The Gown Student Newspaper at Queen's University Belfast

COMMENT: The library of the future?

We no longer have to apologetically wave our student cards in the direction of the staff member at the front desk.  Thanks to modern technology we can wave them over a scanner, then wait ages for it to respond.  Revolutionary times.  When we’re old and wizened we can say, “I was there”.

BY MATTHEW OKOT

There is a logistical advantage to creating one super-library, with all the stock in the same place.  It saves having to wander around from library to library, in pursuit of the elusive book which is never where the catalogue says it is.  Now we can wander around a single library, in a similarly futile fashion.

Yet for a place that is the core facility for study, there is something disconcerting about the new library.  I am not keen on the row of tables positioned across the aisles, which is very awkward both for the person trying to study and person trying to get by.  I, for one, would never be able to concentrate in a place like that.

This brings me to another point.  The library is too open.  It lacks the intimacy and privacy of the old tower.  All those big windows may make the library seem futuristic but they only serve to exacerbate the regular distractions you get in the library.  And I haven’t even mentioned those ludicrously small doors on the toilet cubicles.

In fact, the library reminds me of another building that people do their best to avoid: A hospital.  It is cold, clinical and soulless, completely devoid of character.  Why is it that ‘progress’ and ‘modernisation’ in our buildings, leads to the creation of bland, identikit constructs?

One thing that does work well is the self-service system.  I am surprised that it can read barcodes from books that our decades old.  But if we continue down the path of modernisation, one wonders how long it will be until library staff themselves will become obsolete.

Tags: Gown, Matthew Okot, New library, newspaper, qub, Queen's, queen's university, student, The Gown

This entry was posted on Monday, November 16th, 2009 at 9:19 pm and is filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.