Moving Toward the User-Centered Library: Learning Behaviors and Their Impact on Library Planning

Hege Library at Guilford College has been engaged in a set of planning activities funded by an LSTA grant from the State Library of North Carolina. Through these planning activities, the library hired a consultant to administer a learning behaviors survey to help align library services with the College’s upcoming Strategic Long Range Plan for 2011-2015. This presentation will discuss how the library administered a “Learning Behaviors Survey” for Guilford College with the goal of better understanding the existing learning geography of its campus and the place of the library in that geography. The Learning Behaviors Survey looked at 12 learning behaviors taken from the National Survey for Student Engagement (NSSE) and studied the cross-section of the types of learning behaviors that Guilford College students value and asked the question of where on campus are these learning behaviors taking place. By taking this approach, the library was able to take an initial planning process that was geared towards planning for space allocation and expand its scope to look at what types of learning environments users value most highly and if the library is providing that type of environment. I will discuss how the survey was administered, the results, and how data on user behavior can influence a variety of planning activities including space planning, information literacy, non-traditional library services such as ePortfolio support, library discovery tools, and strategic long-range planning. The objective of this session will be to generate discussion on what types of user data are being collected by libraries, how it is being used to affect shortand long-term planning for libraries, and what this means for both assessment and determining the value of library services. Audience participants will be asked to share their experiences in collecting user data and how it is currently being applied to short and long-term planning processes in their libraries. Attendees will benefit by discussing the changing nature of statistics and data on users and user behavior and its applicability in the current assessment and planning environment for libraries. Background Much has been written in library scholarly literature to support the notion of improved student engagement by creating collaborative learning environments in academic libraries. Libraries emerged as a notable “third place” with the groundbreaking work of Ray Oldenburg when he coined the term in 1989. The literature has continued to support the notion of the academic library as a significant place for student engagement and learning outside the classroom in the years that have followed, particularly in the recent anthropological study conducted by Nancy Fried Foster and Susan Gibbons. As Hege Library began to embark on space planning activities to address an aging 1980’s facility that is print-oriented, with little room for group study, it began to look beyond just wall measurements and the location of power outlets to further include analysis of student behavior as the literature above has highlighted. The hope was to move from a collections-centered library to a user-centered one. Approach Through an LSTA planning grant administered through the State of North Carolina, Hege Library was able to hire library consultant Scott Bennett to lead us through this process. Using Bennett’s Learning Behaviors Survey that he used in a research project in 2009, the library sought to identify the learning needs of its faculty and student population. Bennett also conducted on-campus interviews to delve further into user behavior and the identification of study and research needs. The survey conducted by Bennett asked about twelve specific learning behaviors that typically happen outside of the classroom. Ten of these learning behaviors were drawn from the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) and