thelibrarybook

the library bookA guide to creating The People’s University through environmental psychology

contents

The People’s University

A Guide to This Book

Environmental Psychology overview privacy defining personal space, invaders environment and behavior as a complex system

Libraries overview students in the library

The MCAD LibraryLibrary Staff QuestionnaireBibliography and Credits

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the people’s university

Public libraries were once thought of as “The People’s University.” A place where one could experience self-directed learning, with access to all the information one would need to become a well-rounded, knowledgeable citizen of the world. Over time, the use of the library has shifted from an education center to an entertainment center. Where once were tomes of tiny print are now glossy gossip rags. But is this so wrong? To those who feel that the library should be strictly educational, yes. But could instances of entertainment actually improve the quality of a person’s learning experience? As Albert Mehrabian states in Public Places and Private Spaces:

I propose a compromise. Let’s create an environment that is conducive to pleasant learning experiences. A center that combines many types of spaces, giving the student an opportunity to choose their level of social engagement, dependent on their own style of learning. For this we must consider some concepts of environmental psychology, which I will explore through excerpts from—and my own additions to—several texts.

“…concentrated reading leads to fatigue, which is a low arousal and unpleasant state. Since performance—ability to concentrate and recollect what is read—deteriorates with fatigue, it is important that libraries provide opportunities for periodic relief from demanding work. When a library provides opportunities for any of these alternatives, the users have the advantage of taking breaks without having to check out and can conve-niently maintain an optimum level of arousal and pleasure for the work they are doing.”

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a guide to this book

This book contains many excerpts from other books. In order to denote what informa-tion is coming from what text, please refer to the check-out card in the back of this book. The card contains a corresponding number for each title. For quick referencing, use the check-out card as a bookmark!

Within the book, excerpts will be identified as follows:

I will also make my own additions to the excerpts in this book. When my own words are displayed, they will be shown in brown, as follows:

“…concentrated reading leads to fatigue, which is a low arousal and unpleasant state. Since performance—ability to concentrate and recollect what is read—deteriorates with fatigue, it is important that libraries provide opportunities for periodic relief from demanding work. When a library provides opportunities for any of these alternatives, the users have the advantage of taking breaks without having to check out and can conve-niently maintain an optimum level of arousal and pleasure for the work they are doing.”

“…concentrated reading leads to fatigue, which is a low arousal and unpleasant state. Since performance—ability to concentrate and recollect what is read—deteriorates with fatigue, it is important that libraries provide opportunities for periodic relief from demanding work. When a library provides opportunities for any of these alternatives, the users have the advantage of taking breaks without having to check out and can conve-niently maintain an optimum level of arousal and pleasure for the work they are doing.”

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environmental psychology

OVERVIEWConsider your living room as an environment. What are some of the elements or variables that determine what kind of room it is? There is furniture of varying styles, colors, and degrees of comfort; all of it can be arranged in many formal or informal ways. There is the color scheme, which can range from dim to very bright and highly saturated. There might be many plants, a profusion of mirrors and paintings, or none at all. There may be a piano, a stereo, or a TV, and any of these could be in use or not. The temperature of this room could be anything from freezing to broiling. The windows might be open, in which case there mayor may not he sunlight, a breeze, odors, or traffic noise entering the room. The main view might be the Pacific Ocean, an airshaft, a garden, or a freeway. There might be no one in this room, a few people quietly conversing, or a large party going on.

How can we describe such a room? One way to do it would be to make an -im-mensely long and detailed catalogue of every single item in the room and its spatial relationship to every other item, and then add variables like brightness, humidity, noise level, temperature, odor, and so on. Assuming that this list could be an exhaustive one~ it could only be accurate for a given moment in time. The room could be rear-ranged, tidied up, or a new chair added, and its whole complexion would change. Add a few people, turn on or turn off a few lights, and- the catalogue would have to be revised. If one were to try to describe many places in this way, the cataloguing would amount to a labor worthy of Hercules and Sisyphus combined.

But describing this living room, with its immense number of changing features and stimuli, is precisely the sort of task environmental psychologists undertake. And the fact that they can do it-if need be in one word-means that environmental psycholo-gists are doing something that no other kind of psychologist does, namely, to describe environments as wholes.

This is what distinguishes environmental psychology from the other branches of psychology, The various psychological disciplines allow one to predict what effect a single variable or cluster of like variables will have on a particular kind of behavior-fantasy, memory, learning, complex problem-solving, or socializing. These disciplines do not however try to predict the collective effect of all the stimuli in a room upon different people’s feelings and behavior. More importantly, they are not equipped to

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compare a living room with a vest-pocket park and a classroom as whole environ-ments; and they don’t predict which people will find these different environments most suitable for studying French, reading a science fiction novel, or taking a nap.

Aside from the necessity for a taxonomy of places, environmental psychologists require a corresponding taxonomy of people. The same environment affects differ-ent people in different ways. Some of the reasons for this are the differences in the physiological makeup of individuals; in attitudes toward, and past experiences with, various places; in familiarity and sophistication in dealing with places; and in the ways people cognitively process the information they receive from their surroundings. This is how a very posh restaurant may intimidate some people, be relaxing to others, or even cause boorishness in a few. Clearly, environmental psychologists have been challenged to develop a succinct, comprehensive method to describe differences in individuals’ reactions to places, and our approach will include some of the highlights of these differences.

