Last Thursday I attended the day-long SENYLRC symposium: “Information Commons 2.0- Lessons Learned and Moving Forward” at the FDR Presidential Library in Hyde Park, NY.  Here’s a link to the pdf of the program.  Here’s the wiki.

I went to this conference with Brooklyn Public Library colleagues Richard Reyes-Gavilan (Central Library Director) and Jesse Montero (Web Applications/IT).  Richard, Jesse and I visited Hyde Park that day to snoop around the academic library world a little bit in order to get a taste for what has and hasn’t worked for Information Commons projects in academic library settings.  A short time ago, Brooklyn Public Library was awarded a $100,000 dollar grant from the Leon Levy Foundation to work with Pfeiffer Architects on a plan for a bold transformation of the “Popular Library” space in our Central Library. Our vision for BPL’s Information Commons is to create an area that encourages prolonged individual and small-group research, reading and studying, quiet socializing and larger group workshops.  So, right in the middle of the first floor of the flagship library, librarians would promote basic media, technology, and information literacy as well as assist with advanced research instruction.   Recreating and rethinking a huge chunk of our service model really is an enormous and challenging step forward in an astounding, classic, art deco, 1941 library building.  There’s really no simpler way to say it: this is an awesome project.

I (and I think I can safely say we) learned a thing or two from  Dr. Russell Bailey‘s (Library Director, Providence College) presentation in particular, but as public librarians I think we all were reminded of how different the scope of our work is from that of academic librarians.  At the public library, we serve the informational needs of EVERYONE who walks in the door, with an emphasis on recreational and self-initiated learning.  An academic library serves a specific student/faculty body.  The students and faculty are a closed, captive market with research needs that fit the scope of the schools curriculum.  At the public library, the scope of the curriculum is whatever any patron happens to bring to the information desk that day.  That said, after a day of viewing images of beautiful academic information commons spaces, all I could think was that when we put one of these in our library, I want it to be 200%, maybe 250% more FUN than anything I was seeing.

BUT-

Before I go off the deep end with funfunfun, I want to note that at this point ‘gaming’ and ‘gaming literacy’ have largely been accepted as a norm in the public library setting (yay!).  While I support the idea that learning to navigate 2-D or 3-D information interfaces like those found in video games is a crucial component of  new media literacy, I think its important for public libraries to make distinctions between *RECREATION!!!!* and “recreational learning”.  I’m imagining the information commons in a public library as a place where we strike a comfortable balance between *RECREATION!!!!* and recreational learning.  In other words, think more along the lines of a space where you’d learn to share your resume on LinkedIn, hear a presentation about l33t, dapple in graphic design, or learn to use a database- it is not like Fun Spot or Barcade (both of which are awesome, just in a different way).

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^ Wyndcliffe, an abandoned 1856 Hudson River Valley mansion just miles up the street from the conference. Read more about it here.
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