PurposeTo acquire academic literacy students need library buildings that take account of “what the student does”, changing learning styles and preparation for employment in a digital world. Equally as academic staff develop innovative e‐learning activities, library spaces need to accommodate new learning opportunities. This paper aims to consider how the design of library buildings contributes to a complex and evolving range of academic literacies and emerging pedagogical frameworks. The paper also seeks to consider the contribution these literacies make to the experience of students reading for a degree in an increasingly digital environment.Design/methodology/approachThe paper draws on the experience at Bournemouth University, where a higher education academy‐funded project accelerated the introduction of new technologies into learning and teaching frameworks. A new library building, The Sir Michael Cobham Library, enabled the creation of learning spaces that are flexible and responsive to the changing needs of users.FindingsInnovative spaces and evolving pedagogies demand different levels of academic literacy to enable students to succeed in physical and digital environments.Originality/valueThis reflective review adds new dimensions to the body of knowledge underpinning both the study of learning spaces and academic literacy.
Designs for change and the drivers of change This chapter explores macro influences on change and the key drivers of that change. There are also many micro influences, more pragmatic in many ways: the impact of eye line on the ability of a class to collaborate; the design contrast between individual task orientated learning and more open ended collaborative learning (for example furniture layout in assessment scenarios); the impact of the timetable on what is achievable (work with cBBC confirmed that that producing good quality, media rich work with children typically requires whole day-long blocks of time); the impact of repellant toilets on fluid consumption and thus on consequent concentration levels; the inflexibility of laboratory furniture (for example the inability to harness drama based activity to reinforce science concepts) and more. These micro influences are embedded elsewhere in the report, below. This chapter primarily explores the vectors of change, but a meta level reflection here should be that the velocity of change is significantly accelerating. This pace of change, above all else, provides the primary driver, and need, for change in the design of learning spaces. Social drivers Just as mobility changes diminished the power of the extended family, so information and communication changes are regenerating distributed social relationships in companies, families and in learning. Current educational political trends as documented by DfES 1 and NCSL 2 are towards "networked
The influx of Digital Natives into higher education, combined with the introduction of virtual learning environments as the primary means of interaction between students and universities, will have a transformational effect on learning and on library services. This article examines the e-book marketplace and the main UK responses to it (the Southern Universities Purchasing Consortium's tender and the JISC e-books observatory project). Within this context, the innovative measures already taken by Bournemouth University are discussed, as are plans to develop innovative pedagogic frameworks and an e-reading strategy through a Higher Education Academy-funded pathfinder project: Innovative E-Learning with E-Resources (eRes).
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