Alone with others: Understanding physical environmental needs of students within an academic library setting

Abstract

<p>The rapid development of information technology (IT) has changed the role of the academic library spaces on university campuses (Stewart, 2010). Students are less inclined to wind their way through the stacks of books and bound periodicals to retrieve books and articles since they can easily access information anywhere using ubiquitous Wi-Fi and mobile devices. Yet, the library has been inseparable from learning commons (Bennett, 2009), that is, the library remains an important place of learning, where students engage in a variety of study and social behaviors (Bennett, 2006; Bryant, Matthews, and Walton, 2009; Oliveira, 2016). In response to the evolving role of the library, these spaces have been substantially renovated during the last 15 years, adopting designs that better support current student and faculty needs (Stewart, 2015). Increasingly, libraries now provide environments that support social learning and knowledge creation, deemphasizing the storage of physical documents and other resources (Oliveira, 2016).</p>