cr fe h) ea re nc tio e na an lr d ea in di fo ng rm at io n se rv ic es

re ad to pl ac e

pl ac e

ac ce ss

to

te ch no l

og y

0

Services

Fig. 2.

Least Important Library Service. Data Obtained from Survey Question 22.

When asked what they felt is the single best feature of their library, staff members overwhelmingly indicated that they thought that providing public access to computers and the Internet was the single most important element of their program. Other features they highlighted included the children’s book collection in Chattahoochee, and the library services and assistance provided generally. Individual staff members also specified the atmosphere of the main library in Quincy and the location of the Havana branch – facing the city park and Veterans’ Memorial – as key assets. When asked what is the single worst feature of their library, staff members’ responses focused on a small materials budget that restricts collection development initiatives, the physical limitations of the individual buildings, and the location of the main library. Again, staff members concurred with library users who described the collections as being limited and not up to date, and the parking as challenging. Study participants at all three locations complained about inadequate or poorly designed parking. When asked to identify their favorite places in the library, staff members showed a strong preference for the public service areas that featured the

84

LINDA R. MOST

book collection and the places within the libraries that privileged reading over computer use. Asked about the primary purpose of the library, staff member answers reinforced the community members’ perceptions, identifying similar priorities for the libraries, especially providing computer and Internet access, serving as an information and research resource, providing educational support, and serving as a community resource that is responsive to community needs. Library users perceive computers and Internet access as a major component of the library system’s resources and expected services. Staff members had similar responses regarding the importance of digital information technologies to their jobs. They report that providing computerized services and Internet access in the local libraries has affected most aspects of their responsibilities as well as their attitudes toward their jobs and toward library users. Staff members perceive the public service computers and Internet access as an additional resource for library users in addition to the physical collections. The computers are seen to function as a learning resource, to provide access to government programs and services, and to facilitate and broaden access to all kinds of information. One staff member believes that, as library users become more comfortable reading on a computer screen, they may become more comfortable reading print media. Staff members also perceive the computers as a source of increased expectations on the part of library users that can lead to frustration when library users are disappointed with the staff members’ inability to help them due to lack of training or familiarity with specific applications. By contrast, staff members also highlighted the ways computer technology has made their job responsibilities easier by facilitating interlibrary loan transactions, increasing productivity, and increasing access to professional resources. Unfortunately, the other face of computer-enhanced administrative processes is the loss of productivity experienced when automated library systems do not work correctly (e.g., one staff member at a branch expressed frustration with an ongoing problem with lag time in the networked circulation system). Library staff members report that the addition of public service computers has complicated their relationships with library users in both positive and negative ways. Some staff members describe computers and Internet access as one more service the library can offer and another way to help people. Those staff members seem comfortable helping users with computer and Internet-related questions. For other staff members the public service computers negatively complicate their relationships with their library users. They noted repeatedly that helping people with computers exposes

Rural Public Library as Place: A Theoretical Analysis

85

them to personal information and raises privacy issues, particularly when users come to the library needing to access government and legal websites. Staff members spend from 5% to 60% of their time helping library users with computer technologies depending on their individual job responsibilities. Their attitudes toward the time they spend providing help with Internet and computer-related questions depends on their personal comfort levels with computers and on restrictions on the degree of involvement with personal information the library system policies allow. Policy-imposed limitations on staff involvement with patron Internet use can be a major source of tension because one of the most common reasons people come to the GCPLS libraries is to use the Internet – 53% listed use the Internet as the reason they came to the library. Library computer users sense the limits under which the staff members operate and the resistance certain staff members have in getting involved with requests for help with computer-related questions. One survey respondent described the worst feature of the library as ‘‘[a] need [for] someone to go around and see if people need help on computers.’’ Both library users and staff members perceive the computers and Internet service as powerful public service tools but these tools brings challenges and frustration to staff members and the public even as they provide new opportunities to help people get access to the information they need and want.

Research Question 3 ‘‘What do Gadsden County’s adult library users think of the buildings, design elements, layouts, and furnishings of their three libraries?’’ As a group the county’s library users are very pleased with the new library buildings and furnishings. They were overwhelmingly positive in their response to the new buildings, but noted that the buildings are not perfect and identified specific shortcomings and problem areas in each of the new libraries. However, they agreed that the problems were much less important than the overall success of the new libraries. Library users did not easily distinguish between physical and design features of the libraries and the services the libraries offer. Many consider the best feature of the libraries to be the computers and the Internet access they provide. Others consider the collections as their best feature. When pressed for specifics, users said there were problems with the parking lots at all the locations and that the noise level in the buildings could get too high.

86

LINDA R. MOST

As a group the staff members are happy to have the new buildings because they make possible greater levels of service to the community. Staff members agree with the public’s overall positive perceptions of the buildings and about most of their mentioned strengths and weaknesses. Staff members were more able than library users to identify specific design shortcomings and problems with the furnishings, but even staff members seemed to conflate library features with services. When asked what the worst features of the libraries were, staff responses focused on the small materials budget that limits the size and scope of the book and movie collections. Staff members also commented on the shortcomings of the parking lots.

Highlights from the Data The discussion in this section triangulates areas of agreement and divergence between library users and library staff members regarding the physical features of the library buildings and their locations. All the study’s participants largely agreed about the best and worst features of the libraries though most respondents talked about library services rather than physical features of the buildings unless specifically asked to comment on physical features. Respondents across the study agreed that computer access is the best feature of the libraries. When asked to identify the worst feature of the libraries, library users were reluctant to comment, but, when pressed, they identified as shortcomings limited operating hours at the branches, small collections, and an insufficient number of computers. Some library survey respondents commented negatively about the parking lots at all three locations, and a small number identified high noise levels as a problem, especially in the Chattahoochee branch. Interviewees responded comparably to survey respondents about the best features of the buildings by variously listing computer access, the collections and resources, the locations, the helpfulness or friendliness of the staff, and the atmosphere of the libraries. As a group, interview respondents did not single out physical features of the library buildings as best features, though some mentioned the layout of the libraries, and some used generic adjectives like ‘‘comfortable.’’ They responded very positively to the library buildings generally and specifically to their locations and the spaces around the buildings except for the parking areas. Most interview participants described the libraries with either a generic response like ‘‘it’s nice’’ or a building-specific response such as ‘‘terrific building.’’ Those who provided a specific positive attribute most often identified the buildings as comfortable, convenient, and clean. Most indicated that the grounds are

Rural Public Library as Place: A Theoretical Analysis

87

attractive or well kept. The only features interview respondents consistently described negatively were the parking lots. The ten staff members overwhelmingly indicated that providing public access to computers and the Internet was the best feature of the library, mentioning these features eight times. One response highlighted the speed of the Internet access provided at the library. Other features staff members mentioned included the children’s book collection in Chattahoochee, and the library services and assistance provided generally. Two staff members indicated that the library users were the best feature of the library. The atmosphere of the main library in Quincy and the location of the Havana branch facing the city park and Veterans’ Memorial were also mentioned. When asked to identify the worst feature of the libraries it became apparent that library users are very supportive of their new libraries as evidenced by the large number of respondents – 35 individuals – who stated that there was no worst feature of their library or that the question was not applicable. Those who did answer most often identified the branch libraries’ limited number of open hours as the worst feature. Comments featured requests for more weekend and evening hours from respondents at both branches. Complaints about computers focused on needing more terminals, their arrangement in the buildings, their speed, and the time limits on their use. Other comments focused on the small size of the collections, and respondents at one branch complained about the noise level, referring to the staff at the service desk as being very loud. Most of the interview respondents indicated that there were no bad features or that nothing was wrong with the building though several wished for more public access computers. One person in Chattahoochee complained about the acoustics because the library is too noisy, and one said that the library could have been better designed, ‘‘it’s just not very pretty, it could have been better designed aesthetically.’’ Five interview respondents from all three libraries commented on the limited size of the collections or that the collections are dated, especially the collections of movies on videotape and DVD. Although many members of the public insisted there were no bad features to the libraries, the staff members’ responses recognized limits to the resources and services the library system can provide. Staff members repeatedly mentioned a small materials budget that restricts collection development initiatives; library users indicated an awareness of this problem when they said that the collection is small or dated. Staff members also identified physical limitations of the individual buildings and the location of

88

LINDA R. MOST

the main library; and as the library users did, staff members found fault with the parking areas at the branches. Staff member specifications of the worst features of the libraries can be grouped into two main categories: lack of funding for collections and materials – mentioned 4 of 10 times – and specific problematic physical features of the buildings. Survey respondents were asked to select and circle the words they thought best described the physical space of the libraries. They could select as many adjectives as they wished and the selections were counted and sorted by overall frequency of selection. The three most commonly selected words across all three libraries were clean –88, comfortable –82, and friendly –69. Survey respondents were reluctant to select any negative adjectives as descriptors relevant to the new library buildings, though the main library users responded slightly more negatively than did those who use the branches. Main library users most often selected loud and crowded from the list provided. Survey respondents ranked parking the lowest across all the libraries. No library users selected the words dark, unattractive, or uncomfortable in relation to any of the libraries. Only one user selected unfriendly, and that person may have experienced problems with library staff members in one location. Fig. 3 presents the adjectives and the

40

35 Quincy, n=37 Havana, n=31 Chattahoochee, n=41

25

20

15

10

5

Lo ud

ar k

D irt y Fr i e Lo n dl ts y of Sp ac e N ee M od ds er R n en ov at io n Q ui U et na ttr U nc act om ive fo rta bl U e nf rie nd U se ly rf rie W nd el ld ly es ig ne d

D

C le C an om fo rta bl e C ro w de d

0

At tra Ba ct dl iv y e D es ig ne d Br ig ht

chosen =1, not chosen=0

30

descriptors

Fig. 3.

Library Space Descriptors. Data Obtained from Survey Question 29.

Rural Public Library as Place: A Theoretical Analysis

89

frequency of selection. Looking at the figure it becomes apparent that Chattahoochee branch users selected many more positive terms in relation to their library than did users of the other two locations. This may be due to the newness of the branch and the extreme change in style, location, features, and services from the small, old, overcrowded original Chattahoochee library. Collectively interview respondents provided 73 positive descriptors of the libraries that can be grouped into four categories: a community asset; a generic positive response; a building-oriented positive response; or a response privileging a specific positive attribute like clean, convenient, or comfortable. There were no negative descriptors offered though the word quaint was used once to describe one of the branches, probably to attribute a homey quality to the library. Staff members were asked about physical library features that helped or hindered their jobs and helped or hindered their public interactions. Staff members responded very positively about the improvements to services and interactions the new buildings made possible but criticized specific library features more than did members of the public. Staff members were more willing to be specific about library facility shortcomings or physical problems, as would be expected of people who spend their working lives in these places. Staff members agreed with library users about the parking problems and high noise levels. They identified specific design flaws at each building, including the lack of accessible entrances that accommodate users with special needs, blocked sight lines and poorly designed or poorly placed reference desks at two of the three new libraries. At the same time, most of the staff members agreed that the new buildings made their interactions with the public more positive and that the new buildings were more comfortable and more welcoming than the old ones. In addition to providing generic positive comments, staff members identified very specific helps and hindrances generated by the new buildings. The most common helps were the increased amount of space in the new buildings and the positive feelings the new environments invoke due to working air conditioning, new bathrooms, and fresh furnishings. The most common hindrances across all three buildings were broken sight lines and high noise levels. Chattahoochee staff members uniformly said the physical environment of the library had no impact on their interactions with the public. One noted, ‘‘You could do the same thing no matter how the layout was arranged.’’ When asked about their favorite location or place in the libraries, public and staff responses diverged. Library survey respondents offered a range of

90

LINDA R. MOST

responses to this topic: 33 survey respondents favored sitting at the computers, 18 favored specific sections of the collections, 14 preferred the soft seating, and 7 preferred the study tables and carrels the libraries offer. A smaller number of survey respondents favored other areas of the libraries. Library user interview respondents’ answers followed a similar pattern. More interviewees highlighted the computers as their favorite places and some interviewees highlighted areas of the print collection. Six interview respondents provided another perspective on attitudes about the library buildings, saying they did not have a favorite place because they did not stay in the library – they only came in to return and check out books or other items. In contrast to the public responses showing a preference for areas around the computers, staff members uniformly preferred the public service areas of the libraries that privilege books and reading. All but one staff member selected a public service area of the library over any other area, and these staff members consistently selected areas housing the book collections and the soft seating where someone could read comfortably rather than the computer areas in contrast to the preferences of most library users. One staff member prefers the work room away from the public because she appreciates the quiet and the ability to accomplish some of her other tasks while working in the back room. When staff members were asked at the end of their interviews if they had anything else they would like to say about the design, technology, use, or services of the libraries, they offered a variety of responses. They provided detailed critiques of specific elements of the library buildings while offering generally positive responses about the impact of the new buildings on their communities. Staff members concluded their interviews with broad positive statements about the new libraries as a vast improvement over and more heavily used than the old libraries. Their impressions were corroborated with annual usage statistics published by the state library. The features of the new Chattahoochee branch especially evoked strong comments from the staff. The Chattahoochee parking lot was described as hideous, and the front desk was singled out as being poorly designed and positioned. The Chattahoochee branch staff members cannot see the front door of the library from the desk and as a result, there are cameras and monitors positioned to compensate for the broken sight lines. At the same time, Chattahoochee staff members insist that circulation figures and computer usage statistics for the Chattahoochee library have increased since the new building opened more significantly than either of the other libraries.

Rural Public Library as Place: A Theoretical Analysis

91

Staff members at all the libraries commented that people are proud of their new libraries and have a sense of ownership about the individual library each uses.

Research Question 4 Research question 4 asked what use Gadsden County’s adult library users make of the library buildings. The answer to this research question draws from the results of all the methods employed in this study: seating sweeps, survey responses, public and staff interview responses, and review of the meeting room reservation sheets. Triangulating the relevant results provides a rich picture of what adults do while visiting the library. Gadsden County’s adult library users appear to use all the resources their libraries offer. Almost half of the library users visit at least once a week, and many indicated visiting several times each week. Seventy-five percent of library users visit a minimum of at least two or three times in a month. Some visit daily. Almost 75% of library users stay at the library between 30 min to 2 h, and half stay for at least 1 h. Some visit the libraries alone, and some visit in a group with family members or friends. Forty-eight percent of library visitors said going to the library was the sole purpose of their trip, whereas 41% said they combined their library visit with visiting stores or other services. Library users often have multiple reasons for visiting the library, including using a computer, attending an activity, borrowing or returning library materials themselves. Many bring children to the library for a program or activity or to borrow or return materials. Most library users believe that the libraries are used appropriately by community members, but many commented about unsupervised children who misbehave while visiting the libraries. Some library users have been creative in their use of the library public meeting rooms (e.g., using them to hold an off-site union meeting and a wedding). Library users say they come to the libraries to work toward personal goals and to accomplish tasks or projects. Adult students use the libraries to facilitate taking online classes and to do research or study for school. Library staff members agree that the libraries are very heavily used, and their comments provide additional insights on the ways community members use the libraries. Staff members report that library users come to the libraries when they need help finding information or help using computers to meet a personal need. Library staff members report that the library system’s computer classes were very popular and very successful but

92

LINDA R. MOST

that no funds are currently available to continue the classes. Staff members also report that some of the library system’s less traditional services are very popular, especially community book drop-off and exchange programs that function outside the library’s circulation system. Library users and staff members agree that the new library buildings are heavily used and very popular. Highlights from the Data The seating sweeps documented observed user activities during the study period. Little cell phone use was observed inside the libraries. Survey respondents indicated that about half have a cell phone with them, but most indicated that they turned it off or kept it set on vibrate in case of emergency calls. The seating sweeps procedure put library user activities into a series of categories, expressed here in italic font. The seating sweeps did not record many adults sitting and reading in the libraries during the observation periods. Writing was noted more often than reading, and most people who were writing did so while sitting at a computer terminal. They appeared to be taking notes or responding to something seen on the computer monitor. Adults sitting and reading books or other print material made up 2% of all adults observed during the seating sweeps. By contrast 12% of observed adults were searching or retrieving library materials (printed books, videos, DVDs, or audio recordings) – the third most common activity observed across all but the oldest age group. The group of library users over 60 years were most often observed searching and retrieving library materials and interacting with staff. Very few people were observed sitting in a chair without doing something. Just sitting appears to occur when people are waiting for their turns on the Internet computers, but most people who are waiting occupy themselves with magazines or some other pastime. No instances of eating, drinking, or sleeping were observed. One portion of the survey questionnaire asked generally about what people do while they are at the libraries. Respondents indicated heavy reliance on the library system’s computers and electronic resources, especially for access to the Internet. During the seating sweeps the most commonly observed adult activity was computer use; 45% of all the adults observed during the study period were sitting at a computer using it in some way. Over 70% of survey respondents indicated they use the libraries’ electronic resources at least sometimes. Over 80% of respondents rank the libraries’ electronic resources as least important, and of that group 25% ranked them as crucial. Library users who participated in or were observed during this study did not use personal laptop computers while at the libraries. Staff members commented

Rural Public Library as Place: A Theoretical Analysis

93

that people in the libraries sometimes work on personal laptops, but that the libraries do not provide wireless Internet access so laptop use is limited to working on documents or reports. As a group, library users said they did not bring many electronic devices with them other than cell phones. Only two respondents mentioned even bringing portable file storage devices (jump drive and flash drive). Respondents indicated that the libraries’ electronic resources were heavily used and very important to library users. The next two most common activities observed after computer use – interacting with staff and physically searching for or retrieving library materials – occupied 17% and 12% of observed adults during the study period. In many cases interacting with staff was a precursor or follow up to computer use or searching for or retrieving materials from the collection. Fig. 4 presents the reasons for coming to the library in the order respondents received them on their questionnaires. Respondents did not typically indicate one reason for visiting the library as more important than any other; they checked or circled all relevant reasons without distinguishing among them for a total of 275 reasons why they visited the libraries. By far 25

frequency of answer

20

Quincy, n=37 Havana, n=31 Chattahoochee, n=41

15

10

5

us e

pu bl us ic m e ch eet bo in ild rr g re ro bo ow n' o or s rro se m: re w a rv tu or i ce re rn m s: tu br at b rn m eria ows at ls e: lo ok fo co eria rs c ls fo ns ri um for elf: vie nf d ot or e w h f m ar at ood ers tw io :e or or n k on dr di in sp a su k: f la m ys b j e e ge or b et a ct: g ul th fri le en el ti p st ud fro ng b d: h y m o in lib ard lib s: ra ra r i y ry st wi af th f: ow re j us n ad us e m :k e m ph ate ic r r o of ich toc ials :l o e or pier s: m i m us cr e us ofil th m e e :n cd on ro -li m n us us e ca s: o e e el th talo ec tro e in g: p te ni r c da net :q ta ba se us s e e- : r m ai l: s ot he r: t

0

Reasons most respondents selected more than one reason

Fig. 4.

Reasons for Visiting the Library. Data Obtained from Survey Question 14.