With their tools, environmental psychologists can tell you, for example, whether people who gather to socialize in a given living room will tend to be subdued, stiff, noncommital, or anxious to leave, or whether they will tend to be outgoing, friendly, relaxed, or eager to remain and have a good time. They can make fairly accurate predictions not only about the group as a whole but also about the individuals who comprise it. They can predict whether a particular person, depending on the kind of day he’s had, will become either extremely nervous or bored in this room, or will try to make the room a more suitable environment by smoking heavily, drinking too much, moving around a lot, walking to a less crowded part of the room, starting an argument, or suggesting a game of strip poker.

Environmental psychologists can make such evaluations and predictions because they’ve developed a system for doing 50 based on massive amounts of data. This system, like a good blackjack system, is built not only upon a huge number of observations but also upon a few simple do-or-don’t rules, a handful of crucial as-sumptions, and a few handy or inspired generalizations.

One of the main generalizations is this: people’s reactions to all environments fall into one of two main categories, approach or avoidance. These categories are broad, of course, and include many different kinds of behavior. An extreme example of ap-proach might be the case of a man, who has accidentally broken his leg in a hiking expedition, trying to make his way back to the nearest town. He is physically moving toward the town and has in fact summoned up his last reserves of strength to do 50. An example of extreme avoidance would be the infantryman fleeing the noise,

confusion, and terror of combat. He is physically moving away from an intolerable environment and only the application of overwhelming force could prevent him from doing so.

But approach and avoidance mean more than just physically moving toward or away from an environment. These terms are also used to characterize behavior in environ-ments from which a person cannot physically remove himself. If, for example, you place a person all by himself in an unfamiliar environment, he mayor may not explore it-look around eagerly, stroll about, pick up objects and examine them, and in general try to become intimate with the place. Exploration is a form of approach behavior, and the degree to which a person or laboratory animal explores a new environment can be measured quantitatively. Lack of exploration-as when a person walks into a waiting room in an office building, hospital, or bus station and immediately takes a seat and stares up at the wall, pulls ·out a book from his briefcase, or goes to sleep-is a form of avoidance behavior, even though the person may have chosen to enter the environment and to remain in it.

Another measure of the degree to which one approaches or avoids an environment is affiliation, or one’s reaction to other people in the environment. Approach behavior or positive affiliation means that a person attempts to enter into communication with others by establishing eye contact, smiling, nodding, greeting, helping someone with a package, or starting a conversation. Avoidance behavior or negative affiliation is just the opposite: others are ignored, eye contact is avoided, physical distance from people is increased, the body is turned away from them, and conversational attempts are rebuffed.

Performance, or how well one does a particular task, is also a measure of approach or avoidance. Let’s say you have someone do one of those jobs experimental psy-chologists make up: judging the duration of a sound signal, fitting blocks together, solving abstract puzzles, or remembering a list of nonsense syllables. Suppose his score is average. If you then ask him to do a similar task but change the environment so that he scores way above average, this means you have managed to give that environment an improved approach aspect, at least in relation to the task. Conversely, if you change the environment so that he scores considerably below average, then you have given the environment an avoidance aspect that expresses itself as dete-riorated performance.

What is an optimum environment for the performance of one task or activity may of course be all wrong for another. A family room with the TV going and the kids playing electronic football may be a suitable environment for rug hooking or scanning the

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evening paper, but not for doing your income tax. If you try to do your income tax there, the room will take on a pronounced avoidance aspect, even though it might normally be one in which you take great pleasure. In order to reduce avoidance behavior-making errors in your return or taking twice as long to do it-you’d probably have to change the family room environment by reducing the number and intensity of the stimuli in it At the very least, the TV would get shut off, the electronic football match would get a change of venue, and sooner or later everybody else would be expelled.

A further generalization about approach or avoidance is that approach behavior, or an environment that causes approach, is usually a positive or desired sort of thing, having to do with movement toward, exploration, friendliness, improved performance, and voiced preference or liking. Conversely, avoidance behavior or an avoidance-causing environment is generally negative, having to do with movement away from, withdrawal, interpersonal coldness, defective performance, and voiced dislike.

There are times of course when we want to produce avoidance behavior and deliberately use an environment in such a way as to make someone uneasy or uncomfortable. We sometimes receive guests we don’t really want to entertain in a room that is “cold,” make them sit in the least comfortable chairs, or get rid of a houseguest who abhors untidiness by letting the house get messy. But most of the time people create avoidance-causing environments through inadvertence and ignorance: the employer who wants to improve productivity and therefore puts his foot down about the coffee machine, throws the office into an uproar, and costs himself a hundred manhours; the host who wants to give a good party but finds that half his guests leave after an’ hour; the teacher who wants her students to “get it” but finds that class performance gets worse as the year progresses; the husband or wife who, after looking forward all day to an enjoyable evening, arrives home to bitchiness or weariness. It is fair to say that most people most of the time want to create environments that cause approach behavior but just don’t always know how to go about it.

