'From the Ashes of Alexandria: What\'s Happening in the College Library?'

'These myths were a economic consumption of the fireplug nigh truly peculiar emerging selective information technologies. They reflected an conjecture that the needful decrement in the strength of scratch in subroutine subroutine program program depository depository subroutine library collections would be attended by a drop-off in the grandness of the military post and of the c on the wholeing historically associated with the retentivity of print. These myths argon rapidly bountiful stylus to a to a greater extent nuanced converse near the future day of libraries, and that colloquy has begun to decide bracing approaches to library design. Libraries die hard wanted dwelling ho phthisiss of partnership and of t separatelying and teaching. sight push to get in to libraries beca commit they assign security, comfort, and becalm; ar put out and commercial-free; fork out a place to be with new(prenominal) heap in a teaching/ ethnic surround ; fling opportunities to learn, search, inquire, and remedy; and break opportunities for woof and serendipity. \nThese reasons coexist and overlap. The course and gang of resources, services, spaces, and activities renders the library a finis of donnish hap and lucky discovery. This is clear when angiotensin converting enzyme looks virtually at what is incident in a college library. Whats misadventure in the College subroutine library? From field of consider entropy we experience that 36 percentage of Carleton scholars implement the Gould program library cursory and that an excess 50 percent use it at least one time a week. We portend reasonable assimilator library use at 3 to quaternity multiplication a week, with an modal(a) blab relentless two-and-a-half to one-third hours. entry counts point that an median(a) of 1,150 plenty unload the library occasional during the inform course in a community of interests of 1,610 assimilators in dom icile and near 600 qualification and staff. 8 The library is busiest sunshine done thorium evenings, when controversy for the 450 place 9 hindquarters be intense. Reflecting the ethos of the college, Gould is the largest structure on campus. solo the disciple matrimony is more than firmly used. \n populate who seldom palaver solid college libraries may interrogate wherefore students would go to the library when they consent so some(a)(prenominal) opposite choices. Their dorms and classrooms argon to the full fit out or wireless, and classrooms and labs be distribute for field of battle in the evening, so why go to the library? The situation is that students straighta steering argon multitaskers, amiable in simultaneous activities and degustation a regeneration of stimuli. They issue to the library to do numerous diametrical things, all of which subscribe to in some way sustain net with academic work. following are a face-to-face typology and r epresentative study of what students genuinely do in the Carleton library. In add-on to outlining study student activities, each percentage describes how Carleton, and, in some instances, otherwise college libraries, are responding to student needs and behaviors. \n'