94

LINDA R. MOST

the most common reason respondents reported for visiting the libraries was to use a computer – 53%. The next two most common reasons for visiting the libraries were to borrow or return library materials – 35%, or to look for information on a topic – 31%. Again, it is important to note that these activities are not exclusive. Many survey respondents indicated multiple reasons for visiting the libraries. These percentages also differ from the results of the seating sweeps but this may be because the seating sweeps did not record the totality of the library users’ activities during a library visit. Interview respondents were evenly divided when asked why they came to the library. Seventeen people said they were at the library to use the online services for specific or general purposes, and 17 people said they were borrowing or returning items from the collection. Seven interview respondents reported other place-based activities including using the photocopier, bringing children to participate in library programming, and using the library as a recreational destination and a place to pass time. When asked, ‘‘What have you used the library for in the past month,’’ interview respondents provided a variety of answers. Half of the respondents indicated multiple reasons for visiting including using both computers and collection resources, whereas about one-third of respondents said they only use the library to borrow items from the collection. Only five respondents indicated that they come to the library only to use the computers, indicating that most of those who described themselves as computer users also use other library services and resources. Very few library users reported meeting tutors when they came to the library, but the meeting room logs indicate that many hours of tutoring take place at the main library. Most of this tutoring is probably for elementary, middle, or high school students under age 18 who did not take the survey, so that might explain the discrepancy. GED courses are offered at the Chattahoochee library on an ongoing basis and appear on the meeting room reservation sheets, but the classes were not scheduled during the hours the survey was being distributed. Interview participants were asked what they thought about how other people used the library. They typically gave two-part answers. Respondents reported what they observed or knew people were doing in the library and many also expressed an opinion – typically positive – of how other people used the library. When asked if they could describe ways they had seen people use this library that surprised them – either good or not so good – 75% of interview respondents said that they had not seen anything that surprised them, and that things were all pretty much what they expected for

Rural Public Library as Place: A Theoretical Analysis

95

a public library. Respondents used phrases like ‘‘pretty normal,’’ and ‘‘nothing much surprising.’’ Twelve respondents reported being surprised positively or negatively, or just surprised in a neutral way about the way people use the library. The phenomena most commonly reported as surprising were the number of children in the libraries overall and in particular, the number who were misbehaving; the amount and types of meeting room use including after school nonlibrary sponsored activities, sorority meetings, union meetings, and voting; and the high amount of computer use and the nonserious ways the computers are often used. A Chattahoochee library user summed up attitudes about the volume of computer use at the libraries, saying, ‘‘There seems to be a lot of people who come to use and access the Internet and I guess maybe that surprised me because I think probably a lot less people have access at home than one would think.’’ When asked if there was anything else they wanted to say about the way other people use the library that they had not yet discussed, interview respondents answered at various levels. Some continued to stress specific programs or services they saw people using or used themselves while others spoke more generally about the library as a community asset. Respondents continued to identify using computers, job hunting, doing school work, reading, library programming, and community use of the meeting rooms and services for children and young people as ways people use the library. Some wrapped up the interview with a concluding phrase stressing how well used the library is and how important it is to family or community. Staff members interact with and help library users both formally and informally throughout the workday. The senior professional employees housed at the main library have offices or private work areas, but the majority of the library system’s staff members do most of their work in the public areas of the library, including at the reference/circulation desks. Branch staff members spend most of their workdays performing their tasks while seated at the public service desk or in the public service areas of the library. Staff members were asked what they saw most users doing in the libraries. They described library visitors using all the services the libraries offered and noted that different people had different needs. More than one staff member replied with an answer similar to this: ‘‘I find that there’s kind of different categories [of library users]. There’s some that strictly come in here to just get on the computer, and then we have our dedicated, avid readers that come in with 15 or 20 books and take out 15 or 20 books, and then you have

96

LINDA R. MOST

the children that need assistance with their school work, so they’re here trying to get help with that as well as being on the computer.’’ Another main library staff member described a regularly occurring social aspect of her work with the public, saying, ‘‘They come in, I say hello, if I know them they ask how I’m doing, I ask how they’re doing – it’s just a nice little – it’s like my store, they come in, it’s either repeat customers or new ones.’’ Her description indicates that often social interaction is part of a library user’s visit to the library. Finally, one of the Chattahoochee staff members explained that there are limits on what the library staff can do for library users. Her response confirms that library users sometimes have service requests or expectations of the library that the staff members are not able to meet but that staff members usually do whatever they can to help meet these needs. When staff members described the primary problems they experienced when dealing with library users, most indicated that there were not many problems any more, and that disruptive behaviors on the part of library users had been worse in the old buildings. Seven of the 10 respondents said ‘‘not that often’’ or ‘‘not very common,’’ in reference to the frequency of unacceptable behavior in the libraries while three respondents indicated unacceptable behavior occurred from three times a week to every day. Most of the staff members recognized the behaviors they categorized as negative as that of library users expressing frustration with information and computerrelated challenges they could not master due to inexperience or unfamiliarity with computer technology or Internet and web-page conventions. Another big problem several staff members identified stems from adults who come to the library to use a computer and who bring young children with them. Staff members as a group insist that parents do not pay attention to their children once the families arrive and the parents begin their sessions on the computers. Two staff members described rambunctious or unsupervised children as the main source of unacceptable behavior in the main library. The final commonly reported problems were inappropriate use of cell phones in the main library computer room and people in the computer room being disturbed by other computer users. People also use the libraries as a place to donate books. A staff member described the service as allowing people to feel good about donating, while the staff members feel good about accepting the donated books and disposing of them appropriately if they are in poor condition. People from outside the library service area also use the branch library as a book resource. The libraries host a more formal book exchange than the book

Rural Public Library as Place: A Theoretical Analysis

97

donation program, and users do not need to have library cards or pay a nonresident fee to participate.

Research Question 5 Research question 5 asks what insights the Gadsden County Library System’s adult library users and staff can provide about the role of the public library in their communities. Their answers indicate that for library users and staff members alike the libraries fulfill their function as modern public libraries. They serve members of the communities of all ages and races. They provide access to information, support formal education and lifelong learning, and offer access to recreational reading and viewing materials. The new libraries are sources of community pride. People believe they have improved their communities and are filling a need for modern, comfortable, noncommercial public places that support information-related activities, reading, community-supported activities, educational projects, and personal growth. They also believe that the new library buildings have enriched the social interactions that are part of each of these activities. Highlights from the Data When asked why they use the library in which they were present rather than other libraries, users mentioned the closeness to home, convenience of the location, the library’s collection, the friendliness of the library staff, and the access the library provided to computers and the Internet. When asked if they ever talked to the library staff when they visited the library, and, if yes, what they talked about, 83% of respondents indicated that they spoke with staff members and that the subjects of their conversations ranged from requests for help with library services to general conversations to what users described as ‘‘chit chat’’ and ‘‘social stuff.’’ Social conversations, conversations about books and about users’ information needs were the most frequently mentioned topics. Library users were asked what other services or resources they would like to see introduced at the libraries. Respondents asked most frequently for more services such as expanded cultural programming for adults and children, access to adult education including GED classes and classes in foreign languages, and tutoring for school students. They also requested extended operating hours at the branches. Respondents requested additional resources including expanded collections, more computers, and more

98

LINDA R. MOST

computer programs such as Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint. Individual respondents requested community services including employment information, a blood-pressure monitor, and day-care services – presumably for children. At the conclusion of the user survey respondents were asked what they believed to be the primary purpose of the library. They often provided multiple answers and most frequently mentioned serving as a community resource, supporting educational efforts, and helping people meet their information needs. Survey respondents had space to make any additional comments they wished about the library, and 18 of the 109 survey respondents wrote an additional comment. The comments are almost all positive and show a strong awareness of the many roles the libraries play as community places. The comments also show how people respond to the place-based aspects of their libraries. Quincy respondents described the library as ‘‘a wonderful place to experience and grow’’ and as ‘‘a nice modern library.’’ Another said ‘‘it gladdens my heart to see the library put to use as it should be.’’ A Havana respondent described the branch library as ‘‘very accommodating’’ given the size of the community, and she said she anticipated that the library would grow with time. Another Havana respondent described the branch simply as ‘‘a great public service.’’ Chattahoochee residents responded very favorably to their new branch. One said ‘‘without this library I would have a hard time working and attending college,’’ and another described it simply as ‘‘my favorite place’’ and ‘‘a very nice facility.’’ One Quincy respondent wished the main library could be bigger, and a Chattahoochee respondent took the opportunity to complain that sometimes the staff members were too familiar and too willing to carry on their personal lives at the library. Interview participants were asked why they had come to the library that day. Answers included bringing a grandchild to attend a library program; using a computer to do homework, research, or job hunting; using the library as an alternate family destination on a Sunday when the church was not open, and bringing several bags of books to donate to the library. The next question asked what they had used the library for in the past month. Answers included doing personal research, participating in the book exchange, checking out library books, keeping up to date with changes in the job market, reading with a child, and using the library for general recreational purposes. One regular nonresident Chattahoochee library user described the library as his living room when he is working in Chattahoochee and away from home.

Rural Public Library as Place: A Theoretical Analysis

99

When asked about how other people use the library, interview participants were mostly positive and approving. They seemed very aware that others used the library extensively and for multiple purposes. A Quincy respondent described the library as being highly valued, noting that people use it for job hunting and studying as well as for recreational purposes. Another Quincy respondent ranked how people use the library – approving of people who come in to do homework but speaking less approvingly of people who ‘‘get on the Internet and play games y and listen to music and stuff like that.’’ A Havana respondent described the branch library as a community place and spoke approvingly of seeing students using the library’s computers. A Chattahoochee respondent was somewhat surprised that he saw so few people using the library recreationally and said it seemed to be used mostly for research and studying. When asked to describe any surprising ways they had seen people use this library, most participants said that for the most part people use the libraries in expected ways. They reported most people as being well behaved and that most people have a reason for being at the library and know what they want to do. Others reported the libraries being heavily and well used and suggested that usage figures had increased significantly since the new libraries were opened. Staff members identified a number of roles for the libraries, including providing computer and Internet access, serving as an information and research resource, providing educational support, and serving as a community resource in any way possible. Their answers focused on formal and informal social activities and the role of the main library as a neutral entity in a historically segregated county. One staff member described the main library as a neutral location because [this] was a segregated county up until the early seventies and the public library is one social environment that is completely neutral that is not something y like a courthouse or where you’re going to buy clothes or going to buy something. This is like, you come here, it’s free but it’s neutral. It’s all races together. Interviewer: do you think part of that is because it’s a new building or was it like that before? Staff member: no it was like that before.

All three libraries provide community groups with access to the library program rooms, conference rooms, or small meeting rooms (depending on the building) for community, civic, and nonlibrary-related governmental use. One branch manager explained, ‘‘This library sometimes is used after

100

LINDA R. MOST

hours for people with different groups to meet, like several types of homeowners associations, so it gives the people, when they don’t have a place to meet, a place where they can meet.’’ Other staff members who work at all three locations described the importance of library-initiated programs and activities to the community. One staff member also described the importance of the Chattahoochee library as a destination, ‘‘I think it gives a place for, [it’s] still a place for families to come as a family outing and a place for kids to come after school and a place for older people to come sometimes to get out and go do something.’’ Staff members were asked to explain how they see the library being used socially. Although all three libraries are used socially, there are subtle distinctions in ways of use that separate the libraries according to their three communities’ needs. The main library functions as a noncommercial civic space that is not allied with any religious or political entity or mission. It is heavily used by members of the community for informational and social purposes. The Havana branch is heavily used for meetings and as an informal social meeting place that focuses around the local reading culture – the formal book exchange and the book donation and drop-off services, as well as the circulating materials collections. The Chattahoochee branch sees less after school activity than in prior years but now serves as landmark, rendezvous point, and communications and information center for nonresidents who stay in the three large campgrounds – two state and one municipal – just outside of town. Staff members were asked to describe the primary problems they experienced when dealing with the public and they offered two main themes to this question. The themes seem to identify the different understanding staff members and library users have of the role of the libraries as community places. The first theme described challenges staff members experienced when dealing with unattended or unsupervised children and responses collected indicate that parents consider the libraries a familiar and therefore safe place for their children. The second theme focuses on the problems staff members experienced when working with people who were unfamiliar with computers but had computer or Internet-dependent information needs. This theme appeared throughout the staff member interviews. For example, when the staff members were asked how computer technology affected their interactions with the public, they provided examples of the computer-related services library users have come to expect from their libraries and the limitations on the library staff members’ ability to meet those expectations. Their responses indicate that the libraries have become important sources of

Rural Public Library as Place: A Theoretical Analysis

101

Internet access and that staff members are caught between trying to provide the help community members request without infringing on people’s privacy. As the staff member interviews concluded, participants were asked for any final comments they might wish to make about the design, technology, use, or services of their libraries. Answers from three of the staff members provide additional clues about the role of the public library in their communities. The Quincy staff member quoted earlier mused about the library’s role as a symbol for the county I think that libraries – like in areas like this where there’s not a lot of county services besides law enforcement and court system – [provide] an unusual and wonderful place, a brand for the county. It’s like – what a great selling point for county services y having a new building and having something that is very neutral again, you know is just vibrant, it’s – you can see that it really serves the public y There’s just no other place like it in the county, you know, that’s free. It’s a good thing to get behind I think [in] southern rural areas – public libraries – because I think they are good meeting places for the diverse populations y [The library] can be a place where everybody gets the information and there’s a little bit of awe on information, things that they haven’t seen or experienced before, libraries can be that.

A Chattahoochee staff member’s final interview responses discussed how important the most basic library services can be in a small rural community. She said ‘‘the library is still a place that is vital to the community, especially in a small town there’s no other choice for entertainment. We provide movies, books, the Internet, books on cd and tape – we’re the only choice of entertainment in the entire town of Chattahoochee.’’ Another Quincy staff member concluded her interview with this final thought, ‘‘I think the people are really, really proud of the fact that they have this library – that this is THEIR library and that’s what it’s all about. It’s a public library and they – I think they feel that way.’’

CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS OF RESEARCH FINDINGS Theoretical Framework Review The theories presented in the literature review can be organized in three groups to contextualize: (1) the qualities of the public library as a place or setting, (2) the relationships that people who visit the public libraries experience while at the libraries, and (3) the results of the activities people pursue while at the libraries. These theories are not mutually exclusive, and

102

LINDA R. MOST

no one theory is sufficient to fully contextualize the study’s findings. Understanding all three groups of theories is necessary to begin to answer the question of how people use their public libraries as place. When discussing the setting, Habermas’ (1974, 1991) theory of the public sphere and Oldenburg’s (1999) conceptualization of third places, along with Fisher’s (Fisher et al., 2007) developing theory of informational places provide three sets of concepts that can be used to interpret the role of the library as an environment that encourages and reinforces a set of interactions and relationships that facilitate a range of outcomes. The relationships people experience while visiting their public libraries can be analyzed using the spectrum of public realm relationships Lofland (1998) describes. Public realm relationships contribute to peoples’ sense of being members of a community formed among those who share interests, institutions, and perspective, and who live in the same geographic area (Warren, 1978). People’s shared sense of belonging to a community can also be understood as a cognate of the benefits of increased social capital – the bonds and connections that hold a society together (Halpern, 2005; Putnam, 2000). In other words, the activities in which people participate while visiting their libraries appear to generate new or increased amounts of bridging, bonding, or linking social capital depending on the relationship between the people participating in the activities. To facilitate the theoretical analysis data from each of the three Gadsden County library locations is analyzed separately in terms of the three theoretical categories – setting, relationships, and activities – because each of the libraries has unique characteristics and its own group of library users. The results of the three analyses will be combined to generate an answer to the study’s guiding question.

Chattahoochee Branch Library The Chattahoochee branch library is the most recently completed and opened of the three new buildings that house the GCPLS. It opened to the public in April 2007 (Mock, 2008). The civic pride the new library generates is an expression of the library’s role in supporting Habermas’ public sphere, a universal abstract that informs places in which democracy and democratic activity can occur. Public libraries provide noncommercial space in which people can engage in civic, social, and personal relationships and activities. In Chattahoochee, the new library has a meeting room people can use for library and nonlibrary-related functions. A Chattahoochee husband and

Rural Public Library as Place: A Theoretical Analysis

103

wife who are very active with the library talked about the importance of the meeting room to the community. Examples of civic and community-oriented meeting room use at the Chattahoochee branch include serving as a location where people can take GED classes, hosting community programming, and providing a place where early voting was held for the 2008 presidential election. The branch manager reported that GED classes meet three nights per week, the library provides after school programs every Thursday, and the community-sponsored programs usually are held on Friday in the early evening hours. All the meeting room activities were suspended or relocated during the two weeks of early voting in October before the 2008 presidential election. There are some limits to the Chattahoochee meeting room’s use as civic space. The couple previously quoted reported a certain level of governmental control over the way the local community can have an impact on the library. The wife noted, ‘‘I know that the county just – I mean you can’t put a picture on the wall that they don’t – or a plaque on the wall that they don’t have to come in and approve it or a trash can outside, and I just think that’s a little restrictive and unnecessary.’’ Her husband continued, ‘‘I guess what she’s saying is that the community doesn’t seem to have the leeway to do things that we think would benefit the library and the community and the users of the library as a whole without permission from [county administrators] – which we get most of the time – it’s just inconvenient y they have to approve the benches put outside, and we’re spending our money – as Friends of the Library – not county money.’’ Another limit on the role the library plays as an expression of the public sphere is apparent in a perception among some library users that the county government is controlling how people access information at the public library. One respondent described the county commissioners not wanting to provide wireless Internet access because, ‘‘they’re just concerned that people can get on and look at stuff they’re not supposed to be looking at, but two things: first of all, I think you can eliminate that, or regulate that; and second thing, it’s going to be their own private computer, it’s not going to be there.’’ In spite of the lack of wireless Internet access, most Chattahoochee library users describe their library as an informational place as defined by Fisher et al. (2007). One interviewee has used the library’s Internet computers to attend college online. She also described seeing and encouraging extensive use of the library’s computers by younger students. One respondent had a different perspective on the library’s role as an informational place. She sees a need for much more computerized information access and support for e-government applications than the library currently provides.

104

LINDA R. MOST

Chattahoochee’s library users are very proud of their new building, but they are still getting used to its design, location, and the enhanced resources it supports. Presented in terms of Lofland’s public realm relationships and locales, the new building is not yet a ‘‘familiarized locale’’ (p. 66) in that there was some resistance to change and the new building is just beginning to become part of people’s daily routines. The old library was very definitely a familiarized locale and had been very important to its users. One interviewee explained, ‘‘Well, I [have] come to the library for 25 years, and, in a way, I miss the quaint little one that we had – but that’s an era bygone I guess – but I suppose this one is bigger and there’s a lot more room.’’ Another discussed the new location saying, ‘‘I would have preferred it to have been a little closer into town because our little town is just dying, so I think it would have been a nice addition there, but it’s just a beautiful location, it’s easy to get to, great parking, and it’s good.’’ Another explained, ‘‘Originally, when they were going to build the building, the Friends of The Chattahoochee Library had a different site in mind and some of the members of that group weren’t [happy with the change]. But I think this is a great location.’’ Not all the responses to the new building express nostalgia for the old one. Other community members express civic pride in their new library. Following Lofland’s (1998) analysis of the public realm’s persistent positive social value and utility, the new library facilitates a small town version of a sense of cosmopolitanism (Wiegand, 2005a by welcoming visitors to the community including those who use the campgrounds and recreational areas on both sides of the Georgia–Florida border just west of town along the Apalachicola River. The staff members are also proud of the library’s role as a landmark and resource for out of town visitors. One explained, ‘‘yes, the library is used as a landmark quite often y The campers use the library as their primary information source – whether it be through the computer or through us the librarians – to find out even something as simple as where to go buy groceries or where there’s a good restaurant to go eat.’’ Her colleague added, ‘‘Our campers come through and they use the computer for e-mail to keep in touch with their families.’’ One Chattahoochee interviewee is a different type of community visitor. He is a railroad engineer who is required by law to spend a certain number of hours off duty before he boards his next train. As a result he spends every other night of his work week in Chattahoochee. He visits the library regularly and refers to the library as his living room when he is away from home. His description can be used to test the relevance of

Rural Public Library as Place: A Theoretical Analysis

105

Oldenburg’s (1999) third place theory to the Chattahoochee branch library. His use of the library as a place other than home – his hotel in town – or work indicates that for him the library has characteristics of a third place, but he does not indicate engaging in conversation or enjoying a playful atmosphere when he walks to the library. On the contrary, he pursues solitary reading and information-related activities, browsing the books and checking his e-mail. He also noted later in his interview that he was surprised that the library does not seem to be used for relaxation by the local community, noting that people use it mostly for schoolwork or to borrow materials or use the computers. Chattahoochee survey respondents agreed with some of the interviewees when they described the primary purpose of the library as being ‘‘to aid in reading fundamentals, help students research, and provide a safe environment for children,’’ to provide ‘‘service to the community to upgrade education and learning opportunities,’’ ‘‘to give the people a resource place’’, ‘‘to provide needed resources in various areas to the community,’’ and ‘‘to provide educational, tutoring, and recreational opportunities to the public.’’ The branch manager described negative examples of the ways the old library building – located downtown in a residential neighborhood near the railroad tracks – had been used as a third place. She recalled that the building was broken into three times, that she had a gun pulled on her twice, and that a fire was set in the men’s room urinal. She believes the new location has solved most of the site-based problems because the library is more visible to passers-by since it sits at a main intersection. Other Chattahoochee interview respondents described coming to the library primarily to check out and return books. Fisher et al. (2007) describe informational places as environments that support reading and book-related activities as well as being places where people go to solve their information needs; but Fisher does not address the ways libraries support or encourage the social nature of reading in her theory. Fister (2006), Ross et al. (2006), and Wiegand (2005b) have called attention to the social nature of reading and the persistence of people using public libraries to support their recreational and social reading activities. Social and recreational readingrelated uses of public libraries as place have continued through the 20th century into the present. It is important to acknowledge the role of the public library as a place that supports the social nature of reading. However, close analysis of activities to understand the social nature of reading as practiced at the Gadsden County library locations was beyond the scope of this study even though evidence of the social nature of reading is apparent in many of the interview and survey responses collected throughout this study.

