Poll - Free user style - Open to the public -
Questions:
1) How many of you use a library?
2) How many times a week?
3) How many times a month?
4) What do you think of the trend in the following article?
Libraries lure students with lattés
Mary Jane Smetanka, Star Tribune
November 7, 2005
First thing Friday morning, University of Minnesota sophomore Kristy
Larson hit the new coffee bar in the basement of Walter Library. Before
it opened this fall, she rarely came by the building. Now, she's a
regular.
"I love it," Larson said as she hauled her backpack and a hot vanilla
latté into the quiet recesses of the library to study. "It's so hard to
stay awake in the morning. Now I always come here. It's so nice and
quiet to read. And I don't have to walk all the way to Starbucks."
Serving coffee is just one of the extraordinary new steps the
university is taking to court students reluctant to give up the ease of Google
searches for the intimidating stacks of a research library. Making
academic libraries relevant to the digital generation is a national
obsession on campuses.
On the University of Minnesota's Twin Cities campus, where 29 libraries
hold more than 6 million books, librarians finally asked students: What
would it take to get you to step inside?
Coffee, they said. And comfy chairs and space to study to work in
groups. And an easy-to-use library website, too. Most of all, a place to
research and write papers, with help nearby. Most students surveyed even
said they should be required -- yes, forced -- to learn how to use the
library.
Librarians listened. And now they are giving students practically
everything they want.
That includes one cutting-edge creation that puts the university at the
forefront of library reform for undergraduates.
They have added coffee stations where they could and an "information
commons" crammed with computers and aides. They also worked 18 months to
build what they believe is the first Google-like search engine to help
undergraduates search a large research library.
The "Undergraduate Virtual Library," which is debuting this fall, is
accessible 24 hours a day, whether a student is at a computer in south
Minneapolis or in China.
Librarians even visiting dorms
Is this pandering to a generation too lazy to learn how to use a
traditional research library? Jerilyn Veldof, a U librarian who works on
undergraduate initiatives, doesn't think so.
"The cost of being too hard [to use] is too great," she said.
It's not just happening in Minnesota. In an attempt to increase student
usage, the University of Texas' Austin campus has emptied its
undergraduate library of almost all of its 90,000 books and replaced them with
computers, a coffee shop and technical help.
Veldof said campuses have to conquer the "big-time anxiety" many
students have about university libraries, which not only are repositories of
research but expensive to run. That's why the Undergraduate Virtual
Library has been created. It's a website that gives students access to
most of what the university has online.
"Our goal is to help students be successful researchers even if they
don't have all the skills to do that in the traditional library," Veldof
said. "We're reaching out to the undergraduate population where they
are."
As part of that campaign, students are getting automatic web links to
key library resources for their classes. Librarians are visiting
computer labs in dorms at night to offer help and fielding questions on chat
lines all day.
Students are receiving an "assignment calculator" linked to the new
website that walks them through the process of doing a research paper --
and even sends them e-mail reminders as deadlines approach.
The university also is offering "unravel the library" sessions to teach
students how to search 250 databases and catalogs.
Temitayo Akinsanmi, a freshman from Brooklyn Park, took the 75-minute
class at Wilson Library, the biggest library on the Twin Cities campus.
But she and her friend Xi Zhang, a freshman from Wisconsin, said their
favorite library is Walter. Not coincidentally, that lushly renovated
historic building has relatively few books but lots of computers and
study space.
And the new coffee bar.
"It's fun to go to," Akinsanmi said.
There's life beyond Google
Wilson has no coffee shop yet. But the computer-crammed commons area
appears to be a hit with students. The rest of Wilson features
ceiling-high stacks of books catalogued in codes few students understand, and
many indexes and e-journals to search online.
In one of her first visits to Wilson, Akinsanmi said she sat for almost
three hours at a computer, struggling with databases to print out the
right version of a single article. When she finally asked for help, she
got what she needed in 10 minutes.
"It was sad," she said with an embarrassed smile.
Several freshmen confessed that Google is still a common starting point
for research, despite warnings from professors about that habit. But
they expressed new confidence in their ability to use the library after
taking the training class. Said Akinsanmi, "It's so convenient. You can
type in a subject and you always get something back. That's good enough
for me."
That's the result librarians are hoping for with the Undergraduate
Virtual Library. Its simple visual design, much like Google, features a
prominent main search bar, links to "quick starts" by subject and a
changing "top five" library trivia list.
Marc Korobkin, a senior from Milwaukee, said he is "really, really
impressed" by the innovation.
Before, he said, he had to click through database after database in
search of what he wanted. Studies show that many students will go only so
far into a website before quitting in frustration.
"You expect it to be fast. Students are busy today," he said. "I hope
they make more stuff like this. Even how it looks, it makes you want to
use it."
