This paper identifies approaches, challenges, and best practices related to planning and designing today's academic library learning spaces. As part of the Project Information Literacy (PIL) Practitioner Series, qualitative data is presented from 49 interviews conducted with a sample of academic librarians, architects, and library consultants.…

Libraries have become increasingly interested in studying the use of spaces within their buildings. Traditional methods for tracking library building use, such as gate counts, provide little information on what patrons do once they are in the library; therefore, new methods for studying space usage are being developed. Particularly promising are…

The King Library in San José, California, is a unique combination of academic and public library. It serves the diverse populations of the City of San José and San José State University (SJSU). This article provides analysis of data collected in a study on the concept of "library as place" and SJSU students' sense of belonging toward the…

Libraries and library faculty play a significant role in supporting college curriculum and helping students succeed academically. In particular, libraries are the primary location both physically and remotely for supporting faculty and students in their research and information needs. Over the years, this role of libraries and library faculty has…

"Research Library Issues" ("RLI") is a bimonthly report from ARL (Association of Research Libraries), CNI (Coalition of Networked Information), and SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition). This issue includes the following articles: (1) ARL Encourages Members to Refrain from Signing Nondisclosure or…

When Bruce Miller took up the position of head librarian at the University of California, Merced in 2001, the plan for the new library was to use the University of California (UC) system's rich base of support as a launching pad for something great and extraordinary: a model academic research library for the twenty-first century. This article…

"ARL" is the bimonthly report on research library issues and actions from ARL (Association of Research Libraries), CNI (Coalition of Networked Information), and SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition). "ARL" reports on current issues of interest to academic and research library administrators, staff, and…

This article reports on a library renovation at California State Polytechnic University at Pomona which incurs complaints from professors and librarians about a shift from print to online materials. The $60-million project at Cal Poly is providing a difficult lesson in the challenges of library renovation, and in the changing role of one of the…

Building joint-use libraries to foster new types of learning and collaboration is a growing phenomenon that is of great interest to academic library planners around the world. Noteworthy among these efforts, the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library in San Jose, California, is a collaboration of a metropolitan university library and a major public…