106

LINDA R. MOST

One important aspect of the social nature of reading that falls within the limits of the current study is the abundance of public realm relationships (Lofland, 1998) that have coalesced around the library’s collections and services – especially the books and movies. As library users become regular borrowers of library materials, they become participants in ongoing relationships with staff members and other borrowers. They exchange greetings with the staff members and participate in conversations that may at first be limited to requests for help finding books and movies but soon go far beyond the original topics. These relationships appear to be important to both the library visitors and the staff members. Chattahoochee survey respondents said they talked with the staff when they visit the library. They reported talking about ‘‘anything we feel like talking about,’’ or ‘‘new books, where to find books, using the Internet,’’ or ‘‘where to find items, local events, best deals in town,’’ or simply ‘‘friendly conversation’’ or ‘‘social stuff.’’ Interview respondents also mentioned the staff members positively. When asked what she thought was the best feature of the library, one answered, ‘‘The head librarian.’’ These responses are strong examples of Lofland’s (1998) conceptualization of intimate secondary relationships – relationships that form among people who connect to each other in some public context and build on that connection. According to Lofland the relationships last a long time, feel good, and are meaningful without necessarily being intimate. Although library users participate in the library-centered intimate secondary relationships, seem to enjoy them, and say they make a point of talking with staff members, they do not classify these relationships as social. Respondents do not consider the public realm intimate secondary relationships just described to be a form of socializing, yet most respondents indicate they talk to staff members when they visit the library and many reported that they regularly discuss topics beyond the library’s services and resources. For library respondents socializing may refer to peer-to-peer relationships rather than their relationships with people they interact with in the context of workplace roles. An increase in personal and group social capital is an important outcome of the relationships people form at the public library. Social capital can be understood as the glue that holds social institutions together. It is the ability of participants to ‘‘secure benefits by virtue of membership in social networks or other social structures’’ (Portes, 1998, p. 6). It grows out of beneficial relationships that develop among members of social networks who trust each other. Social capital that develops can be bonding, bridging, or linking (Halpern, 2005; Putnam, 2000) depending on whether people are

Rural Public Library as Place: A Theoretical Analysis

107

interacting within or between social networks. There is subtle but persistent evidence of increases in social capital as a result of relationships formed around the Chattahoochee branch library. Some people use the library as a charitable outlet, donating books to be added to the collection or placed on the book exchange shelves. The married couple explained that they had come to the library on the day they were interviewed to donate their third lot of books for the year, and that they had donated similar amounts in prior years. Other interview respondents commented outside their interviews that the staff members who know their reading preferences will often pull a book out of a stack of donated items and hold it for a specific library user. Book donations and exchanges also play a large role in the Havana branch library’s operations and are discussed as generators of social capital in the next section. It is still early in the new Chattahoochee library’s lifecycle for it to be fully established as a place where social capital is generated, but several interviewees confirmed the role the old library played as a community setting in which social capital could grow. One described the old library, saying ‘‘there was always something going on in that library.’’ There is evidence that the new library is assuming this role. People can use the computers to take classes or access e-government resources, thereby improving their personal situations and possibly increasing their social status or how they are perceived in the community. The new library’s meeting room is beginning to support social capitalgenerating activities. The husband of the couple referred to earlier described having recently participated in a meeting held there saying, ‘‘A local citizen donated his services to do the landscaping, and we were planning a little reception to honor him.’’ The act of donating time, labor, and possibly materials to the community enhances the donor’s standing. The people planning to recognize his gift are endorsing his community service and adding to their own stocks of social capital by recognizing his service and giving the reception in the donor’s honor. At the end of the event the library will have been attractively landscaped, and the donor landscaper will have contributed to a public good and enhanced his standing in the community. Old bonds will be reinforced and new bridges may be built across different social groups as a result of the various ways people participated in the project, including the opportunities made available to chat and build or reinforce networks during the reception. The new social capital will be generated as a result of activities focused around making the new Chattahoochee branch public library a more attractive, welcoming community asset.

108

LINDA R. MOST

Most of the Chattahoochee library’s users and staff members consider the library to be a social good – a symbol that their town is still alive and vital, a site where positive activities happen, an important informational and recreational resource, and a locale that supports and reinforces their sense of community. One interviewee explained: ‘‘It’s just amazing for little Chattahoochee to have this.’’ Another described the library as ‘‘a wonderful commodity to have in the community.’’ The branch manager reported, ‘‘We actually were the only library in the county that had a great increase in our circulation for this past year.’’ Ultimately, the Chattahoochee branch demonstrates some public sphere characteristics but operates within system-wide limits imposed by county government and the library administration. The first limit – the lack of wireless Internet access – restricts some potential library users’ access to information except through controlled, filtered library computers. The second limit – decisions about plaques, wall de´cor, and other extra furnishings like benches and trash cans are made by the library administrators – requires local members of the Friends of the Library to submit all their plans to the system administrators for review and approval. The new Chattahoochee branch does not appear to be used as a third place by community members in the same ways they used the old library building. There is little evidence of recreational or informal social use of the building – either positive or destructive – though the collections offer recreational and entertainment materials for library users to borrow and enjoy elsewhere. The intimate secondary relationships formed between staff members and library users at the old building appear to be continuing at the new building and their intimate secondary nature is confirmed because library users do not categorize these relationships as social. The new building appears to function as an informational place and landmark for the community and visitors. Library users and staff are very proud of their new library building. It provides a focal point for activities that generate social capital. It supports ongoing public intimate secondary relationships focused around book and movie lending and other libraryrelated services. It serves as a beneficiary of community members’ charitable energy, and it offers opportunities for people to enhance their access to social capital through formal and informal networking. It supports personal growth and development by hosting community and library-sponsored programs in the meeting room and by facilitating formal educational opportunities and informal life-long learning initiatives.

Rural Public Library as Place: A Theoretical Analysis

109

Havana Branch Library The Havana Branch Library is housed in the first of the three new library buildings in Gadsden County to open. The new Havana library opened to the public in 2003 (Mock, 2008) after having been housed in a downtown storefront. The building is located at one end of the city park adjacent to the Veterans’ Memorial and two blocks away from Main Street. The location is a source of great pleasure to many library users. When asked what they thought about the location of the library, several interview respondents cited its proximity to the park as an asset. One interviewee provided a more complicated response to the location of the library. She said she believes that the library can grow more and that it will in time, but she noted, ‘‘I kind of think that [any future expansion] could be an interruption with the park, because people love the park as much as they love the library, so I believe that they [should] expand it in the opposite direction, or probably on the side of the library instead of trying to mess with the park area.’’ She seems to want to protect the sight lines between the park, the memorial, and the library and not lose any of the park land to library expansion. Library users’ affection for the building and its location are also indications that the library branch functions as a familiarized locale (Lofland, 1998) that has become a part of people’s daily routines and is important to their public lives. Havana library users did not directly articulate a strong sense that the branch library functioned as an expression of the Habermasian public sphere as did some of the Chattahoochee branch users. Havana library users did so indirectly by mentioning certain social impacts of the public library that support the public sphere including welcoming children and young people, providing free access to news and information, and providing a place where people do not have to act as consumers but can sit quietly to read and reflect (Alstad & Curry, 2003). Havana interview respondents differed in their indications as to whether or not the Havana branch library functions as a third place for its users, but all the Havana library interviewees described their branch as having the limited third place characteristics of an informational place – it occurs on neutral ground, serves as a social leveler in that it is inclusive and accessible to the general public, and functions as a home away from home that does not feature conversation or socializing as the main activities (Fisher et al., 2007). The Havana library supports all types of information-seeking

110

LINDA R. MOST

activities as well as individual and social reading practices. It provides computers to use for communications, social networking, recreational Internet surfing, and formal research to support education, as well as books and movies in all formats for people to borrow. Havana library users report strong, ongoing, intimate secondary relationships (Lofland, 1998) with the library staff members, just as Chattahoochee library users did. One user was emphatic about the helpfulness of the staff members, saying ‘‘I think the people who work here are very caring and friendly people who go out of their way to make sure you are comfortable – make sure you get what you want. If you need extra help, they are always here. I’ve never been in here a time when help was refused or it seemed as if they didn’t want to help.’’ Another described the staff similarly, recalling ‘‘I’ve watched them help out a little old lady one time, she had a bunch of magazines or something, and they came out and helped her. I just thought it was really – they’re very nice here.’’ Library survey respondents from Havana reported all kinds of brief social conversations indicative of public realm intimate secondary relationships in their answers to the question – what do you talk to the staff about? Responses ranged from ‘‘social amenities,’’ ‘‘how they are doing,’’ ‘‘general info about the computer and everyday life,’’ ‘‘family, good books to read, similar reading habits,’’ ‘‘location of books, DVDs, and movies, just because I enjoy talking with employees and getting to know them,’’ to ‘‘whatever is going on in town.’’ All of these survey answers indicate ongoing public realm relationships that appear to be important to the participants even though 20 of the 31 Havana survey respondents ranked a place to socialize as the least important service the library provided, and none ranked it as the most important service the library provides. The staff members seem to reciprocate their users’ enjoyment of the intimate secondary relationships engendered by the library. The branch manager reported consistently positive feelings about library users. When asked to describe the best feature of the library, she responded, ‘‘I would say the patrons, I mean, as a whole, the patrons.’’ She went on to describe her attitude toward library users and her interactions with them as overwhelmingly positive. Later in her interview she described taking a motherly role with some of the library users – advising young mothers that they and their babies are always welcome but that they have to tend to their children while in the library. Havana library users and staff stressed the importance of books and book-related activities that reflect the social nature of reading in response to questions about why they had come to the library on the day of the

Rural Public Library as Place: A Theoretical Analysis

111

interview and why they had visited the library in the month previous to their interview. The book and reading-related activities they described provide opportunities for networking and facilitate production of social capital for Havana library users. The few survey respondents from Havana who were willing to identify any shortcoming of their library mentioned the small collection as a weakness. One respondent wrote ‘‘there is just not a real big selection of materials. It is bigger than the old [library] but [is] still on the small side.’’ Another said the worst feature of the library was ‘‘[the] lack of my favored fiction subjects due to its small size.’’ The Havana branch manager described several book-related services the library sponsors that support the social nature of reading and generate increased social capital for all the participants. All the Gadsden County library locations provide space for a formal book exchange that operates outside the libraries’ circulation system. People without library cards can come in and take a book off the exchange shelf understanding that they are expected to eventually return it or provide another book in its place. Beyond the library system-endorsed book exchange, the Havana branch houses an even more loosely structured free materials shelf. Here people can donate books or magazines they no longer want, and anyone who wishes can come in and take whatever they like from the shelf in any quantity they wish without any suggestion that they should donate something back in exchange. The book donation opportunities generate a lot of good will toward the library on the part of the donors. They feel a stronger sense of belonging and contributing to their community, and their sense that they are doing something positive for the community may increase their stocks of linking social capital. Participants in the various book donation programs may develop a sense of partnership with the library and a sense that, by donating their old books and magazines, they are providing a resource others in the community can use rather than throwing away something that may still have value. Those that take a book from either the book exchange or the free shelf are benefiting from the library’s willingness to host services that are not counted in their circulation statistics. They may perceive the library as an asset for the entire community – not just for those with library cards – thus increasing the library’s stock of social capital in the eyes of the community at large. The meeting room in the Havana branch library – as in Chattahoochee – was designed to operate independently of the main library. It can be locked off from the library and accessed directly when the library is closed. Groups including Toastmasters, homeowners associations, and a legal services

112

LINDA R. MOST

society use the room regularly. Independent tutors use the library to work with students. Library sponsored programs held in the meeting room include weekly story hours for pre-school children and regularly scheduled activities to support home-schooled students. During the two weeks preceding the 2008 presidential election, all meeting room activities were suspended so the space could be used for early voting. All these types of activities facilitate participants’ ability to increase their stocks of social capital and position the library as a valuable resource that provides a place where social capital can be generated. In conclusion, the Havana branch of the GCPLS functions as a community resource on many levels. It is an important familiarized locale that engenders feelings of affection and is part of many residents’ daily or weekly routines. Being adjacent to the park enhances the library’s status and value for many of its users. The Havana branch library is a noncommercial place where people can access information and recreational materials in electronic or print form, study, read, and relax. It functions as an informational place (Fisher et al., 2007) providing all members of the community with access to computers and the Internet, and reading materials, and many of its programs and services support the social aspects of reading. The Havana library building supports ongoing public intimate secondary relationships between library users and staff members, and library users seem to value these relationships even without recognizing them as social relationships. Like the Chattahoochee branch, the Havana library benefits from community members’ charitable impulses and in turn makes their donations available to others who can benefit from them. It provides opportunities for people to increase their stock of social capital through selfimprovement, through participation in library-sponsored activities and by providing a place where community-sponsored activities can occur.

Quincy – The McGill Main Library The William A. ‘‘Bill’’ McGill Library – the main library in Quincy – opened to the public in June 2006 (Mock, 2008). It is the largest of the three Gadsden County library buildings and houses the administrative, management, and professional staff for the library system as well as those who work in the main library’s public service positions. Additionally, many of the administrative staff members work with the public regularly throughout the week. Quincy library users are proud of their new library and report that,

Rural Public Library as Place: A Theoretical Analysis

113

from their perspectives, all the resources and services it offers are well used. However, several interview respondents observed that the library is still not big enough to serve the community and that it needs more current items in the collection and more computers for public use. Library users offer little direct evidence of the main library functioning as an expression of the Habermasian public sphere though some of the staff members are very aware and supportive of the library building’s role as a facilitator of public interaction. One interviewee commented approvingly on the controls the library system has put in place over certain levels of information access – a limit to the library’s ability to facilitate the formation of the public sphere – when she described the library’s use of filters on the Internet computers. Another library user seemed to expect strong controls on the types of information accessible when she reported being surprized that people were able to access the website Mi Pagina – the Spanish language version of MySpace. She felt that the computers should be kept available for other, presumably more important uses. These observations seem to demonstrate citizens’ acceptance of certain limitations on the library’s role in facilitating the formation of the public sphere. By contrast another respondent positioned the library as very much facilitating the formation of the public sphere, saying that people are free to use the library as they wish, ‘‘like it’s their personal choice, whatever reason they use it for it’s their personal choice.’’ Another also observed the library facilitating the formation of the public sphere by providing a place where people can come together to freely discuss relevant issues. He described a meeting he had observed being held at the library saying, ‘‘just last week [September 2008] apparently some people from [across the state line] were using it to hold a meeting of some kind. It sounded like a union meeting, so they didn’t want to be – it’s just a guess – but it sounds like they didn’t want to be seen in [their town]. I’d never seen the parking lot that crowded.’’ Alstad and Curry (2003) describe characteristics that encourage the public sphere to coalesce, including (1) guaranteeing access to people of all ages and races in a clean, safe environment; (2) resisting colonization by commercial entities; and (3) treating visitors as citizens, not customers. One of the Gadsden County library system’s staff members endorses an analysis of the main library as a place where the public sphere can form when she describes it using the same concepts as Alstad and Curry. The staff member describes one of the library’s key functions as providing neutral or noncommercial space for all types of use. As do the branch libraries, the main library supports the formation of the public sphere within the limits imposed by local authorities. Although the

114

LINDA R. MOST

Internet access computers default to filtered status, unfiltered Internet access is available to adults if they ask to have the filters lifted. Staff members report lifting Internet filters regularly. The meeting rooms are available to all members of the community for any noncommercial use within the scope of the library system’s policies, and the library system welcomes both residents and visitors to all its locations with no conditions for entry imposed. There is mixed evidence as to whether the main library’s adult users think their library functions as a third place. One interview respondent commented specifically, ‘‘it’s a quiet place and everyone comes here to do what they came to do, so they don’t come here just to socialize or hang around.’’ Another reported, ‘‘I see a lot of people strictly studying and [using it for] business purposes.’’ Some describe using the library as a place to relax and read the newspaper because of the quiet atmosphere. One respondent noted the different ways people use the library saying, ‘‘a lot of people come here to actually – like myself – to do a lot of homework, but you’ve got a lot of other people that come and get on the Internet and play games – I’m not just talking about children, I’m talking about older people listening to music and stuff like that.’’ Other respondents commented that people use the library for what they considered to be the expected purposes, saying they ‘‘come to study, because it’s a quiet place to study and same old thing – using the computers whether it’s for personal or school reasons.’’ One main library staff member provided a similar perspective on the way the library is used, saying ‘‘I see it being used as a place to come and do schoolwork or to get away from home, and [as] somewhere quiet to stay and get away from distractions.’’ James Katz, a professor who studies communication technologies at Rutgers University, questions whether the places where people go to access the Internet – using either wired or wireless technology – can fill the social role of third places. He describes cyber cafes as hollowed out because people interact socially through the computers rather than with the people who are in the same room. The same phenomenon is apparent around library public service Internet computers. Katz says these places are ‘‘physically inhabited but psychologically evacuated’’ (Nomads at last, April 12, 2008, p. 10). They are not functioning as third places where people go for refreshment, social interactions, and a playful atmosphere (Oldenburg, 1999), but as communication centers where adults go to make contact with others in different geographic locations and do not pay any attention to the people with whom they are sharing the place where the computers are located.

