1.4 Learning Environments

Candidates create both physical and virtual learner-centered environments that are engaging and equitable. The learning environments encourage positive social interaction and the curation and creation of knowledge.

Over the summer between my first and second year of graduate school, I took LLT 540: Management of Information and Technology Centers. The course was designed to examine responsibilities associated with the administration and design of libraries. In a discussion post of the course, I read up on the design of a library facility and found an article titled "Space to Think: Co-Designing a Library Environment for Student Ideation". 

In researching how libraries are designed and what can be done to make them unique as well as accommodating, I was immediately drawn to the article that speaks to an IDEA (Innovation, Design, Education, and Aspire) space. I had heard about Makerspaces in libraries before due to some of my local public libraries starting to work on creating their own versions of them. I believe they are such a boon to a library in order to help foster creativity in as many forms as possible with materials that the library can provide. An IDEA center is an even greater boon to a library because it focuses on the idea of the creative process and recognizes itself as a thinking and meeting place. As someone who loves the library for the reason of discovery and creativity, this design truly resonates with me. 

When completing this discussion post, the ideas of library design that most stood out to me were flexibility, availability, and adaptability. All of these are important because libraries as well as the materials they contain are going to continue to evolve as time goes on. Making a library as a space as interchangeable as possible can speak to just how easily a librarian can adapt to how their community and the world around them changes. As a librarian, the most important part of my future job is going to be serving my community and in order to do so, I should design the space in order to easily be changed around when need be. 

While the materials and outline of a library may change, the idea of the creative process will not. As a librarian who wants everyone who steps into the library to see themselves in books, I also want everyone to feel welcome in sharing their ideas and projects they wish to embark on. Everyone's learning process is different as well as their creative processes, and as a librarian, I want the organization of my library to appreciate and nurture these processes, encouraging those who use the materials I provide to fall into their own ideas with reckless abandon.