Office Hours: Room to Grow

My new column is up at Library Journal:

http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2015/04/opinion/michael-stephens/room-to-grow-office-hours/

A few years ago at the American Library Association’s (ALA) annual conference in Anaheim, CA, I had dinner with librarians from three large universities. The conversation turned to something they had in common: they were all moving print book collections at their respective institutions off-site to make room for student spaces. Back then, this was a big deal, and these administrators met with opposition and angst from their constituents.

I still hear rumblings in the academy that these changes to what might be perceived as traditional libraries are sometimes met with dissent and discord. Library spaces morphing into “collaboratories” filled with creation tools and collections existing off-site or in the cloud can be disruptive forces, likened to chaos. Yet this trend isn’t reversing any time soon; recent research supports a much different landscape in 2015: academic library spaces are learner-centered and evolving just like our skillets, tools, and ­mind-sets.

Click the link to read the whole piece.