Rural Public Library as Place: A Theoretical Analysis

115

Library staff members reported evidence of a corollary of Katz’s analysis when they described parents or other caregivers who bring their children with them to the libraries but become engrossed in whatever they are doing on the computers and lose track of their children. The result of their lack of involvement with any of the people in the library – let alone their children – in favor of computer-mediated interactions is that the unsupervised children start behaving in ways other adults consider inappropriate for a library and become a disruptive element. The main library seems to be serving more of its users as an informational place and familiarized locale than as a third place (Fisher et al., 2007; Lofland, 1998). One main library respondent – interviewed on a Sunday afternoon – explained that she and her family came to the library because the church they usually go to was not open that day. She described her family’s use of the library as focusing on the books and the Internet. Her whole family uses it regularly for information access, recreational reading, and studying. Another interviewee describes the library’s resources – specifically the Internet computers – as its best feature. She visits the library to ‘‘use the computer, check out books, videos and DVDs, and make copies.’’ Another reported coming to the library because he ‘‘had to do some work for school.’’ He said he used the library for ‘‘looking for jobs [and] doing schoolwork.’’ A young woman said she has a computer at home, but she uses the library for ‘‘homework, job-hunting, personal [use] y I don’t check out books.’’ A long-time Quincy library user who used the library in its previous locations and now uses the new building says the new library is a great improvement over the old one but that it still needs more computers because, ‘‘as you know there are a lot of children who are in school, they’re using the computers more now than they did y when I was a kid, so sometimes – certain times of day when you come here you can’t really use the computer because all of them are full.’’ Other regular main library users appreciate the library’s support of their educational efforts. As at the branches, people taking online classes are allowed to use a library computer as long as needed. For many of the main library interview respondents – as with those who use the Havana branch – the new library has become a familiarized locale (Lofland, 1998) that is an important part of their ordinary daily or weekly routines. Most of the ways respondents say they use the main library and the ways they report having seen others use the library seem to fit more closely within the model of Fisher et al.’s (2007) informational places than they do with Oldenburg’s (1999) description of third places. Most of the main

116

LINDA R. MOST

library interview respondents indicated they use their library as a place they visit often where they can address needs and interests related to information finding and seeking, recreational reading, formal study, and life-long learning. By contrast, one interview respondent spoke positively of the ways teens use the library as a third place, saying: I think [the way people use the library] is good, especially for the young people – teenagers. When they come in here they basically use the computers, and for one thing, it keeps them off the street. It keeps them busy. So, you know, they get to use the computer and play games on it, and I like that – listen to their music – and then also there’s a lot of resources around so they can learn new things on the computer as well as play games.

The distinction this respondent makes between how adults and young people use the library for recreational purposes may be significant. Attitudes toward young people coming to the library in groups to use the computers for social purposes may be different than those toward adults coming to the library to use the computers for recreational purposes. Although discussion of the ways children and teenagers use their public libraries as place is beyond the scope of this study, it is worth mentioning the possible roles public libraries play as third places for teens. Large urban and suburban libraries with enough space in their buildings have dedicated entire rooms to teen use. Their library programming for teens features interactive and recreational activities during after school hours.3 Not all the main library interview respondents came to the library to use the computers. Two study participants reported bringing children or grandchildren to check out books and attend regular children’s art club programs offered by the library. One user reports coming to the library strictly to check out books and videos. He said he uses the library mainly for entertainment reading. These uses seem to demonstrate some ways the main library supports the social nature of reading and functions as a familiarized locale that serves an important purpose in their daily or weekly lives. Some Quincy library users see the library as an object of charity – a place where they can donate books and videos to benefit the community. One interviewee borrowed from the library’s video collection almost every day. He said the videos are the only entertainment that keeps his father – who has Alzheimer’s disease – calm and entertained. He is very appreciative of the library’s video collection and says he intends to donate his father’s video collection back to the library when the time is right. Another says he used to use the library’s book exchange collection. He considers it a community asset and says he has donated books from his personal collection when he finishes with them. As at the branch libraries, the main library’s various

Rural Public Library as Place: A Theoretical Analysis

117

book donation programs encourage people to feel good about contributing to the library, thus enhancing their personal stocks of social capital by helping to make the library stronger for those who will keep using it. Interview respondents at the main library did not mention their relationships with library staff members as frequently as did respondents at the branches. However – as at the branches – most of their references to main library staff members were positive. Main library survey respondents indicated that they did not talk with the staff members at the library as often as survey respondents did at the branches. Those main library survey respondents who did talk with the staff reported conversations similar to those held at the branches. They said they talked about ‘‘anything,’’ ‘‘small talk,’’ ‘‘how to find books, being friendly,’’ ‘‘new books, personal conversation,’’ and ‘‘social amenities.’’ These comments indicate that some main library users participate in intimate secondary relationships (Lofland, 1998) when they visit the library but apparently not to the same extent as those who use the library’s branches. Main library staff members described some social use of the library, with most of those social activities focused around the library’s resources, programs, and services. One staff member reported observing social activities that indicate some third place characteristics of the library. ‘‘You know people come in here whether it’s to get in out of the rain or out of the hot, out of the cold. They do use [the library] to come in and socialize.’’ Another said, ‘‘I see lots of people come here, they hang out and get on the – you know – computers – and chat with each other, group up in certain areas of the library and have little discussions and stuff.’’ Another user noted that, ‘‘frequently people come in to use the computers, and they see somebody they haven’t seen in a long time, and there are a lot of informal sort of things that go on.’’ Another suggested different scenarios in response to being asked how the library is used socially that indicate the social nature of reading. Although the staff members report these types of social activities in the main library, the activities staff members described are focused around books, reading, study, and computer use. They do not have the third place characteristics of recreational time passing – hanging out – and social contact as their objectives. During the period of this study, community members regularly used the main library meeting room and small conference room, and library users indicated an awareness of the meeting rooms as a community resource. In addition to the union meeting and the children’s cultural programs previously described, the main library’s meeting rooms are heavily used in a variety of ways that may help generate fresh social capital for participants.

118

LINDA R. MOST

During the study period the meeting room housed library programming for children on multiple days each week. Two local sororities met weekly and the Veterans of Foreign Wars held their monthly meetings in the meeting room or the conference room. Two groups held multiple meetings at the library to plan their upcoming family and class reunions. Small groups from community and county organizations also use the library’s conference room regularly for their meetings. A care-givers respite group, a census worker training class, and a juvenile justice association meeting were held in the conference room during the study period. The Friends of the Library board met in the conference room every month during the study period. Many of these uses are congruent with the noncommercial quality of the library as place as previously described by library staff members. These uses also support and encourage the development of bridging and bonding social capital at the community level as community members are able to come together to work toward their group goals. Most main library interview respondents were proud of the new library building and described it as badly needed and as an important resource for the community. ‘‘It’s a hip thing to have, it’s good for the children of Gadsden County and it’s good for also the grown-ups. Like I come in, look for jobs, research, so it’s a good thing to have in Quincy.’’ One interviewee has used the Gadsden County public libraries all her life. She said I grew up here and I’ve been going to the library for a very long time here in Gadsden County so it’s much better than it was when it was located at TCC [Tallahassee Community College’s Gadsden County campus] and even better than when it was located at that smaller building they had. y I think it’s really beautiful. I was very surprised when I first saw it built y I was in and out of Quincy for a while, so it looks really nice. I’m pretty proud of it actually.

Survey respondents at the main library agreed with interviewees about the library as a positive asset for the community. When asked what they felt was the best feature of the library, one described it as ‘‘spacious and modernized to suit the community’s needs’’ and ‘‘a major asset to our community. It provides Internet access, reference books, and videos. [It is a] community workshop that is essential to personal and professional growth.’’ Staff members are also very proud of the new building: ‘‘The building is brand new, which is a blessing. We had a very bad facility before so it’s a brand new building. Two years we’ve been here and it’s been great. The public has enjoyed it, our numbers increased, everybody enjoys it.’’ In conclusion the new main library in Quincy appears to be functioning in ways similar to the Chattahoochee branch as a source of civic pride and a

Rural Public Library as Place: A Theoretical Analysis

119

symbol of the county’s investment in the local communities. It is a focal point for activities that generate social capital at the individual, community, and county levels. The main library is functioning as an informational place (Fisher et al., 2007) and familiarized locale (Lofland, 1998) for many of its regular users but the relationships between the library users and staff members appear to be less significant to the main library users than they are to those who use the library branches. There is also less evidence in the main library interviews and surveys of people coming to the main library to experience the social nature of reading as compared to survey and interview responses from the branches in which people spoke strongly about the importance of the book collections to their reading needs.

Contextualization of the Gadsden County Libraries Fisher et al. (2007) speculate that in Seattle, the library system branches fit more closely with Oldenburg’s (1999) third place framework than does the main library in terms of encouraging tighter social cohesion and providing more support for recreational activities. Patterns of use at the much smaller Gadsden County library locations seem to encourage but not fully support Fisher et al.’s speculation. Interview and survey respondents from the main library indicate subtle differences in the atmosphere and use patterns of the main library as compared to those from the branches, but none of the responses go so far as to indicate that the branches function as third places except possibly for teens. People did not say they visit any of the Gadsden County library locations to seek out friends or colleagues or that they are visiting looking for a persistent, playful mood, things they or Oldenburg would consider to be social purposes (Oldenburg, 1999, p. 83). As Fisher et al. found in Seattle, this study found that the mood and interests of adults when using all three Gadsden County libraries was closer to one of study, productivity and individual reading and recreation than one of playfulness or levity. Some study participants who are long-time Gadsden County library users hinted that the old library buildings may have had more characteristics typical of third places than do the new buildings. Although this study did not go deeply enough into the question of whether people use the new libraries differently than they did the old ones, portions of responses to other questions – especially from the Chattahoochee interviews – imply that people who used the old buildings may have experienced them as being

120

LINDA R. MOST

closer to third places than they do the new buildings. But third places and familiarized locales have characteristics in common. Fisher et al.’s (2007) conceptualization of an informational place as one that ‘‘comprises all themes regarding information finding and seeking, reading, life-long learning, learning resources, and [the] learning environment’’ (p. 153) – though derived from research conducted at a large urban public library – may be the strongest theoretical explanation of the role of the GCPLS’s buildings as place, but it is not sufficient. The library locations also need to be understood in the context of Lofland’s (1998) discussion of the public realm. Lofland’s work focuses on urban public space but is relevant to the current study because even small towns have commercial centers and include ‘‘a social territory in which many different kinds or categories of people are mixed up together [author italics]’’ (p. 118). Lofland describes a series of public realm-based relationships between people and public places, and one of those relationships – in which public places become familiarized locales for those who frequent them regularly (p. 66) – seems to explain many of the ways Gadsden County library users respond to their libraries. Respondents in Chattahoochee indicated that their new library building has not yet become a familiarized locale as the old library was, but they are using the new building regularly to access library services in some of the ways they used the old building. The intimate secondary relationships with the library staff that were established through use of the old Chattahoochee library appear to have transferred to the new location. In Havana, at the oldest of the new buildings, library users indicated that the branch has become very important to their lives as a familiar stop in their daily or weekly public routines. The Havana branch appears to function as a familiarized locale for many of its users. At the main library in Quincy, the building has also become a familiarized locale for many of its users. Main library users come regularly for many reasons and indicate that visiting the library is an anticipated part of their or their children’s weekly routines. All three libraries are comfortable, attractive, welcoming places that are used for informational and reading-related activities. Another of the categories of the public realm relationships Lofland (1998) describes is a group of relationships that form between strangers who share a social territory and play specific roles in that world. Many people who regularly use the Gadsden County libraries have developed intimate secondary relationships – ongoing emotionally infused public relationships – with library staff members, and they indicate that they value those relationships though they do not categorize the relationships as social. Library staff

Rural Public Library as Place: A Theoretical Analysis

121

members in their turn also value the relationships they have formed with their library users and do what they can to make their libraries welcoming places for their users. Because the libraries are familiar places that people visit regularly for purposes important to them, they support the generation of bridging and bonding social capital at both the individual and community levels. As Fisher et al. (2007) found in Seattle, and Putnam and Feldstein with Cohen (2003) found at the Chicago Public Library’s Near North branch, bonding social capital is generated when groups of like-minded people meet at the library to further their goals. Bridging social capital is generated when different types of people come together for a library-sponsored or community function held at the library. The Gadsden County libraries welcome all residents and visitors to use their facilities and encourage all groups whose purposes fall within the scope of the library system’s meeting room use policy to meet in their buildings. The libraries also use their meeting rooms to offer library sponsored programs and activities in which people from all across the community may come together to participate in an event hosted by the Friends of the Library, a book club meeting, or a children’s or family cultural or enrichment activity. The library buildings house community-endorsed activities that benefit the participants both individually and as community members. Audunson et al.’s (2007) research into the role of Norwegian public libraries as facilitators of the production of social capital can be helpful in understanding how the Gadsden County libraries fill the same role for their communities. Their theory of low-intensive meeting places suggests that communities need noncommercial places that follow Habermas’ model of supporting the public sphere to promote informal social contact and provide an environment that helps create a minimum level of community identity. Oslo survey respondents identified their public libraries as important meeting places where people can meet and chat not only with their friends and neighbors but also as places where they have a great possibility of meeting people very different from themselves. Audunson et al. have described suburban Oslo’s public library buildings as sites that promote social inclusion and help create vital local communities thereby supporting the creation of weak ties, generalized trust, and bridging social capital. Because Gadsden County’s libraries serve much smaller and less cosmopolitan communities than the Seattle, Chicago, and Oslo libraries just cited, there are fewer opportunities for people at the GCPLS libraries to informally encounter people very different from themselves, even though all are welcome to use the libraries and attend the library programs.

122

LINDA R. MOST

In Chattahoochee, the library welcomes tourists who use the federal and state campgrounds along the river. At the main library, people of all ages and races come together for library programs like the Friday evening children’s art club; the respondents quoted earlier who described accompanying young children to art club were a white grandfather and a black mother. At the Havana branch, the book clubs are popular, and the manager invites local and regional authors to speak, drawing large audiences to the programs. Though the Gadsden County libraries function on a much smaller scale than those in Oslo, Seattle, and Chicago, it appears that they share social roles that transcend community size and that theory used to interpret the roles large urban public libraries play in their cities is relevant to understanding the role of small rural public libraries as community places.

CONCLUSIONS AND DISCUSSION When the study’s findings are contextualized according to theoretical frameworks, the libraries can be understood collectively to function as informational places (Fisher et al. 2007) and to varying degrees, as familiarized locales (Lofland, 1998) that support the generation of social capital. As community members are getting used to their new library buildings, the new buildings are becoming locales people value as places where parts of their daily or weekly public lives occur. The buildings also support the development of intimate secondary public realm relationships between library users and library staff members. Over time those relationships – many of which were transplanted from the old buildings – have become important parts of library users’ lives and may add another dimension to their library visits as they stop to chat before and after pursuing the purpose of their visits. Because the libraries are noncommercial, nonreligiously affiliated, nongovernmental county-sponsored public places, they provide a more neutral environment than any other public places available in the county. As such they support conditions that encourage the formation of the democratic public sphere in the Habermasian sense of the concept. The new libraries encourage a sense of belonging and of community for many of their users and they facilitate the creation of bridging, bonding, and linking social capital (Halpern, 2005) by providing places where people can come together in pursuit of common goals and participate in community-oriented activities. The new libraries are among the very few places in the county

Rural Public Library as Place: A Theoretical Analysis

123

where library users can encounter visitors, guest speakers, and other people different from themselves. As such they bring a touch of cosmopolitanism to their small towns. The libraries provide a basic but reliable level of Internet connectivity that is very important to many library users. An unknown number of people who come to the library to use the computers to access the Internet do not have computers or Internet access in their homes; the libraries are their primary source of Internet connectivity.

Contribution of the Theoretical Framework The multipart theoretical framework this study used to attempt to understand the role of the GCPLS libraries as place makes possible a multifaceted interpretation of the way the libraries function as places. This study contends that no single social theory is broad enough or deep enough to encompass all the ways people use public libraries. It suggests that using multiple theories helps to understand generally the many aspects of a public library as place, and in particular how this community’s public libraries function as places. People experience public libraries in different ways, and the use of multiple theories facilitates (a) contextualizing the qualities of the libraries as physical places or settings, (b) explaining the public relationships people experience when visiting the libraries, and (c) understanding the results of the activities people pursue while at the libraries. The Public Sphere Habermas’ theory of the public sphere (1974, 1991) provides one piece of the philosophical foundation that supports the concept of public in public libraries. The public sphere is the conceptual arena in which people can experience the public or civic aspects of their lives, aspects that are not played out at home (the private sphere) or under direct control of government (the sphere of the state). The public sphere forms when people come together to discuss civic issues. Some critics have questioned whether public libraries still serve as civic places that allow for public assembly and discourse or whether they have been downgraded into places that only support leisure and entertainment (Buschman, 2003, 2004, 2005a, 2005b). Alstad and Curry (2003) are among those who identify the public library as one of the few remaining institutions that provides physical and psychological space for public discourse. Although they worry that public libraries have shifted their focus from public enlightenment to public recreation and entertainment, Alstad and

124

LINDA R. MOST

Curry (2003) offer several examples of public library social impacts that support the public sphere, including welcoming children and young adults and not perceiving them as threats; providing free access to news and information that allows individuals to take part in political and social debate; serving as symbols of positive activity and growth; offering a place where people do not have to act as consumers but can sit quietly, read, and reflect; and welcoming new immigrants and offering them unique opportunities to learn English. Habermas’ philosophical explanation of the role of the public sphere in society along with Alstad and Curry’s grounding of public libraries within the framework of the public sphere have provided a context for understanding the philosophical position of the Gadsden County public libraries in their communities. The libraries’ identities as noncommercial, public places underscore and set boundaries for the way they serve as places for the community. Third Places Oldenburg (1999) describes the core settings of informal public life as third places. These third places fill the spaces in people’s lives between home (first places) and work (second places). Third places are grounded in the commercial world of pubs and coffee shops. One of their key values is that, over time, they provide their habitue´s with enriching relationships that come from participation in informal group relationships that are very different from individual friendships people treasure. Many public libraries have tried to position themselves as third places for their communities, but Fisher et al. (2007) tested the new Seattle Public Library for third place characteristics and found that it met only three of Oldenburg’s eight characteristics of third places. Understanding the roles third places play in society and the characteristics that make those roles possible is important because most public libraries are not well situated to serve as third places or to support third place-dependent group relationships. The one exception to these limits may be in the area of teen services. Gadsden County’s teens have attempted to use the libraries as their after school gathering places, but they appear to have been discouraged from pursuing interactive and recreational behaviors in favor of studying. If public libraries can carve out space in their buildings to dedicate to teen services, those dedicated rooms may become third places for their young users. Otherwise the most important contribution of third place theory to understanding Gadsden County’s public libraries is that it provides the intellectual framework to support the emerging theory of informational places as a distinct category of place.

Rural Public Library as Place: A Theoretical Analysis

125

Informational Places The emerging theory of informational places comes from Fisher et al.’s (2007) test of whether the new downtown Seattle Public Library can be understood as a third place. Fisher et al. concluded that the new library met only three of the eight criteria that define third places and they proposed the idea of informational places to explain the new library’s role in the city. They define informational places as those that support and encompass information finding and seeking, reading, and lifelong learning, learning resources, and the learning environment. The emerging theory of informational places provides a useful framework for understanding many of the roles the Gadsden County libraries play as place and provides a large part of the answer to this study’s guiding question. Fisher et al. also suggest that there may be differences in the roles of branch public libraries and main public libraries for the communities they serve. They ask whether branch libraries might more closely reflect the attributes of third places because they function on a smaller scale and their users and staff members show a tighter cohesiveness. There were differences in the ways the Gadsden County main library and the branches functioned as place, but those differences were not great enough to suggest characterizing the branches as third places. This study finds that the key differences between the way people use the branches and the way they use the main library is in the greater number of branch library users who indicated participating in ongoing public realm relationships with library staff members, and the greater number of people indicating they came to the branch libraries for reading materials and reading-related activities. Public Realms Public Realm theory provides a structure for understanding how people relate to the urban public places through which they move and the people they encounter in the public settings in which their lives take place. Lofland’s (1998) concept of public realm person-to-place relationships provides a useful way to conceptualize much of what people reported about how they experience the Gadsden County public libraries. The concept of places functioning as familiarized locales that are important parts of peoples’ weekly, and even daily, public routines explains much about the way participants in this study generally seem to experience the roles their public libraries play in their lives. This holds true even with respect to those in Chattahoochee who are still getting used to their new library building. Understanding public libraries as familiarized locales better explains the way the study’s population members use their libraries than does trying to position these libraries as third places for their users.

