From Stacks to Collaborative Learning Commons: Transforming Traditional Library Space with a Planned Infusion of Digital Technology

Setting The Stage

Numerous factors began to change the physical and philosophical landscape for libraries in the 1990s and 2000s. Academic libraries began to move away from being print warehouses and towards the idea of being common space for socialization, collaboration, and active learning (Ludwig, 2010). Similarly, changes in health education, institutional administrations, and the bibliographic world combined to create a “perfect storm” of forces which found their voice at UNTHSC and Lewis Library in 2009 and 2010. Library and IT staff along with UNTHSC administration responded to these forces with a bold plan to reshape library space and give the school a facility that would serve students and researchers well into the future.

The advent of electronic journals in the mid to late 1990s was a watershed event for all academic libraries and especially for health science ones. The extension of scholarly resource access beyond the building’s walls was embraced by health science libraries eager to serve their research and clinical patrons in the user’s location of choice. Much like other libraries, Lewis Library began to supplement its print journal subscriptions with electronic versions whenever possible. This practice was soon supplemented by the cancellation of print titles to save both money and space. From its high point of nearly 2000 print journal subscriptions, Lewis Library’s print subscriptions had been reduced to approximately 50 by 2009.

As print journal subscriptions were cancelled and access to electronic journals was greatly expanded, use of the remaining print journals dwindled as the volumes became older and less relevant to biomedical researchers and clinicians. Information currency is of vital importance to health researchers and clinicians. In what became something of a self-fulfilling prophecy, the use of Lewis Library’s remaining print journal collection dwindled to virtually nothing as the collection’s intellectual content aged.