Creating the Academic Commons
Guidelines for Learning, Teaching, and Research
By (author) Thomas H. P. Gould
Publication date:
14 June 2011Length of book:
318 pagesPublisher
Scarecrow PressISBN-13: 9780810881082
Today's library is still at the heart of all university activities, helping students and faculty become better learners, teachers, and researchers. In recent years there has emerged the formalizing of one or more of these activities into an Academic Commons. These centers of information have been labeled variously but they all share a commonality: the empowerment of students and teachers.
In Creating the Academic Commons: Guidelines for Learning, Teaching, and Research, Thomas Gould gives a detailed outline of the various roles and activities that take place in commons located within the administrative umbrella of the library. Gould provides a roadmap for libraries seeking to establish their own Academic Commons, complete with suggestions regarding physical structure and software/hardware options. And to ensure new ideas are examined, evaluated, and adopted broadly, Gould shows how the Millennial Librarian can be at the center of this evolutionary library. Including information regarding the latest technological advances, this book will be an invaluable guide for librarians.
In Creating the Academic Commons: Guidelines for Learning, Teaching, and Research, Thomas Gould gives a detailed outline of the various roles and activities that take place in commons located within the administrative umbrella of the library. Gould provides a roadmap for libraries seeking to establish their own Academic Commons, complete with suggestions regarding physical structure and software/hardware options. And to ensure new ideas are examined, evaluated, and adopted broadly, Gould shows how the Millennial Librarian can be at the center of this evolutionary library. Including information regarding the latest technological advances, this book will be an invaluable guide for librarians.
Although there are many materials out there on the information/academic/learning commons, this handy resource should not be dismissed as extraneous. The author divides the various functions into separate chapters, and he calls the result the “millennial library.” With the presumption that the technology is changeable and unpredictable, all plans need to be open-ended and under continuous revision. Librarians using all the old skills in conjunction with the new styles should take the lead. There are chapters on e-books and the devices they require, copyright issues in the electronic age, and marketing the new services to all stakeholders on campus. It ends with a discussion of the long-term challenges of keeping up and keeping current. Useful appendixes follow: one listing resources for assessment; one with case studies of the early adaptors of information commons. For all academic libraries.