126

LINDA R. MOST

The public realm operates through a series of indigenous person-toperson relationships that grow out of principles of normative behavior that govern urban living (Lofland, 1998). People who regularly encounter people they do not know respond in typical ways. Fleeting relationships and routinized relationships end when an interaction ends or they transform into the next levels of public relationships – quasi-primary and intimatesecondary relationships. These develop as positive or negative emotions become parts of public relationships. Intimate-secondary relationships are those that occur among people who connect with each other in some public way and who build on that connection. They can last a long time, be positive and meaningful, and yet never become intimate primary relationships. This study shows that the concept of intimate-secondary relationships is useful in explaining the relationships library users often develop with library staff members. It contextualizes most of the conversations that library users and staff members described, and explains much about the nature of the social relationships that support people’s public reading-related activities. This study has shown that many positive and utilitarian characteristics of the public realm that are most often found in urban settings are relevant to understanding the roles of small town libraries in the lives of their users. These characteristics include providing an environment for informal social learning, providing informal communication centers for those who visit, supporting the practice of politics in the informal sense of people of different backgrounds coming together and learning to act together, and facilitating cosmopolitanism as residents learn about tolerance and civility by sharing spaces with people different from themselves (Lofland, 1998). McKenzie et al. (2007) applied public realm theory as a way of understanding how two groups of people used the public library meeting rooms in their communities and concluded that the libraries they studied functioned as places that ‘‘support a variety of relationships and host a variety of realms’’ (p. 131). In Gadsden County, the public libraries collectively appear to serve most frequently as public realm familiarized locales and to support ongoing emotionally rich intimate-secondary public realm relationships that participants themselves do not consider to be social relationships. Social Capital Social capital is the glue that holds social institutions and relationships together. The concept refers collectively to the nontangible assets that belong to individuals and members of communities, and to communities themselves. Bonding social capital increases the strength of existing connections, bridging social capital facilitates links to outside groups and external resources on the

Rural Public Library as Place: A Theoretical Analysis

127

same social levels; linking social capital is a type of bridging social capital that crosses social classes and provides access to powerful individuals and organizations. Social capital is an asset that can be depleted and regenerated. It can be measured in terms of social trust, or how much ‘‘people in a given community, region or nation trust each other’’ (Halpern, 2005, p. 33). Public libraries build social capital by providing public places where people can come together to work toward personal or community goals. They provide resources that enable people and groups to establish and nurture relationships, and they also facilitate people from different groups and perspectives coming together in pursuit of common goals. Public libraries provide access to information that helps people participate in community life and in the democratic process, and they do all this without any means tests or entry fees. Gadsden County’s library users agree that the new library buildings function in many ways that encourage the generation of social capital. The libraries welcome all members of the community and visitors, they support both formal education and lifelong learning, and they help people empower themselves by providing access to information and recreational materials. They also provide noncommercial meeting rooms where groups can come together to work toward their goals and they provide programs in which people can participate, thereby making new connections. The theory of social capital helps explain how Gadsden County’s public libraries enhance quality of life for library users. This study has shown that theories developed to explain social behaviors in urban settings are relevant to rural and small downtown settings as well. For the most part, it found that differences in the way social activities and interactions play out in small rural and large urban or suburban public libraries are differences of scale, not content. This study also shows that theories generated through the study of urban experiences are relevant to contextualizing the roles public libraries play in small towns and rural communities.

Implications and Risks of Multiple Theory Analysis Multiple theoretical interpretations allow different ways of understanding people’s use of the libraries as places but also create the potential for disagreement in the theoretical analysis of their roles. What one interpreter sees as evidence that the libraries demonstrate characteristics of third places (Oldenburg, 1999), another may see as evidence the libraries are informational places (Fisher et al., 2007) or have become familiarized locales that are part of the users’ daily or weekly public lives (Lofland, 1998).

128

LINDA R. MOST

Multiple interpretations of the roles libraries play in the lives of their users are evident in this study and in the larger research into public libraries in general as librarians attempt to position libraries as third places for their communities (K. Harris, 2003; C. Harris, 2007; Lawson, 2004). Fisher et al.’s (2007) study of the new downtown Seattle Public Library effectively demonstrated that the new library met only three of eight third place characteristics and differed from third places in important ways, leading their team to develop the concept of an informational place – a concept that ‘‘incorporates information seeking and consumption as a core aspect of place’’ (p. 153) and that embraces and reflects all the ways people use libraries and their expectations of libraries. Fisher et al. (2007, p. 152) identified three key characteristics shared between third places and these informational places. They both occur on neutral ground, both are social levelers, and both are a home away from home because of the psychological comfort and support they extend. Because the characteristics of informational places come from a subset of the characteristics of third places, it is easy to confuse the two. Third places can also be confused with familiarized locales because both are public places people visit regularly and value, but for subtly different reasons. Third places are typically commercial entities and offer companionship, relaxation, congenial conversation, and consumption of light refreshments – usually alcoholic or caffeinated. Familiarized locales are public places of all types that feature in people’s daily or weekly public routines. They can include the local market, a newspaper stand, a public library, or any other places people visit regularly in the course of their ordinary public life. Familiarized locales are typically staffed by longtime employees and those people – by virtue of their roles – become parts of the visitors’ public social world. Public relationships that begin based on simple social courtesies – ‘‘good morning,’’ ‘‘how are you today,’’ ‘‘thank you’’ – can and often do grow over time into relationships with depth and texture as those brief social conversations expand to cover broader topics and the participants develop a shared history. These relationships grow without any conversation or interaction necessarily ever taking place outside the setting in which the relationship is based. Third place theory frequently has been misapplied to public libraries because it is a popular and accessible theory with easily understandable components; public realm theory appears to be more relevant to understanding the role of Gadsden County’s public libraries as places in the social world. The libraries’ collective basic character is defined by their public sphere characteristics and their fundamental roles as providers of informational and recreational reading, listening, and viewing materials; but they

Rural Public Library as Place: A Theoretical Analysis

129

function on multiple levels. The most common collective roles libraries play for their regular users are as informational places and familiarized locales that are important to adults’ daily or weekly public routines – not as third places. Though these small town public libraries may appear to demonstrate the third place trait of being a home away from home that people frequent for recreation, relaxation, and social contact, this study shows that they function as a home away from home in the sense that Fisher et al. (2007) use the term – as a characteristic of informational places. In addition to functioning as informational places, they also become familiarized locales for their habitue´s by virtue of repeated use.

Relevance of Methods The methods this study followed replicated those used in two studies of larger urban library systems. Surveys and interviews of library users are research methods that work very well in most library communities. The size of the study population is smaller in smaller communities, but the methods’ effectiveness is not impacted by the community’s size. The survey responses may be more representative of the community’s opinions because the survey distribution conceivably covers a larger percentage of the people who come to the library buildings. Seating sweeps as a method of unobtrusive observation provide a less realistic representation of how people use smaller libraries because the number of observations they record is small enough that not all library behaviors or uses will be apparent during an observation period. In a larger setting with many more people present it is more likely that a set of seating sweeps will record a representative set of group behaviors. In a small setting where fewer people are present at any one time, some type of incremental observation method whereby the individuals are followed on paper as they move through the library would capture a better representation of the way people use smaller libraries. Replicating prior research is one way to increase the credibility of studies, and a new study in which existing research questions are asked in different settings or of different populations can add to the body of knowledge that informs the research questions. The study instruments should be carefully evaluated for evidence of decay and for continuing relevance to the research questions in the new setting. In this study, the survey instrument – while still generally relevant – did show some evidence of decay in the questions relating to Internet and computer use in public libraries. Additionally, rigid replication of the methods used in the studies on which this one was based

130

LINDA R. MOST

would have precluded adding the meeting room reservation documents to the current study’s body of data sources. Replicating prior studies provided this study with a framework on which to build and helped insure the reliability of the study methods. However, replication had to be approached with an awareness of the possibility of decay over time in the instruments and the need to edit these study instruments and methods to suit the parameters of the current study site.

Overall Study Limitations Measuring people’s use of a public library has several problems. Library use is not consistent across days, weeks, months, or the course of a year, but patterns of use are often evident in library user statistics. The amount of library usage indicated by the data collected at this library system over a period of 10 weeks was dependent on the time of year in which the study was conducted. Because the branch libraries in the study served as early voting locations during the 2008 presidential election, data collection was suspended during what might have been a period of very atypical library use. Because this study replicated previous work and used an existing study design and instruments, limitations in the study instruments were evident. May (2007) discussed the limitations of the questionnaire she had uncovered, noting that it asks library visitors about their use of electronic library resources without defining the term. During the unobtrusive observation period – the seating sweeps – people using library computers were noted but they were not asked what use – research, communication, games, social networking, or other recreational uses – they were making of the computers. Any system restrictions placed on specific computers were noted. People at these computers were counted by type of computer being used but the study design did not allow for enough specificity to determine what people were doing while using library computers. Given and Leckie (2003) note that observations made during seating sweeps are limited to what people are doing at a given moment. They do not explain why people are behaving as observed. Any understanding of why people are doing what they do at the library is only possible through triangulation of the results of all the data collection methods. As previously discussed, seating sweeps appear to be more reliable when used in larger settings. For this study some kind of time lapse observation that traced library users’ movements through the library may have provided a better representation of library use than that provided by the seating sweeps.

Rural Public Library as Place: A Theoretical Analysis

131

Finally, this study does not provide a comprehensive profile of how Gadsden County’s adult citizens use their libraries. It does not address or track use of library resources outside the physical library locations. This study focused on the public, physical, social spaces of Gadsden County’s new public library buildings and only recorded and analyzed the activities of adults physically in the libraries. The study did not address the ways people under age 18 use the library as place except as noted during the seating sweeps portion of the study and obliquely through the observations adult library users offered during their interviews.

Implications of the Study for Practice This study demonstrates that many adult public library users value their libraries as familiarized locales that are an important part of their daily or weekly routines. Adult library users also value their relationships with library public service staff members, but they don’t see these relationships as social. These relationships appear to fit the pattern of intimate secondary relationships (Lofland, 1998) and the concept seems to have strong relevance when applied to public libraries – it appears to provide a context for understanding library user to staff relationships that are grounded in the interpersonal exchanges that inform people’s many reasons for visiting public libraries. Reading, borrowing books, audio and video recordings, and questions related to computer use are often the subjects of the conversations, but many social pleasantries are exchanged at the same time. Informal information exchanges also take place during these conversations. More people reported talking to staff members at the branches than did at the main library and some of the terms people used frequently to describe the staff included friendly and helpful. The relationships library users build with library staff members over time appear to be equally as important to the users as the features of the new buildings, but the relationships are not the main reasons people visit the libraries. The Gadsden County public libraries are not third places for their adult users. Gadsden County’s adult library users value their public libraries as community resources and places that support all types of educational goals, including both formal education and lifelong learning. The libraries function equally as informational places and communication centers that provide Internet access, as much as they are places that provide access to entertainment materials and support all types of book and reading-related activities. They are places where people come to get out of the weather and

132

LINDA R. MOST

to relax, but they are not places people come for what the people themselves consider to be social activities. Study participants reported that the Internet service these libraries provide is the only Internet access available to some community members. As one study participant said, ‘‘Not everybody has a computer at home.’’ Internet access at the public libraries has allowed community members who would not otherwise be able to attend college to take online classes, and the libraries accommodate their needs by providing extended Internet access time during their class sessions. Providing public Internet access is crucial to community members, but the behavior patterns some library users exhibit when accessing the Internet is very different than that of people who use other library resources. Their intense focus on the screen in front of them can lead to the hollowing out of the place where they are physically located. The Internet users’ deep focus on the world to which they are connected via computers can change the library’s ambience from one that encourages public social interaction and sense of community to one where some of the people are physically present but ‘‘psychologically evacuated’’ (Nomads at last, April 12, 2008, p. 10). Gadsden County’s public libraries facilitate a touch of cosmopolitanism and provide enrichment to their small communities in several ways: through library programming that features authors and speakers from the region or the state; by welcoming visitors from outside the county; and by providing access to the larger world through computers, books, videos, and programs. Library users as a group seem supportive of the opportunities the library programming provides. They are also supportive of the way the libraries’ public meeting rooms are used by other community members. The Gadsden County public libraries may be the only places county residents and visitors of different backgrounds, religious beliefs, race, or educational level can come together without being on one or another group’s turf. As one staff member explained, a member of a Baptist church might not want to attend a caregiver’s respite group meeting held in a Catholic church, but would be very willing to attend the same meeting with the same people if it was being held on unaffiliated public ground at the public library. The library meeting rooms add an important dimension to the way this county perceives the libraries as place.

Future Research Directions Findings indicate that the library users in this study considered their ongoing, library-based, public realm, intimate secondary relationships with

Rural Public Library as Place: A Theoretical Analysis

133

library staff members as important aspects of their library visits. Further investigation into the nature and intensity of the relationships between library users and library staff members and their importance to library users in other sizes of public libraries would contribute much to understanding how people use public libraries as place and what they value about their library visits. This study supports Fisher et al.’s (2007) emerging concept of public libraries as informational places where people come when they have an information-related need or want to find an environment with an atmosphere that supports fulfilling information-related needs whether for educational, business, or recreational purposes. It encourages further research to test Fisher et al.’s conceptualization of informational places as ‘‘comprising all themes regarding information finding and seeking, reading, life-long learning, learning resources, and learning environment’’ (p. 153) to expand and validate the concept.

Final Thoughts Despite the limitations uncovered in this study’s design, it produced good data and reliable conclusions. Gadsden County’s library users identified their libraries as important community resources and sources of pride. The new libraries meet many important community needs, facilitate community members’ quests to achieve personal and professional goals, and help satisfy their needs for recreational and entertainment materials in a county with very few other informational or recreational resources. Using a multipart conceptual framework of theories drawn from other intellectual disciplines offered many rich resources with which to work when attempting to identify how Gadsden County’s adult residents use their public libraries as place. Each of the theories contributed to the overall analysis and the combined results indicate the real danger of attempting to explain how people use public libraries by relying on just one theory. Although there may be disagreement as to which theory is most relevant to contextualizing certain data units, drawing on multiple theories permits a richer, more multilayered analysis and interpretation. This study has shown that these small town public libraries are very important places in the lives of their users. The new libraries are symbols of life and growth in places where change comes very slowly, if at all. They are manifestations of residents’ belief in their communities and in a strong future for their citizens. They provide noncommercial public places where

134

LINDA R. MOST

people can pursue their personal goals and meet their recreational and informational needs. They are both portals and landmarks and the communities they serve are stronger in many ways because of their new public libraries.

NOTES 1. According to the 2000 census Miami-Dade County’s minority population is 87.6% overall, but 57.3% Hispanic and 20.3% black or African-American. http:// factfinder.census.gov/. 2. A metro area contains a core urban area of 50,000 or more population, and a micro area contains an urban core of at least 10,000 (but less than 50,000) population. Each metro or micro area consists of one or more counties and includes the counties containing the core urban area, as well as any adjacent counties that have a high degree of social and economic integration (as measured by commuting to work) with the urban core (U.S. Census Bureau, 2007). 3. The Detroit Public Library’s H.Y.P.E. Center (www.detroit.lib.mi.us) and the Enoch Pratt Free Library Student Express center (www.prattlibrary.org) in Baltimore are two examples. In each case the library building is big enough for administrators to be able to dedicate a room to teens for their use.

REFERENCES Aabo, S. (2005). The role and value of public libraries in the age of digital technologies. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 37(4), 205–211. Abbady, T. (2007). Broward’s Minority Population climbs to 51%, Census says. South Florida Sun-Sentinel [Fort Lauderdale, FL], August 9. Available at www.sun-sentinel.com/ ALA breaks attendance records despite Marriott boycott. (2001). American Libraries, 32(7), 68–82, August. Alstad, C., & Curry, A. (2003). Public space, public discourse, and public libraries. Libres: Library and Information Science Electronic Journal, 13(1). Available at libres.curtin.edu. au/libres12n1/pub_spce.htm American Library Association. (2008). The state of America’s libraries. Chicago: American Library Association, April. Available at www.ala.org/2008state Audunson, R. (2005). The public library as a meeting-place in a multicultural and digital context: The necessity of low-intensive meeting-places. Journal of Documentation, 61(3), 429–441. Audunson, R. (2007a). Public libraries – arenas for citizenship: An investigation of the public library as a meeting place in a digital and multicultural context [funded research abstract, 2007–2011]. The Research Council of Norway – Forskningsradet. Available at www.forskningsradet.no/en/Homeþpage/1177315753906 Audunson, R. (2007b). Public libraries – arenas for citizenship: An investigation of the public library as a meeting place in a digital and multicultural context [funded research proposal,

Rural Public Library as Place: A Theoretical Analysis

135

2007–2011]. Oslo University College, Faculty of Journalism, Library and Information Science. Available at www.hio.no/enheter/avdeling_for_journalistikk_bibliotek_og_ informasjonsfag/place Audunson, R., Varheim, A., Abo, S., & Holm, E. D. (2007). Public libraries, social capital, and low intensive meeting places. Information Research, 12(4) paper colis20. Available at InformationResearchR.net/ir/12-4/colis/colis20.html Banerjee, T. (2001). The future of public space: Beyond invented streets and reinvented places. Journal of the American Planning Association, 67(1), 9–24. Battles, D. M. (2009). The history of public library access for African Americans in the South: Or, leaving behind the plow. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press. [BEBR] Bureau of Economic and Business Research. (2007). Florida county perspective: Gadsden. Gainesville, FL: Bureau of Economic and Business Research, University of Florida. [BEBR] Bureau of Economic and Business Research. (2009). Estimates of population by county and city in Florida: April 1, 2009. Gainesville, FL: University of Florida. Available at www.bebr.ufl.edu/files/2009_Population_Estimates_Table01_1.pdf Bertot, J. C., Jaeger, P. T., Langa, L. A., & McClure, C. R. (2006a). Drafted: I want you to deliver e-government. Library Journal, 131(13), 34–37. Bertot, J. C., Jaeger, P. T., Langa, L. A., & McClure, C. R. (2006b). Public access computing and Internet access in public libraries: The role of public libraries in e-government and emergency situations. First Monday, 11(9). Available at firstmonday.org/isuses/issue11_ 9/bertot/index.html Boggs, C. (2002). Social capital as political fantasy. In: S. L. McLean, D. A. Schultz & M. B. Steger (Eds), Social capital: Critical perspectives on community and ‘‘bowling alone’’ (pp. 183–202). New York: New York University Press. Bourke, C. (2005). Public libraries: Building social capital through networking. Australasian Public Libraries and Information Services, 18(2), 71–75 (June). Burnett, G., & Jaeger, P. T. (2008). Small worlds, life worlds, and information: The ramifications of the information behaviors of social groups in public policy and the public sphere. Information Research, 13(2): Paper 346, June. Available at informationr. net/ir/13-2/paper346.html Buschman, J. E. (2003). Dismantling the public sphere: Situating and sustaining librarianship in the age of the new public philosophy. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited. Buschman, J. E. (2004). Staying public: The real crisis in librarianship: As libraries grow more entrepreneurial their change of focus is dismantling the public sphere. American Libraries, 35(7), 40–43. Buschman, J. E. (2005a). Libraries and the decline of public purposes. Public Library Quarterly, 24(1), 1–12. Buschman, J. E. (2005b). On libraries and the public sphere. Library Philosophy and Practice, 7(2), 1–8. Available at libr.unl.edu:2000/LPP/lppv7n2.htm Buschman, J. E., & Leckie, G. J. (Eds). (2007). The library as place: History, community, and culture. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited. Calhoun, C. (1992). Introduction: Habermas and the public sphere. In: C. Calhoun (Ed.), Habermas and the public sphere (pp. 1–50). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Cart, M. (2002). America’s front porch – the public library. Public Library Quarterly, 21(1), 3–21.

