Library Reflections
Nearing the end of my program and I must confess that I have not ventured out to many libraries except the one most relevant to my studies, the Cubberly Library and the bigger ones like the Green Library and Meyer Library. I took this opportunity to check out the Swain Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Library since Chemistry is my first love and the subject I have been teaching before I came.
I went on a Tuesday afternoon. This is a small library located at the ground level of the Organic Chemistry Building. As I enter, I was greeted by the familiar Periodic Table, found at the end of the long walkway. This walkway separates the study area and the rows of shelves laden with Chemistry books. The collection of Chemistry books and journals is impressive, ranging from general to very specific areas of Chemistry, with a large proportion of the latter.
As I looked around, I found that not many students were studying there. The study area consists of rows of long and wide wooden tables. The feeling I get is an austere sense of scholarship – people are here to do serious exploration of knowledge with established authorities and engage in deep knowledge generating thoughts which result from the interaction of the individual with the newly uncovered information. It was very quiet there, so much so that I imagined flipping a page would disrupt the trains of thoughts of the few there. Hence the study environment does not seem to me to be supportive of collaborative work or any verbal intellectual exchanges between any students.
There is a relatively big area towards the rear of the library, slightly bigger than the size of our room 127, which has no tables and the shelves are empty. This space looks under-utilized and I wondered if there are plans for its usage. As I was walking out of the library, it caught my eye at the entry/exit walkway that there were newspaper articles on science related topics as well as rows of pockets with flyers. I fingered through the flyers and found 2 interesting ones:
(i) Flyer #1: Top 10 Library Reasons why you should come to Stanford:
- the first reason given was 24-hour access to the Swain Library
I reflected upon the readings we are doing for this week: The widespread use of internet resources has bred a generation who needs almost instant answers to information search. Yes, the 24 hour access to the library may be part of the solution to remove time-bound constraints but moving forward, libraries really need to consider how they can operate in the virtual world to transcend space boundaries as well.
(ii) Flyer #2: Need Materials from UC Berkeley? From UT Austin?
- I was pleasantly surprised to see the friendly collaboration between these colleges to support students who need to access collections available in another college but not found within their campuses. I was also happy to note the convenience of delivery of photocopies electronically; books however, will be delivered to the Green Library loan desk for pickup. I feel this is the direction to take for libraries and moving forward, I wonder if I will see a day when all major libraries are networked and all publications are available electronically so we can browse, request and borrow books online…. This does not negate the existence of physical libraries for one, we still need an organization to procure, maintain and make accessible the collections and two, there are still people who want to read from a book, rather than off the computer and three, there are still people who will enjoy immersing themselves in the austere scholarly environment to engage in intellectually stimulating work.
Dan Gilbert Nice thoughts Sun Sun, I have never been to that library and am now interested in going over there for a look. I like your point about the collaboration amongst libraries and that it is refreshing to see that kind of working together when so much else about the culutre here is individual and competititve. I wonder how this space feels to people who don't have a science background and to what degree - if any - the department is interesting in inviting those without science backgrounds into ther space? Nice work, thanks for sharing.