1) How many of you use a library?
2) How many times a week?
3) How many times a month?
4) What do you think of the trend in the following article?
Libraries lure students with lattés
Mary Jane Smetanka, Star Tribune
November 7, 2005
First thing Friday morning, University of Minnesota sophomore Kristy
Larson hit the new coffee bar in the basement of Walter Library. Before
it opened this fall, she rarely came by the building. Now, she's a
regular.
"I love it," Larson said as she hauled her backpack and a hot vanilla
latté into the quiet recesses of the library to study. "It's so hard to
stay awake in the morning. Now I always come here. It's so nice and
quiet to read. And I don't have to walk all the way to Starbucks."
Serving coffee is just one of the extraordinary new steps the
university is taking to court students reluctant to give up the ease of Google
searches for the intimidating stacks of a research library. Making
academic libraries relevant to the digital generation is a national
obsession on campuses.
On the University of Minnesota's Twin Cities campus, where 29 libraries
hold more than 6 million books, librarians finally asked students: What
would it take to get you to step inside?
Coffee, they said. And comfy chairs and space to study to work in
groups. And an easy-to-use library website, too. Most of all, a place to
research and write papers, with help nearby. Most students surveyed even
said they should be required -- yes, forced -- to learn how to use the
library.
Librarians listened. And now they are giving students practically
everything they want.
That includes one cutting-edge creation that puts the university at the
forefront of library reform for undergraduates.
They have added coffee stations where they could and an "information
commons" crammed with computers and aides. They also worked 18 months to
build what they believe is the first Google-like search engine to help
undergraduates search a large research library.
The "Undergraduate Virtual Library," which is debuting this fall, is
accessible 24 hours a day, whether a student is at a computer in south
Minneapolis or in China.
Librarians even visiting dorms
Is this pandering to a generation too lazy to learn how to use a
traditional research library? Jerilyn Veldof, a U librarian who works on
undergraduate initiatives, doesn't think so.
"The cost of being too hard [to use] is too great," she said.
It's not just happening in Minnesota. In an attempt to increase student
usage, the University of Texas' Austin campus has emptied its
undergraduate library of almost all of its 90,000 books and replaced them with
computers, a coffee shop and technical help.
Veldof said campuses have to conquer the "big-time anxiety" many
students have about university libraries, which not only are repositories of
research but expensive to run. That's why the Undergraduate Virtual
Library has been created. It's a website that gives students access to
most of what the university has online.
"Our goal is to help students be successful researchers even if they
don't have all the skills to do that in the traditional library," Veldof
said. "We're reaching out to the undergraduate population where they
are."
As part of that campaign, students are getting automatic web links to
key library resources for their classes. Librarians are visiting
computer labs in dorms at night to offer help and fielding questions on chat
lines all day.
Students are receiving an "assignment calculator" linked to the new
website that walks them through the process of doing a research paper --
and even sends them e-mail reminders as deadlines approach.
The university also is offering "unravel the library" sessions to teach
students how to search 250 databases and catalogs.
Temitayo Akinsanmi, a freshman from Brooklyn Park, took the 75-minute
class at Wilson Library, the biggest library on the Twin Cities campus.
But she and her friend Xi Zhang, a freshman from Wisconsin, said their
favorite library is Walter. Not coincidentally, that lushly renovated
historic building has relatively few books but lots of computers and
study space.
And the new coffee bar.
"It's fun to go to," Akinsanmi said.
There's life beyond Google
Wilson has no coffee shop yet. But the computer-crammed commons area
appears to be a hit with students. The rest of Wilson features
ceiling-high stacks of books catalogued in codes few students understand, and
many indexes and e-journals to search online.
In one of her first visits to Wilson, Akinsanmi said she sat for almost
three hours at a computer, struggling with databases to print out the
right version of a single article. When she finally asked for help, she
got what she needed in 10 minutes.
"It was sad," she said with an embarrassed smile.
Several freshmen confessed that Google is still a common starting point
for research, despite warnings from professors about that habit. But
they expressed new confidence in their ability to use the library after
taking the training class. Said Akinsanmi, "It's so convenient. You can
type in a subject and you always get something back. That's good enough
for me."
That's the result librarians are hoping for with the Undergraduate
Virtual Library. Its simple visual design, much like Google, features a
prominent main search bar, links to "quick starts" by subject and a
changing "top five" library trivia list.
Marc Korobkin, a senior from Milwaukee, said he is "really, really
impressed" by the innovation.
Before, he said, he had to click through database after database in
search of what he wanted. Studies show that many students will go only so
far into a website before quitting in frustration.
"You expect it to be fast. Students are busy today," he said. "I hope
they make more stuff like this. Even how it looks, it makes you want to
use it."