136

LINDA R. MOST

Center for Public Education. (2008). School demographics: What is the poverty level of our schools? [Research and practice]. Available at www.centerforpubliceducation.org/ [CSRL] Center for Small and Rural Libraries. (n.d.). Defining ‘rural’ (and small) libraries. Clarion College. Available at jupiter.clarion.edu/Bcsrl/definition.htm. Accessed on January 19, 2008. Cresswell, T. (2004). Place: A short introduction. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. Creswell, J. W., & Plano Clark, V. L. (2007). Designing and conducting mixed methods research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Curry, A. D., Dunbar, E. G., & Marshall, D. (2004, June 18). Public library branch design: The public speaks! [conference presentation], June 18. Available at www.slais.ubc.ca/ RESEARCH/current-research/AC_Final_June23.ppt Dart, B. (2007). Census finds 6 ‘majority-minority’ counties in Florida. Cox Newspapers Washington Bureau, Cox News Service, August 9. Available at www.coxwashington. com Fidishun, D. (2007). Women and the public library: Using technology, using the library. Library Trends, 56(2), 328–343. Fink, A. (2006). How to conduct surveys: A step-by-step guide (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Fisher, K. E., Saxton, M. L., Edwards, P. M., & Mai, J. E. (2007). Seattle Public Library as place: Reconceptualizing space, community, and information at the central library. In: J. E. Buschman & G. J. Leckie (Eds), The library as place: History, community, and culture (pp. 135–160). Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited. Fister, B. (2006). Reading as a contact sport. Alaska Library Association Annual Conference, February. Available at homepages.gac.edu/%7efister/reading.html Fraser, N. (1992). Rethinking the public sphere: A contribution to the critique of actually existing democracy. In: C. Calhoun (Ed.), Habermas and the public sphere (pp. 109–142). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Gadsden County Public Library. (2008) [blog]. Retrieved from http://www.gcpls.blogspot.com/ Given, L., & Leckie, G. J. (2003). ‘‘Sweeping’’ the library: Mapping the social activity space of the public library. Library and Information Science Research, 25, 365–385. Goulding, A. (2004). Libraries and social capital [editorial]. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 36(1), 3–6. Habermas, J. (1974). The public sphere (1964) [reprint of an encyclopedia article]. New German Critique, 3, 49–55, Autumn (S. Lennox & F. Lennox, Trans.). Habermas, J. (1991). The structural transformation of the public sphere: An inquiry into a category of bourgeois society (T. Burger & F. Lawrence, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press (original work published 1962). Halpern, D. (2005). Social capital. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Harris, K. (2003). Your third place or mine? Public Library Journal, 18(2), 26–29. Harris, C. (2007). Libraries with lattes: The new third place. Australasian Public Libraries and Information Services, 20(4), 145–152. Harris, K. (2003). Your third place or mine?. Public Library Journal, 18(2), 26–29. Henderson, E., Miller, K., Craig, T., Dorinski, S., Freeman, M., Isaac, N., Keng, J., O’Shea, P., & Schilling, P. (2010). Public libraries survey: Fiscal year 2008 (IMLS-2010–PLS-02). Washington, DC: Institute of Museum and Library Services. Heritage: They knew it all along in Quincy Florida. (1988). Journey [magazine of the Coca-Cola Company], 24–27, February.

Rural Public Library as Place: A Theoretical Analysis

137

Hersberger, J. A., Sua, L., & Murray, A. L. (2007). The fruit and root of the community: The Greensboro Carnegie Negro Library, 1904–1964. In: J. E. Buschmann & G. J. Leckie (Eds), The library as place: History, community, and culture (pp. 79–100). Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited. Hillenbrand, C. (2005a). Public libraries as developers of social capital. Australasian Public Libraries and Information Services, 18(1), 4–12. Hillenbrand, C. (2005b). A place for all: Social capital at the Mount Barker Community Library, South Australia. Australasian Public Libraries and Information Services, 18(2), 41–60. Johnson, B., & Turner, L. A. (2003). Data collection strategies in mixed methods research. In: A. Tashakkori & C. Teddlie (Eds), Handbook of mixed methods in social and behavioral research (pp. 297–319). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Kranich, N. (2001). Libraries create social capital. Library Journal, 126(19), 40–42. (November 15). Lawson, K. (2004). Libraries in the USA as traditional and virtual ‘‘third places’’. New Library World, 105(3/4), 125–130. Leach, E., Jr. (2004). Rural library survey summary report, part 1. Chicago, IL: American Library Association. Available at www.ala.org/ala/olos/outreachresource/docs/ruratf_surveysumpt1.pdf Leckie, G. J. (2004). Three perspectives on libraries as public space. Feliciter [Journal of the Canadian Library Association], 50(6), 233–236. Leckie, G. J., & Hopkins, J. (2002). The public place of central libraries: Findings from Toronto and Vancouver. Library Quarterly, 72(3), 326–372. Libraries connect communities: Public library funding & technology access study, 2007–2008. Principal Investigators: D. M. Davis, J. C. Bertot, C. R. McClure & L. Clark (Eds), Chicago: American Library Association. Lofland, L. H. (1998). The public realm: Exploring the city’s quintessential social territory. New York: Aldine de Gruyter. Lyman, S. M., & Scott, M. B. (1967). Territoriality: A neglected sociological dimension. Social Problems, 15, 236–249. May, F. (2007). Libraries as public space: Patterns of use in Nova Scotia public libraries. Master’s thesis. Retrieved from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (AAT MR26876). May, F. (2009). In the words of the users: The role of the urban public library as place. In: Libraries as space and place: Proceedings of the pre-congress satellite for the IFLA World Library and Information Congress, Turin, Italy, 19–21 August 2009. Available at www.ifla2009.it/online/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/Final.May.pdf May, F., & Black, F. (2010). The life of the space: Evidence from Nova Scotia public libraries. Evidence Based Library and Information Practice. 5(2). Available at: www.ejournals. library.ualberta.ca/index.php/EBLIP/article/view/6497 McKenzie, P. J., Prigoda, E. M., Clement, K., & McKechnie, L. E. F. (2007). Behind the program room door: The creation of parochial and private women’s realms in a Canadian public library. In: J. E. Buschmann & G. J. Leckie (Eds), The library as place: History, community, and culture (pp. 117–134). Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited. Mitchell, D. (1995). The end of public space? People’s Park, definitions of the public, and democracy. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 85(1), 108–113. Mock, J. (2008). A brief overview of the [Gadsden County Public] library including a historical perspective, mission, goals and objectives of the library [unpublished narrative]. Nomads at last. (2008). The Economist [A special report on mobility]. 387(8575), 1–18, April 12.

138

LINDA R. MOST

Oder, N. (2006). How’d you come out. Library Journal, 131(10), 38–42 (June 1). [OMB] Office of Management and Budget. (2007). Update of statistical area definitions and guidance on their uses. Available at www.whitehouse.gov/omb/bulletins/fy2007/b0701.pdf Oldenburg, R. (1999). The great good place: Cafes, coffee shops, bookstores, bars, hair salons, and other hangouts at the heart of a community. New York: Marlowe & Co. Oldenburg, R. (Ed.) (2001). Celebrating the third place: Inspiring stories about the ‘‘Great Good Places’’ at the heart of our communities. New York: Marlowe & Co. Osburn, C. B. (2007). Regaining place. Advances in Library Administration and Organization, 24, 53–90. Portes, A. (1998). Social capital: Its origins and applications in modern sociology. Annual Review of Sociology, 24, 1–24. Preer, J. (2001). Where are libraries in Bowling Alone. American Libraries, 32(8), 60–62 (September). Proctor, B. D. (n.d.). Poverty. [U.S. Census Bureau, Population Division and Housing and Household Economic Statistics Division.] rev. January 18, 2001. Available at www.census.gov/population/www/pop-profile/poverty.html Public Agenda. (2006). Long overdue: A fresh look at public and leadership attitudes about libraries in the 21st century. Public Agenda, New York. Available at www.publicagenda. org/files/pdf/Long_Overdue.pdf Putnam, R. D. (1993). The prosperous community: Social capital and public life. American Prospect, 13, 35–42. Putnam, R. D. (1995a). Bowling alone: America’s declining social capital. Journal of Democracy, 6(1), 65–78. Putnam, R. D. (1995b). Tuning in, tuning out: The strange disappearance of social capital in America. PS: Political Science & Politics, 28(4), 664–683. Putnam, R. D. (1996a). The strange disappearance of civic America, American Prospect, 24(15), 34–48. Putnam, R. D. (1996b). Robert Putnam responds. American Prospect, 25, 17. Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon & Schuster. Putnam, R. D., Feldstein, L. M., & Cohen, D. (2003). Better together: Restoring the American community. New York: Simon & Schuster. Ross, C. S., McKechnie, L. E. F., & Rothbauer, P. M. (2006). Reading matters: What the research reveals about reading, libraries, and community. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited. Saldana, J. (2009). The coding manual for qualitative researchers. Los Angeles, CA: Sage. Schudson, M. (1998). The good citizen: A history of American civic life. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Shoham, S. (2001). Users and uses of the public library reading rooms. Public Library Quarterly, 20(4), 33–48. Sorkin, M. (Ed.) (1992). Variations on a theme park: The new American city and the end of public space. New York: Hill and Wang. State Library & Archives of Florida. (2008). 2007 Florida library directory with statistics. Available at dlis.dos.state.fl.us/bld/research_office/2007LibraryDirectory/index.cfm Strauss, A., & Corbin, C. (1998). Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Rural Public Library as Place: A Theoretical Analysis

139

Tucker, J. M. (Ed.) (1998). Untold stories: Civil rights, libraries and black librarianship. UrbanaChampaign, IL: Illinois University at Urbana Champaign, Graduate School of Library and Information Science. Urban Libraries Council. (2007). Making cities stronger: Public library contributions to local economic development. Available at www.urbanlibraries.org/files/making_cities_ stronger.pdf U.S. Census Bureau. (2007). Metropolitan and micropolitan statistical areas, April 4. Available at www.census.gov/population/www/estimates/metroarea.html [USDA ERS] U. S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service. (2003a). Measuring rurality: 2004 county typology codes. Available at www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/Rurality/ Typology/ [USDA ERS] U. S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service. (2003b). Measuring rurality: 2004 rural-urban continuum codes. Available at www.ers.usda.gov/ Briefing/Rurality/RuralUrbCon/ Van Slyck, A. A. (1995). Free to all: Carnegie libraries & American culture, 1890–1920. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Varheim, A. (2007). Social capital and public libraries: The need for research. Library & Information Science Research, 29, 416–428. Warren, R. L. (1978). The community in America (3rd ed.). Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Webster, F. (2002). Information management and manipulation: Jurgen Habermas and the concept of the public sphere. In: F. Webster (Ed.), Theories of the information society (2nd ed., pp. 161–201). New York: Routledge. Wiegand, W. A. (2000). American library history literature, 1947–1997: Theoretical perspectives?. Libraries & Culture, 35(1), 4–34 (Winter). Wiegand, W. A. (2003). To reposition a research agenda: What American Studies can teach the LIS community about the library in the life of the user. Library Quarterly, 73(4), 369–373. Wiegand, W. A. (2005a). Library as place. North Carolina Libraries (Online), 63(3/4), 76–81, Fall/Winter. Available at www.nclaonline.org/NCL/ncl/NCL_63_3-4_Fall-Winter 2005.pdf Wiegand, W. A. (2005b). On the social nature of reading. In: D. Herald & W. Wiegand (Eds), Genreflecting (6th ed.). Prepublication online June 15. Available at www.lu.com/ranews/ June2005/wiegand.cfm Williamson, M. (2000). Social exclusion and the public library: A Habermasian insight. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 32(4), 178–186. Wilson, A. (1992). The culture of nature: North American landscape from Disney to the Exxon Valdez. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. Wooden, R. A. (2006). The future of public libraries in an Internet age. National Civic Review, 95(4), 3–7(Winter). Yin, R. K. (2003). Case study research: Design and methods (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Zukin, S. (1995). The culture of cities. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Zweizig, D. L. (1973). Predicting amount of library use: An empirical study of the role of the public library in the life of the adult public. Doctoral dissertation, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY. Zweizig, D. L. (1976). With our eye on the user: Needed research for information and referral in the public library. Drexel Library Quarterly, 12, 48–58.

140

LINDA R. MOST

APPENDIX A. LIBRARY USER SURVEY Hello, Thank you very much for agreeing to participate in this survey. Please answer each question to the best of your knowledge. Please try to answer all the questions but if you would like to skip a question you may. Please return your completed survey to the survey return box at the information desk. PART I. About Your Library Visits 1)

Where do you live? (Please circle one) Chattahoochee Greensboro Gretna Havana Midway Quincy Other: please specify __________________

2)

How long does it take you to travel from your home to this library by your usual means of transportation? (Please circle one) Under 15 min

3)

30–60 min

1–2 h

more than 2 h

How long do you typically stay at this library? (Please circle one) Under 30 min

4)

15–30 min

30–60 min

1–2 h

2–4 h

4–6 h

Over 6 h

On average, how often have you visited this library during the past twelve months? (Please circle one) Once a week Two or Once a Once every A few times Once or more three times month other a year (today) a month month

5)

What day or days of the week do you usually visit this library? (Please circle all that apply) Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

Thursday

141

Rural Public Library as Place: A Theoretical Analysis

6)

What time of day do you usually visit the library? (Please circle one) Morning (before noon)

7)

Afternoon (Noon – 5:00)

Evening (After 5:00)

Don’t Know

What hours do you prefer the library to be open? (Please circle one) Morning (before noon)

8)

Afternoon (Noon – 5:00)

Evening (After 5:00)

Don’t Know

How many people usually come with you to this library? (Please circle one) None: go to question 9

One other person

Two or more people

If one or more other people usually come with you to the library, are they primarily: (please circle all that apply) a. Friends 9)

b. Relatives

c. Co-workers

d. Other

Will you be visiting any stores or services near the library today? ___Yes ___No ___Don’t know

PART II. How You Use This Library 10)

Without this library, how would your life change? (Please circle one answer) 1

Not at all 11)

2 Very Little

3

4

5

Somewhat

Considerably

Major impact

Why do you use this library rather than other libraries? Please explain in your own words:

______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ (You may continue on the back of this page if you need more room.)

142

LINDA R. MOST

12)

Do you borrow materials from other Gadsden County Library locations? ___ Yes ___ No If yes, which locations? Please specify: __________________________

13)

Do you borrow materials from libraries other than Gadsden County Library System libraries? ___ Yes ___ No If yes, which libraries? Please specify: ___________________________

14)

Why did you come to this library today? (Please circle the most important reason and check any others that may apply with a check mark): ___a. Use public meeting room ___b. Use children’s services ___c. Browse ___d. Borrow/return materials for myself ___e. Borrow/return materials for others (children, family, friends) ___f. Consume food/drinks ___g. Look for information on a subject ___h. Meet a friend ___i. View art work, displays, bulletin boards ___j. Obtain help from library staff ___k. Read ___l. Study in library with own materials ___m. Use photocopiers ___n. Use microfiche/film ___o. Use CD ROMs ___p. Use the on-line catalog ___q. Use the Internet ___r. Use electronic databases ___s. Use e-mail ___t. Other: Please explain here: _______________________________ ___________________________________________________________

15)

When you visit this library, how often do you use electronic resources (e.g., the Internet, on-line catalog, CD-ROMS, electronic databases)? Please circle one: 1

2

3

4

5

Always

Usually

Sometimes

Rarely

Never

143

Rural Public Library as Place: A Theoretical Analysis

16)

Please rank the importance to you of electronic resources in this library (e.g., the Internet, on-line catalog, CD-ROMS, electronic databases). Please circle one: 1

2

Unimportant

Somewhat Important

3 Important

4

5

Very Important

Extremely Important – Crucial

17)

Do you ever bring a laptop computer with you to use in this library? ___ Yes ___ No

18)

Do you ever bring in any other electronic equipment with you in this library (e.g., cell phone, digital scanner) ___Yes ___ No If yes, please specify: _________________________________________

19)

How user-friendly is this library? (Please circle one) 1

2

3

4

5

Extremely user- Very user- User-friendly Only a little bit Not userfriendly friendly user-friendly friendly 20)

Do you ever talk to the library staff when you come here? ___ Yes ___ No If yes, what do you talk to them about? __________________________ ____________________________________________________________

21)

Please circle the single MOST important service this library provides: (Please circle only one) a. Access to technology b. A place to read c. A place to socialize d. Community events e. Community information f. Life-long learning (educational support) g. Personal study (homework, research, etc) h. Provides fiction/literature (for recreational reading) i. Reference and information services j. Other: please specify ______________________________________

144

LINDA R. MOST

22)

Please circle the single LEAST important service this library provides: (Please circle only one) a. Access to technology b. A place to read c. A place to socialize d. Community events e. Community information f. Life-long learning (educational support) g. Personal study (homework, research, etc) h. Provides fiction/literature (for recreational reading) i. Reference and information services j. Other: please specify ______________________________________

23)

Do you ever use this library’s non-English language materials? ___ Yes ___ No

24)

Do you ever use this library as a place to meet tutors? ___ Yes ___ No If yes, what kind of tutoring? ___ English as a second language ___ Homework help ___ New reader/Literacy ___ Other, please explain:_____________________________________

25)

What other services or resources would you like to see introduced here: _______________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ (you may continue on the back of this page if you need more room)

26)

Before this library was built did you use the old library? ___ Yes ___ No If you answered yes, do you use this library differently than the old library? ___Yes ___ No ____ Don’t know

27)

What is the ONE BEST feature of this library: ___________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________

Rural Public Library as Place: A Theoretical Analysis

28)

145

What is the ONE WORST feature of this library: ________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________

29)

What words do you think best describe the physical space of this library? (Please circle all that apply)

Attractive

Badly Designed

Modern

Needs Renovation

Bright

Quiet

Clean

Unattractive

Comfortable Crowded

Uncomfortable Unfriendly

Dark

User Friendly

Dirty

Well Designed

Friendly

OTHER WORDS YOU THINK DESCRIBE THIS LIBRARY: please write in this column

Loud

Lots of Space 30)

What is your favorite location or place in this library: ____________ ____________________________________________________________

31)

In your opinion, what is the PRIMARY purpose of this library: ____ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________

32)

Please add any additional comments you wish to make (you may write on the back of this form if you need more space)

146

LINDA R. MOST

Please tell us your thoughts about the following features of this library. Use the following scale to rate the features by circling the best number for each feature

Features: circle one number for each feature

1 ¼ very 2¼ 3¼ 4¼ 5¼ 0¼ unsatisfactory unsatisfactory Neutral Satisfactory Excellent Don’t know Rating: Reasons for your answer?

OUTSIDE: Parking Walkways and other pedestrian space Building Entrance Signs Outside Book Return Landscaping/ Lawn/Benches (If appropriate) INSIDE: Lights Windows Signs Inside Colors Tables/Study Carrels Seating Children’s Area Arrangement/ organization of the library Please use the back of this

1 1

2 2

3 3

4 4

5 5

0 0

1 1 1 1

2 2 2 2

3 3 3 3

4 4 4 4

5 5 5 5

0 0 0 0

1 1 1 1 1

2 2 2 2 2

3 3 3 3 3

4 4 4 4 4

5 5 5 5 5

0 0 0 0 0

1 1 1

2 2 2

3 3 3

4 4 4

5 5 5

0 0 0

page to write more about

PART III: Library User Profile 33)

34)

Sex: ____ Male

____ Female

Age Category (please circle one):

18–24

25–34

35–44

45–54

55–65

Over 65

147

Rural Public Library as Place: A Theoretical Analysis

35)

Highest level of educational attainment: (Please circle one) a. Elementary school b. Some high school c. High school diploma d. Some university or college e. University or college degree/diploma f. Some post-graduate university study g. University post-graduate degree

36)

Languages spoken (Please check all that apply) ___ English ___ Spanish ___ Other(s): List here

37)

Primary Occupation (please circle one):

a. Student: b. Unemployed c. Retired d. Homemaker e. Professional (e.g., lawyer,

High School

College University

Other: please explain__________

accountant, psychologist) f. Management/Administrative (e.g.,

store or office manager) g. Artistic/Literacy (e.g., writer,

journalist) h. Clerical/Retail (e.g. secretary,

sales person) i. Technical (e.g. electrician,

computer repair) j. Unskilled Labor (e.g., food server,

cashier) k. Skilled Labor (e.g. carpenter,

hairstylist) l. Other: Please specify

______________________

THANK YOU VERY MUCH! Please deposit your completed survey form in the survey box at the Information Desk. If you wish to enter to win a $25 Wal-Mart gift card please fill out the last page and return it in the ‘‘Survey Contest’’ box at the Information Desk.

148

LINDA R. MOST

Please submit only one survey! OPTIONAL Gift Certificate Drawing Entry Form If you choose, you may leave your name and telephone number to enter to win a $25 gift card for Wal-Mart Name:________________________________ Telephone Number: _____________________ Please detach this page from your survey, fold it in half, and put it in the Survey Contest box at the Information Desk. Thank you very much again for completing the survey.

APPENDIX B. LIBRARY USER INTERVIEW QUESTIONS Sex:

Male

Female

Age:

under 30

30–60

Over 60

1) What do you think of this library building? Prompts: well designed, hard to find things, bright, dark, comfortable 2) What do you think of the space around the library and the location? Prompts: attractive, dirty, easy to find, too much traffic 3) What is the best feature of this library building? 4) What is the worst feature of this library building? 5) Where is your favorite location or place in this library? 6) Is there another library you prefer to use? Yes/No, If yes: Why do you prefer the other library? 7) Why did you come to the library today? Prompts: to borrow/return materials, read, study, attend a program, find information, use the computer 8) What have you used the library for in the past month? Prompts: to borrow/return materials, study, read, attend a program, find information, use the computer

Rural Public Library as Place: A Theoretical Analysis

149

9) What do you think about how people use this library? Prompts: to socialize, meet friends, study, bring children 10) Can you describe any ways you’ve seen people use this library (either good or not so good) that have surprised you? Thank you very much for your participation! Here is an entry form for the drawing for a Wal-Mart gift card as a thank you for participating in this interview. If you would like to enter the drawing please complete this form and place it in the gift-card box at the front desk.

A FRAMEWORK FOR INSTITUTIONAL REPOSITORY DEVELOPMENT Jennifer Campbell-Meier ABSTRACT This study investigated the development of institutional repositories (IRs) at doctoral institutions, identifying factors that influence development and best practices using a comparative case study analysis approach to gather and analyze data. The development of a repository is one of the more complex projects that librarians may undertake. While many librarians have managed large information system projects, IR projects involve a larger stakeholder group and require support from technical services, public services, and administration to succeed. A significant increase in the development of repositories is expected with technology and process improvements for digital collection development so further study is warranted. Both institutional and subject repositories were examined for the case studies. Best practices and recommendations for future developers, such as early involvement of stakeholder groups and the need to educate both librarians and teaching faculty about open access collections, are also discussed. This study contributes to a more informed understanding of the development of IRs and identifies a model framework for future IR developers. The best practices framework incorporates the processes from the case study sites and includes additional factors identified from the case study interviews. Key to the framework is the Advances in Library Administration and Organization, Volume 30, 151–185 Copyright r 2011 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0732-0671/doi:10.1108/S0732-0671(2011)0000030006

151

152

JENNIFER CAMPBELL-MEIER

inclusion of stakeholder groups on campus and assessment measures. While the case studies focused on doctoral institutions, the framework can be adapted to any size institution. Keywords: Institutional repositories; framework; management

INTRODUCTION The development of institutional repositories (IRs) at academic institutions worldwide has greatly increased with the growth of open source initiatives in scholarly communication and software development. In part, the demand for IRs has developed out of changes in scholarly communication models as well as from the need or desire to develop a clearinghouse for the scholarly output of a particular college or university (Crow, 2002). Electronic communication tools allow authors to easily distribute and share information, articles, and data. While scholarly information may be available on personal webpages, wikis, or blogs, adding such content to a university IR provides a controlled venue for open access documents. A Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resource Coalition (SPARC) position paper has identified several factors leading to the growth and development of IRs: technology, the increasing volume of research, ‘‘dissatisfaction’’ with current publishing models, and preservation concerns (Crow, 2002). The development of electronic IRs increases ‘‘institutional visibility and prestige’’ and develops a new publishing paradigm for scholarly communication. In addition, libraries are also working with faculty to retain the rights to selfarchive and redistribute scholarly work, becoming ‘‘aggregators and distributors’’ of information (Crow, 2002, p. 4). However, repositories have been slow to develop in the United States, and many librarians involved in the IR developmental process are frustrated by the pace of growth.

REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE An IR is a set of services built around an organized collection of digital objects pertaining to or generated by a particular research or educational organization (Lynch, 2003; Jones, Andrew, & MacColl, 2006). Johnson (2002) identifies an IR as being scholarly, cumulative and perpetual, and

A Framework for Institutional Repository Development

153

open and interoperable. Although new technology and publishing practices have reinvigorated the discussion about IRs, the concept of developing an organized collection of a university’s scholarly output has been discussed before. With the development of electronic communication, academic research has introduced new technologies and tools for scholarly communication. As the landscape surrounding scholarly communication changes, alternatives and uncertainty grow. The Internet’s decentralization of publishing creates obstacles to finding a university’s intellectual output. According to Rogers (2003), uncertainty ‘‘implies a lack of predictability, of structure, of information’’ (p. 6). Time constraints, fear, or distrust of online documents and a ‘‘loss of control’’ seem to be limiting faculty participation in open access repositories. Occurring at the university level, IR developers can allay faculty concerns by creating policies and procedures to aid in encouraging faculty participation. However, many universities have faculty statements that support the use of articles placed in an open access repository for tenure and promotion. Most IR policies allow for the deposit of scholarly output by anyone connected to the host institution. This output includes preprints, postprints, data sets, images, music, and multimedia content (Johnson, 2002). According to Charles Bailey, Assistant Dean for Digital Library Planning and Development at the University of Houston, 30% of all Association of Research Libraries (ARL) institutions ‘‘had an operational IR at the beginning of 2006’’ (Bailey, 2006, p. 13). In January 2006, 87 of 123 ARL member libraries responded to an IR development survey. From the responses, Bailey found that the top three reasons for implementing an IR were increased global visibility, preservation, and the free provision of the institution’s scholarship (2006, p. 14). The development of IRs has been discussed by Crow (2002), Pinfield, Gardner, and MacColl (2002), Shearer (2002), Lynch (2003), and Gibbons (2004), among others. Pinfield et al. (2002) outline the necessary stages required to implement an Eprint repository. Shearer (2003) identifies steps to develop a repository using Eprint. Gibbons (2004) discusses development issues in repositories, including content acquisition and faculty participation. However, none of the literature includes comparative studies of IR development. Gibbons (2004) identifies five core features of IRs: ‘‘they contain digital content; are community driven and focused; institutionally supported; durable and permanent; and they provide accessible content (p. 6).’’ Since IRs are institutionally defined, Lynch’s (2003) description as a ‘‘set of services’’ provides a general overview of what an IR is, while Gibbons describes features included in the service program they support (p. 2).

154

JENNIFER CAMPBELL-MEIER

Models Crow (2002, p. 7) identifies four components of scholarly publishing: registration, certification, awareness, and archiving. Current IR models are able to provide some, but not all, of these components. Simply entering the research into the IR will register the concept by date stamping its inclusion in the database. The interoperability and open access will allow search engines to access the content when it is added to the IR. Inclusion in an IR provides researchers with a permanent archive. It is assumed the institution will maintain the accessibility of the research by updating formats and/or providing a stable storage location and medium. Problems arise with certification. Most academic journals have a tradition of peer review built into the acceptance process. However, IR software has yet to develop such a function. Pinfield et al. (2002), on the other hand, discuss the Eprint pilot projects at the Universities of Edinburgh and Nottingham. The discussion focuses on document types, preservation, submissions, and metadata. The authors also discuss the costs involved with IR development. Eprints, like DSpace, are open source. The program is freely available so that programmers can read, redistribute, and modify the source code for a piece of software, and the software evolves. Users are expected to make additional code freely available to other users. According to Pinfield et al. (2002), the cost of initial setup is staff time. The IR requires one to two days for software installation and another three days for web interface customization. Though no specific monetary costs are discussed, the authors identify managing the IR and the costs associated with encouraging faculty participation as the largest ongoing expenses in an IR budget. Of the documentation currently available, most literature thoroughly describes the work flow processes within the repository software but spends little time defining the entire project process. Although colleges and universities do not fall into a single operating platform, there should be enough similarities between institutions to develop a basic project plan. In 2008, DSpace is the only site with any project planning steps; however, the steps they identified may be too general to provide assistance to other institutions. For example, the timeline documentation developed by MIT (2004) did not include information about stakeholder groups other than the needs assessment during the service definition phase. Marketing and training are incorporated into the timeline, but assessment is not discussed. Currently, DSpace users are linked to a JISC Digital Repositories infoKit (2009) for project management. The management framework provided

A Framework for Institutional Repository Development

155

includes basic information on planning, strategies, staffing, and institutional change. However, the management and the technical frameworks are identified as discrete content areas.

Growth and Development According to Swanepoel (2005), IRs are still in a growth phase. Current studies are underway, such as a research project conducted at the University of Michigan on IR user behavior. The building and development of an IR has yet to be addressed empirically in the literature. By examining how IRs are developing and the challenges that they face, a framework and a generalized view of how an IR is developed can be identified According to the Project Management Institute’s A Guide to the Project Manager’s Book of Knowledge (2000), ‘‘the better you know your project, the better you are able to manage it’’ (p. 6). This can be done by identifying key areas, activities and stakeholders and applying a project management context, thus developing a project process. While Cervone (2007) discusses the use of a project charter for repository development, the focus is on the technical infrastructure needed for a repository, not the services needed to develop repository content. In order to provide a project framework for institutions developing IRs, this study surveys those currently working with IRs to identify key project management processes. The survey also identifies various steps, issues, and concerns that librarians developing IRs should be aware of prior to the project’s inception.

METHODOLOGY The case study methodology was chosen for this research because of its focus on context and ‘‘lessons learned’’ (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). By interviewing those involved with IR development at several institutions, noticeable patterns or regularities of IR development became apparent. Using multiple cases, developed in different contexts, expands the generalizability of the findings (Yin, 2003). In addition, multiple cases expand the usefulness of the research for those who are planning and developing IRs, especially since much of the information about development is local and not published. The unit of analysis for the study is the IR. A comparative case

156

JENNIFER CAMPBELL-MEIER

study analysis approach was employed to gather and analyze data, and provides a detailed account and analysis of six academic IRs. The research questions that guide this study were: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

What are the factors influencing IR development? How are IRs developing? How should IRs develop? What are the best practices for IR development? What is the best model(s) for IR development?

In order to identify potential sites for study, a number of websites associated with open access initiatives and IR development were consulted. The links at these sites were explored in an effort to discover potential academic repositories for the sample. Links were identified through the Registry of Open Access Repositories (ROAR), ProQuest Digital Commons, DSpace Federation, and Eprints. A list of potential repositories was compiled from the various sources. The study initially focused on IRs in the United States that contained 2,000–9,000 items. According to ROAR data, only six university repositories had more than 9,000 items in December 2006. These sites were removed as study sites since they were the institutions that developed IR software; had reached a critical mass of articles and were removed from the development process; may have acquired content from providers, such as ProQuest or Elsevier; or participated in the preliminary interviews. After comparing the list of respondents with the location of existing IRs or ones that were in development, the research focused on the six repositories in Indiana, Washington, and British Columbia. These included those at Purdue University, Indiana University, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), Simon Fraser University, University of British Columbia, and the University of Washington, all of which were used as case study sites. In addition to the university-level repositories, subject repositories located at Indiana University, the University of British Columbia, and the University of Washington were included in the study. Including IRs developed or developing at the department or subject level provides insight into faculty participation. It was felt that IRs sponsored by a particular department or in a research field might have to consider a different set of development factors. For example, faculty participation is expected to be higher if one’s department or school is running the repository. The data used in developing the case studies included the information developed during site visits for interviews and documents and archival records that were collected during the visits and from each

157

A Framework for Institutional Repository Development

university website. The UBC repository was a pilot project; the other eight sites were live at the time of the interviews. Eprint, Digital Commons, PKP, and DSpace sites are represented in the study. Although all of the IRs are at institutions that offer PhD programs, preliminary research showed that, regardless of size, librarians were experiencing similar issues during repository development (Table 1). A semistructured interview approach (see Interview Guide attached in the Appendix) was selected to address the ambiguous language of IRs as well as local terms and meanings that may be used in unique ways in each of the individual cases. The questions were developed to guide interviews and identify the process and procedures in place during IR planning, as well Table 1.

Case Study Sites (December 2007).

Studentsa

Repository

Software

Number of Itemsb

Purdue University

38,712

Digital Commons

6,674

IUPUI Indiana University

29,933 37,958

Simon Fraser University (SFU)

26,670c

DSpace DSpace EPrints DSpace

384 260 494 1,127

University of British Columbia

43,000

DSpace PKP

0 23

University of Washington

40,216

Purdue e-Pubs (part of Purdue e-Scholar) IDeA IUScholarWorks IUBio Archive Simon Fraser University Institutional Repository cIRcle Centre for the Study of Historical Consciousness DSpace at the University of Washington DSpace at the University of Washington Health Sciences Libraries (HSLIC)

DSpace

2,229

DSpace

242

University

a

SFU (2004, 2005): http://www.sfu.ca/mediapr/for_media/sfu_facts.html; UBC Vancouver (2004, 2005): http://www.publicaffairs.ubc.ca/ubcfacts/index.html#students; Purdue West Lafayette (Fall 2005): http://www.purdue.edu/Purdue/about/index.html; IUPUI (Fall 2005): http://factbook. indiana.edu/Burr/factbook/fbook05/fast_facts/fastfacts3.shtml; Indiana University (Fall 2005): http://factbook.indiana.edu/Burr/factbook/fbook05/fast_facts/fastfacts2.shtml; University of Washington (2006, 2007): http://www.washington.edu/admin/factbook/. b As of November 3, 2008. c Enrollment may include students from Vancouver (2,200 students) and Surrey (1,200 students) campuses.

158

JENNIFER CAMPBELL-MEIER

as to collect information about the perceived usefulness of various project management techniques. The questionnaire included questions designed to collect quantitative data collection and open-ended questions that allowed for a freer participant response (Creswell, 2003).

EXAMINING CORE FUNCTIONS During the interviews, questions about the core functions of repositories and factors influencing the development of repositories were developed from the literature and initial case studies. Many of the functions and factors identified are developmental issues that arose in the course of IR development that had not been considered by development teams at the time the IR was started or that had not initially been considered important to development. For example, accessibility and permanence, core functions discussed by Gibbons (2004), were identified as part of the software package used in building the IR and, therefore, were not of major concern to development teams.

Materials Submission Materials submission is relatively standard across the cases. Units and faculty formed groups that were set up by the repository managers that decided what content was appropriate for their collections. Anyone with a campus email address was allowed to submit materials, but some institutions were looking at allowing noninstitutional research access to collections that were being developed in response to a grant or as part of a research project. Student participation may be limited to dissertations and theses unless the student is part of a group created by a department or faculty member. Some institutions were considering the submission of fourth year undergraduate papers. The sites took individual and batch submissions; batch loading was preferred, especially if the metadata was consistent. Individual faculty members at most sites had the choice of adding records through the web interface or having someone involved in the project add them. Materials from research centers and departments are typically batch loaded. In some instances, repository developers have agreed to scan and submit items for groups and departments, but it is not a practice the developers at these institutions plan to provide for the long term.

A Framework for Institutional Repository Development

159

Metadata Application Most of the sites used some sort of modified or qualified version of the Dublin Core metadata format for the repository. Both author and library supplied metadata is used. Ideally, all the metadata should be author supplied, although most participants believed that the more work required of faculty, the less likely they were to submit materials for the repository. The use of author-supplied metadata was more prevalent in ‘‘quasi-library’’ collections like the Archives of Traditional Music at Indiana University. Most of the batch loading done by the libraries had some associated metadata, but many sites were relying more on the full-text search function rather than metadata to aid discovery. In many electronic theses and dissertation (ETD) collections, the digital copy was the copy of use. As such, call numbers are not a necessity, given that author supplied keywords or subject headings, in conjunction with fulltext searching, provide points of access. However, metadata does have value in open access collections. For instance, Purdue University is using the metadata associated with its dissertations to create links to identify the dissertations from a particular department or chair. Sites are looking at repurposing metadata to develop reports from various research centers on campus or to add content to faculty activity reports.

Access Control For the most part, the materials within the repositories are open access. However, there are some exceptions. On several campuses, groups have been created that are closed to the public with the content embargoed either permanently or for a limited time period. Purdue is considering the use of permanent embargo, allowing the record for the item to exist within the database but restricting access to its content. By placing an embargo on documents, the information on the item is still available or findable; there is still a record of publication that would not exist if the item was not included, but intellectual property of grantors and classified materials could be protected. Other institutions have embargoed dissertations and theses, either because they were going to be published elsewhere or because they contain propriety information about a particular industry or company. Still other institutions have used the DSpace environment for collaborative work projects like the Buddhist manuscript project at the University of Washington. The manuscripts used in this project and work documents

160

JENNIFER CAMPBELL-MEIER

generated are closed to the public at this time, but, once a book about the manuscripts is published, the collection will be made available through open access. Software choice also limits access. For example, the full-text of the dissertations available in Digital Commons is only available to the host institution, though the first 24 pages of the dissertations are freely available to the public.

Discovery Support Other than adding the repositories with different registries, like ROAR or Repository 66, most institutions rely on the repository software to make things openly accessible, allowing the content to be accessed by search engines. The search function within DSpace does have problems; IUPUI is planning to develop its own interface for the eArchive repository for special collections and archival material to avoid some of the problems. Other repository site developers plan to incorporate some sort of federated search tool that will search all university based digital collections. The sites are interested in developing or finding a federated search tool that will allow users the ability to search all digital collections on campus.

Distribution Distribution, as identified by Gibbons (2004), is the ‘‘mechanism by which a copy of the digital file can be provided or displayed to the user’’ (p. 8). None of the sites involved considered this to be an issue. The software serves the files, and it is generally agreed that it is up to the individual user to have the appropriate tools to access the information included in the database. It was pointed out that, while one did not need to have the actual software to run the files, one nevertheless needed some sort of emulator that would allow access. At this time, most of the files held in open access databases consist of PDF documents, but, if collections start to add multimedia content or datasets, then access of files other than MIME type ones will have to be addressed.

Preservation Although developers acknowledge that a plan for long- and short-term preservation is an issue, none has developed one that treats all of the files

161

A Framework for Institutional Repository Development

stored in a comprehensive way. The IUScholarWorks repository is covered to some extent by the preservation plan developed by the Digital Libraries Program, and, once the repository is moved to Fedora, it will be part of its systematic plan. Other sites have hired consultants, but no public plan had been developed by any of the repositories studied at the time these case studies were being developed. Throughout the interviews conducted for this study, migration was identified as a possible solution since librarians have been able to migrate data in the past. It was also pointed out that archiving a file and making it function are two different things. With many file types, the repository can archive the files, but that does not mean that the content is accessible. Resources According to Bailey (2006), IRs cost at least $100,000 per year to operate. But, even when reallocated staff are used, the interview participants believed that the estimated staffing expenses involved in the project alone would exceed that amount. From the interviews, it is concluded that a dedicated staff person was needed to manage not just the development, but content recruitment and that allocating a single person for at least 50% full-time equivalency (FTE) was optimal for development (Table 2). While the reallocation of staff and funding to develop the repository is a cost-effective way to start a program, it is unclear how this will affect Table 2. Indiana University

Funding

Reallocated staff

Staffing .5 (FTE) Graduate 15 hr/week assistants Programmer 30 hr/month a

Resource Comparison.

Indiana Purdue Simon University University of University University Fraser of British Washington Purdue University Columbia University at Indianapolis Part of the materials budget As neededa

No budget No budget No budget

No budget

2/3

As needed

.5

As needed

20 hr/week

–

–

–

–

.1

–

As needed

.25

As needed

The eArchive at IUPUI has 1 full-time librarian.

162

JENNIFER CAMPBELL-MEIER

long-term development. Subject repositories, especially those started with a grant, are having some problems maintaining momentum because of a lack of appropriate staffing. In order to grow, a repository needs staff dedicated to identifying collections, assisting with submissions, and marketing the service. Reallocating librarians for repository development may work in the short term, but at least one dedicated person who understands and is committed to the project is needed to maintain the repository and identify the appropriate people needed when assistance is necessary.

Responsibility Out of the six repositories surveyed that were running at the university level, four of the projects were initiated by library administration. Administrative support did not mean that the projects would be successful, but it does encourage projects that would not necessarily have existed if the project had only been championed by librarians below that level in the hierarchy. Administrative support was important for the repositories developed at the grassroots level. At Simon Fraser University, the repository was successfully created in response to a faculty request, but with the support of the Library Director. At the University of British Columbia, a new Dean of Libraries, unfamiliar with open access and repositories, did not initially provide the resources required to develop the repository, and the project suffered as a result. Where the responsibility for administering repository projects has been placed varies from library to library, and no one area seems to be better suited than any other for handling this task. In the case studies developed, repository development was always centered outside of public services (Systems, Digital Initiatives, Digital Libraries, Archives, Collections, and Research). While the participants all planned to use subject liaisons to aid in content recruitment, the liaison librarians were not always actively involved in the developmental process. While some site developers worked closely with faculty, others just assumed that liaison librarians would recruit content. Because the liaisons librarians were not involved in the process, many were still unsure what the IR was supposed to do and how they related to it. The repository software can provide a home to a wide variety of content and without a clear project definition, librarians may be unsure whether the project is about preservation, open access, electronic publishing, faculty research, student research, or all of the above. For IRs to be

163

A Framework for Institutional Repository Development

successful, developers must work with public service personnel to embed the repository into the library program and change the way librarians think about their roles in scholarly communication.

EXAMINING DEVELOPMENT FACTORS Adoption The process of adoption over time can be represented by a bell curve or a normal distribution. According to Rogers (2003), adoption of an innovation is divided into five categories: Innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and Laggards. In a normal distribution, the first 2.5% of adopters are considered Innovators while the following 13.5% are the early adopters. Early majority (34%) and the late majority (34%) fall in the center of the distribution. The Laggards compose the final 16% in the distribution’s tail. Swanepoel (2005) also placed IR development in Europe at the early majority phase. When asked about IR development, most of the interview participants in this study also believed that they were not early adopters, but in the early majority even though the interviews took place approximately two years after Swanepoel’s survey was published (Table 3). This may be explained by the European leadership role in open access; not only does the European Commission have a proposed Open Access SelfArchiving Mandate, as of October 2010, there were over 500 repositories in Europe. At present, the United States has only 317 registered repositories even though there are 2,919 four-year colleges and universities (Repository66, 2011; Carnegie Foundation, 2010). By comparison, there are 92 Canadian public and private not-for-profit universities and university-degree level colleges, and 57 of those have developed repositories for e-journals, e-theses, subject repositories, and IRs. Table 3. Adoption. Indiana University

Early adopter First majority

Indiana Purdue Simon University University of University University Fraser of British Washington Purdue University Columbia University at Indianapolis |

|

|

|

|

|

164

JENNIFER CAMPBELL-MEIER

Although not specifically identified during the interviews, the slow rate at which repositories are developed may lead librarians to identify as early majority since most sites began working with DSpace within months of its release. When examining repository growth according to ROAR statistics, five of the six repositories developed collections prior to 2006. With more support for OA initiatives, European and Canadian repository development may be in the First Majority stage. This support may have increased the diffusion of information about repositories. When a new innovation is released, it is communicated through members of a social system, in this case, library professionals. While not every innovation will be adopted, there is a need for repository software. However, at this time, the technical and financial investment needed may be too great for smaller institutions in the United States to adopt. At the university level, there are three separate groups working through the innovation-decision process (the path through which an individual or unit passes during the adoption process (Rogers, 2003)): implementers, librarians not involved in the implementation process, and faculty. Repository implementers in the case studies developed here were all librarians, but those involved in developing them should not be limited to librarians; stakeholders across campus should be involved in the process. The process includes Knowledge, persuasion, Decision, implementation, and Confirmation. Implementers have developed repositories and are now trying to figure out how to use them at the individual institutions (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1.

Innovation-Decision Process for Repository Implementers, Librarians, and Faculty.

A Framework for Institutional Repository Development

165

While the software and structure may be in place, the implementers are unsure if the repositories will be adopted by the larger campus community. Librarians and faculty are at slightly different stages in the implementation process (Fig. 1). Librarians span several stages depending on familiarity with the open access movement and the librarian’s personal relationships with faculty on campus. Librarians who are familiar with open access and who have close ties to faculty groups on campus may be early adopters and may be at the implementation stage. Librarians unfamiliar with open access or with fewer ties to faculty may still be waiting in the persuasion stage, observing how the repository develops prior to making a decision. Faculty also span several stages. Early adopters on campus may have already developed collections, while other faculty members are still unsure why the library wants to collect papers and datasets. Interpersonal relationships may also affect adoption rate because interpersonal networks and relationships increase diffusion (Rogers, 2003). Those developing the repositories, liaison librarians identifying content, and faculty may or may not have relationships with each other. This may be especially true if the repository project is located in technical services or a systems department that does not regularly interact with faculty members. Repository developers from these areas need to develop relationships with other librarians and faculty, relationships that may not have been necessary before IR development. Hiring a repository coordinator who is new to the institution and its library may also be a detriment since someone new to the institution will have to develop a relationship or trust level with faculty members from scratch. Faculty may be unwilling to submit items to the repository based on system attributes (Rogers, 2003). For example, the DSpace menus can be complex and difficult to understand, and the organizational system can be difficult to follow. As a result, people may not be willing to finish submissions. At many sites, repository administrators are loading items for faculty and easing the process of building the repository’s database. Finally, explicitness can affect adoption (Rogers, 2003). The goals and rationale of the repository may not be clear to faculty or librarians. While the advantage for faculty is higher citation rates, these benefits may not be observable at the outset (Harnad & Brody, 2004). The motivating factors for developing a repository are not very explicit, and few sites have developed a narrative to explain the purpose of the repository, how it works, and the benefits of participating for faculty and departments.

166

JENNIFER CAMPBELL-MEIER

Motivating Factors Four of the sites visited participated in the ARL SPEC Report on Institutional Repositories that asked respondents to identify which motivating factors applied to their institution’s repository development. These motivators include implicit values of librarianship; collecting and preserving an institution’s scholarship and ensuring that it is accessible. It was concluded from the data gathered for the case studies that many of the respondents may have been in library administration rather than directly involved in developing the repository. During the interviews, participants were asked what motivated the founding of the repository (Table 4). Extrinsic motivation in the form of interest from library administration in Table 4.

Motivators for Developing a Repository.

Indiana Indiana Purdue Simon University University of University University University Fraser of British Washington Purdue University Columbia University at Indianapolis Response to administrative interest To provide open access to materials To preserve scholarly material on campus To participate in the scholarly communication process Response to requests from faculty To support the archives To develop collaborative workspace/file sharing space To increase the visibility of the institution

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

| | |

|

A Framework for Institutional Repository Development

167

repository development was the most frequent response. Respondents were also asked about any other motivating factors. Many of the factors identified were the same as those identified by Bailey: access to the materials, faculty requests, visibility of the institution, and preservation. However, several other intrinsic factors should be considered as well: participating in the scholarly communication process, archival support, and the development of a collaborative workspace. During the interviews, motivation was not explicitly discussed by the interview participants. Participants did not elaborate on motivating factors; they identified outside requests for an IR, benefits of IRs, and philosophical issues for development. Many of the philosophical issues are technological frames (Orlikowski & Gash, 1994). Access and preservation are core values of library science and, as such, librarians prioritize collecting and cataloging information to make it available to a specified user group if not the general public. With the development of digital collections, including IRs, technology is applied to these core values. According to Orlikowski and Gash (1994), the technological frame includes the ‘‘nature and role of the technology,’’ as well as the ‘‘conditions, applications, and consequences of that technology in particular contexts of use’’ (p. 178). The librarians are applying a technological frame by preserving print and electronic materials on campus and making them accessible through the IR. Further, this frame is not held by all librarians. Some librarians are concerned about the potentially negative effects of open access on the scholarly publishing market, copyright, or the peer review process. Both the SPEC report and the librarians involved in the case studies identified extrinsic and intrinsic motivations for IR development. The extrinsic factors in both cases are responses to requests from library administration or faculty. The intrinsic motivation is tied to the values representing the core values of the institution and librarianship. During my discussions with librarians, faculty and administrative requests were often the major reason for developing a repository at a university, while intrinsic factors motivated the individual librarians involved with the projects. These intrinsic factors are related to the values identified by the participating libraries in mission statements or strategic planning documents and by the American Library Association (ALA). In 2004, the ALA Council adopted a set of core values to inform the profession about the role libraries are expected to play in society at large and within their parent institutions (ALA, 2004). Among these values are access, preservation, intellectual freedom, service, and social responsibility (ALA, 2004). These values correspond to several of the motivators

168

JENNIFER CAMPBELL-MEIER

listed in Table 4, specifically providing open access to materials and preserving scholarly materials. Other motivators can be linked to core values. Participating in the scholarly communication process and increasing the visibility of the institution can relate to the values of intellectual freedom, service, and social responsibility. One of the more interesting factors is the participation in the scholarly communication process. The development of IRs is moving the library from a passive role characterized by collecting and distributing published information to a more active one in which the library identifies and distributes materials that may fall outside of the publication process. This active role ties the mission of the library more closely to the values identified by the ALA Council (Table 5). While similar to preservation, the idea of stewardship was also identified as a motivating factor behind the desire to preserve access to scholarly communication on campus. More frequently discussed in terms of land or natural resource management, stewardship, conceptually, combines sustainable management with preservation and protection of long-term integrity (Stewardship, 2007). Conceptually, the definition of stewardship is similar to the mission of IRs that is to preserve and make available the scholarly output of a particular institution. It also reflects the definition of the Hawaiian word kuleana that includes ‘‘right, privilege, concern, responsibility, portion, jurisdiction, authority, liability, interest, claim, ownership, province; reason, cause, function, and justification’’ adding the sense of duty to responsibility (Pukui & Elbert, 1986). Both stewardship and kuleana represent values promoted and upheld by most librarians and combine the ALA core values of preservation, public good, and social responsibility. Providing long-term preservation and access to materials located within the repository is the kuleana of all librarians at the institution, not just those directly responsible for the development, though not everyone incorporates these values into their work.

Planning Project planning was an area that did not get much attention from the project teams. No formal assessment of faculty interest was made prior to repository development on the campuses covered by these cases. Two sites did, however, work with faculty prior to repository development to identify what faculty needs were. Purdue University began the process of IR development by speaking with faculty members and departments about their scholarly communication needs. They first identified what faculty were interested in doing with their scholarly output and then identified the tools that were necessary to meet those needs. The University of British

A Framework for Institutional Repository Development

Table 5. University

169

Library Goals and Values Associated with Repository Development. Document

Goals and Values

University of British Columbia

Strategic Plana

 Advance the preservation of and access to institutional knowledge  Improve and expand access to collections  Provide access to and promote use of new methods of scholarly communication

University of Washington

Strategic Plan

 Enriches the quality of life and advances intellectual discovery by connecting people with knowledge  Values service, scholarship and respect, and resources

Purdue

Strategic Planb

 Values democracy, inclusiveness, and accessibility  Preserve the intellectual and cultural record

IUPUI

Mission Statementc

 To create unique scholarly resources  To enhance the availability of scholarly information  Values diversity, opportunity, and academic and intellectual freedom

Indiana University

Mission Statementd

 Become active partners in research  Emphasize the role of the IUB Libraries as the university’s primary provider of educational and scholarly resources  Preserve digital resources

Simon Fraser University

Strategic Plan

 Enhance scholarly communication  Expand virtual library

IR Mission Statemente

 Capture, preserve, and communicate digital intellectual output of SFU faculty and researchers  Provide long-term storage and preservation of digital products

a

The University of British Columbia Library’s Strategic Plan: Furthering Learning and Research 2004–2007. University of British Columbia Library. Retrieved on 25 September 2008 from http://www.library.ubc.ca/home/planning/UBC_SP_04-07_FA.PDF. b Purdue University Libraries Strategic Plan 2006–2011. Retrieved on 25 September 2008, from http://www.lib.purdue.edu/admin/stratplans/plan2011.html. c IUPUI University Library Mission. Retrieved on 25 September 2008, from http://www.ulib. iupui.edu/about. d IUB Llibraries: Mission. Retrieved on 25 September 2008, from http://www.libraries.iub.edu/ index.php?pageId¼5429. e Mission. SFU Library. Retrieved on 25 September 2008, from http://www.lib.sfu.ca/about/ projects/institutional_repository/about/mission.htm.

170

JENNIFER CAMPBELL-MEIER

Columbia conducted a faculty survey on scholarly communication. The survey contained questions about open access publishing and was used to identify faculty who already publish in open access sources and may turn into early adopters on campus. The survey took place about the same time that the library held an informational session about open access publishing. Library staff and faculty discussed what open access means and cleared up some of the misconceptions associated with it at a forum with more than 70 faculty members. Identifying both faculty needs and interest in scholarly communication provided the librarians at each institution with information that was used to make decisions about software and content recruitment. Although many of the sites began with pilot projects, none of the sites developed assessment measures, and only one site chose to develop a business plan. Although the business plan framework was not intended for this type of project, the exercise helped identify what the issues were, including determining the resources and staffing needed for the development of the repository. Once it was accepted, the business plan was used to identify the project’s missions and goals and to set a timeline for development.

Stakeholders In addition to the problem of a general lack of planning, stakeholders on campus were not always identified prior to repository development. Stakeholder groups on campus may include liaison librarians, faculty, administration, and students. Often, the repository development was managed by a single person or team that did most of the content recruitment and management. While having a single person responsible for the repository was recommended by IR developers, it is clear that stakeholders’ views relating to the development of these repositories need to be incorporated into all aspects of the development of the project. The Health Services Library at the University of Washington is running its own instance of DSpace that contains collections from the medical school on campus. Unfortunately, the only librarian working on the repository left, and, as a result, nothing has been deposited in the repository since February 2007 (J. Araki, personal communication, July 19, 2007). Campus information sessions were scheduled for faculty interested in open access, but were not necessarily open to or marketed to encourage the librarians to attend. Not only is this a new product for librarians and faculty, but content recruitment is a new role that librarians may not be comfortable with. If the liaison librarians had been included in repository

A Framework for Institutional Repository Development

171

planning, content identification and recruitment may have developed faster. In addition, faculty and liaison librarians could build relationships and facilitate discussions about open access opportunities. While librarians will be included in repository development at some point, the public services librarians is often left out of early discussions about IR development. Repository developers with ETDs found that developing relationships with graduate divisions was key to a successful project. It was also easier for librarians to develop ETD projects if they were already part of the print dissertation process. Repositories that developed without stakeholder input are often marketed as a tool for scholarly output. This tool-based approach does not assist faculty with their scholarly publishing needs. Repositories, like Purdue’s eScholar, that were developed after identifying faculty needs, have garnered more interest from departments and faculty than ones that began as preprint and postprint archives. An IR is not just a library project; it involves the entire campus community. The IR serves as the warehouse for scholarly output of a campus and benefits all involved: faculty, with increased access to research; librarians, with alternative publishing models and means to access and preserve materials; students, by exposing theses and dissertations to a larger audience; and administration, by collecting and showcasing faculty and student research. Campus communities rely not just on the ties between members of a particular department, school, or organization on campus, but on the ties between these groups and the development of communities of practice within the institution. Although the scholars at an institution may be collocated geographically, they are working in distinct units and departments and may not have opportunities to interact with the larger campus. Depositing items in a shared repository may increase opportunities for scholars to identify others within the institution for collaborative research. While collaborative research between faculty members through IR participation was not documented in the case studies, Churchman and Stehlik (2007) argue that communities within an academic institution can increase diversity by promoting collaboration and interdisciplinary research. As such, repositories are tools to promote knowledge sharing activities and cross-campus collaborations.

Assessment One of the difficulties with assessment identified by participants was the changing nature of the repository. Not only are the repositories still under

172

JENNIFER CAMPBELL-MEIER

development, those involved are still identifying sustainable material. One librarian noted that it was too early in the process to develop good qualitative measures and that the repositories need more than a year or two of growth. While assessment measures are still being developed, participants found that the number of peer-reviewed publications may not be a true measure of success. Most institutions found it easier to develop quantitative measures of success. Those measures include the number of requests, the amount of peer-reviewed materials included, and a variety of other impact factors. Qualitative measures from user feedback and faculty feedback were also identified. Articles in repositories, especially on specialized topics, are finding a new audience via open access Internet searches. Repository working groups are attempting to develop processes that will provide both quantitative and qualitative measures for assessing the repository. Repository developers are attempting to find approaches to populate IRs that identify areas where the IR can meet the business needs of the institution by providing a shared workspace and linking materials to faculty and department annual reports.

Defining Success When directly asked about success, the institutional representatives replied that they were in the process of developing qualitative and quantitative assessment measures. At least one institution was not entirely convinced that enough sustainable content had been collected to develop outcome measures. It was also noted that the process of developing the repositories and collecting the content, especially with ETD collections, took more time than anticipated and that the repositories were not as far along as initially anticipated. Librarians were able to identify potential measures of success, including faculty involvement, the uniqueness of content, and whether the repository met the needs of faculty and the university (Table 6). While assessment outcomes and measures have not been identified at the case study sites, several developers identified measures that identify failing projects. Lack of faculty participation was identified most readily with failure; however, the content that is being collected and preserved in the repositories is not necessarily faculty dependent. It was noted that there are benefits in developing and maintaining an IR, but the difficulty lies with defining them, describing them, and actually confirming that they are

A Framework for Institutional Repository Development

Table 6.

173

Definitions of Success.

Indiana University

 Identifying relevant content on campus  Preserving the relevant content

Indiana University Purdue University at Indianapolis

 Implement continuous improvement  Provide the service

Purdue University

 Problem solving scholarly communication issues of faculty (ID 359)

Simon Fraser University

      

Stable access to quality material Faculty involvement Author awareness of rights with publishers Routine self-archiving Provide a safe home for the content Sensible and feasible preservation practices in place Provide visibility for the author(s) and institution

University of British Columbia

     

Number of hits Quantity of material Uniqueness of the material Knowledge of the library staff Faculty participation rate Content representative of the university

University of Washington

 Fitting the business needs of the university

happening. By identifying more subtle types of linkages, relationships or outcomes than quantitative indicators of success will allow the repository developers to assess the impact of a repository, not just its size. Content Content in repositories does vary considerably from institution to institution. Although many primarily collect peer-reviewed faculty output, ETDs were also frequently collected. Theses and dissertations provide repositories with a unique base collection. While many scho