What are some of the factors that lead people to commit themselves inadvertently to the wrong environments? Since we have been lacking an explicit and commonly shared discipline of environmental psychology, people rely on accepted and tradi-tional standards for the designs of their homes, schools, offices, factories, or places of recreation. For example, many living rooms are still furnished much like front parlors or formal sitting rooms, even though few people observe or want the formal “calling” behavior this design elicits. Such traditional standards may have been suited to the times when they were devised, but may be inappropriate for current life styles and

changing activity patterns. That is, some of the environmental design failures are due to inappropriate adherence to outmoded standards. But, numerous new settings are created every day by architects and interior designers-professionals who can transcend the constraints of accepted tradition. Why don’t such innovations suc-ceed as often as we would like them to? One reason is that the professionals who are even today engaged in the design’ of our working, living, and recreational spaces operate artistically and intuitively, for the most part, rather than through reliance on wen-established psychological realities. An architect may intuitively yet erroneously select a house design which feels just right to him, but which may hardly be appropri-ate for his client who has a different personality or life style. It is not surprising that most of the approaches to design which have achieved fame and influence follow the one-basic-design-for-all formula. Even though such design principles may be suited for some people’s personality dispositions or life styles, as we shall see, they can hardly be suited to all.

The many failures in environmental design-whether created by the professional ar-chitect or designer or in most cases intuitively selected by the individual himself-can he attributed to simplistic and all-encompassing notions and traditions which fail to draw upon psychological facts to fit persons, their personalities, and their many diverse daily activities, to places. Once a person has inadvertently committed himself to a partially effective living or working space, economic considerations make drastic change difficult. What’s more, lacking concrete knowledge of improvements which could result from a more appropriate environment, the individual is hesitant to risk ad-ditional expense and effort for elusive gains. And this is why, as in many other realms of life, people continue to live with what is only partially satisfactory, discouraged by the cost, effort, and the risks of drastic experimentation with change.

How, then, can one approach the problem of systematic and efficient design or selection of daily environments? You’ll recall I said that the system environmental psychologists have developed contains a number of crucial assumptions. The suc-cessful blackjack player, for example, assumes that everybody is operating under the same rules or statistics as himself-he assumes that the house won’t cheat. En-vironmental psychologists make several far-reaching assumptions too.

Perhaps the most controversial of these assumptions has to do with the wellsprings of human behavior. Put bluntly, it is assumed that people’s feelings or emotions are what ultimately determine what they do and how they do it. It is also assumed that environments can cause in us feelings of anger, fear, boredom, pleasure, or whatever, and do so regardless of how we think we should feel in such environments; and furthermore, that these feelings will cause us to behave in certain ways, regardless

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of how we think we should behave. This is not to say that we cannot exercise fairly substantial control over our public behavior. We can, for example, refrain from overt aggression if we are angered. But we cannot usually will our anger to go away, and we cannot entirely mask the countless physiological and behavioral symptoms of anger-everything from increased blood pressure to the tiny verbal and nonverbal sig-nals which invariably accompany a state of anger. Even if one’s anger is successfully masked from the untrained or unobservant, there are still gross behavioral differences lurking in the wings. A person who is masking his anger or even denying to himself that he is angry will not behave in ways that are consistent with feelings of pleasure and relaxation. He will not joke and smile, or touch us in an affectionate way.

The second big assumption is that feelings are not mysterious and fuzzy things that must by their very nature elude precise description and quantification. In some cul-tures, emotions have been considered things that women primarily know about, like preserving raspberries. As a consequence, emotions have sometimes been contrast-ed with the more “masculine” cognitive abilities or structures like logic, philosophy, analytical methods, mathematical languages, or science. As a result, people have sometimes believed or asserted that feelings are somehow not a fit or manageable subject for scientific examination. But anything that can be manipulated in a fine-tuned way can be described and measured in’ the same way. If emotions could not be manipulated with some exactitude, our human culture would be entirely devoid of song, poetry, comedy, tragedy, or dance, to say nothing of successful politicians, million-dollar-club salesmen, or great utterances and deeds of profoundly emotional nature-from Leonidas at Thermopylae to the Churchill war speeches to the last Medal-of-Honor performance in Vietnam.

For the moment, then, let me just put the following assumption up front where it can be seen: human emotions are amenable to precise description, quantitative mea-surement, and statistical analysis. Environmental psychologists working under this assumption have provided a sound descriptive framework for emotions, a framework which will be discussed in some detail in chapter three. This descriptive framework forms one of the crucial elements of the system that has been developed in order to evaluate whole environments and people’s reactions to them. “

The general framework is organized something like this. A particular environment causes certain emotional reactions in a person. These reactions in turn cause the person to approach or avoid the environment to a greater or lesser degree. By ap-proaching or avoiding the environment in whatever degree, the person introduces some sort of change in it.

I will not stress at this point the effect that people do and can have upon their en-vironments, because most of this book will be devoted to that subject. But I don’t want to leave the impression that the system I’m beginning to sketch presupposes a passive or purely reactive role for human beings. Environmental psychologists work with the converse assumption. Human beings have a gift amounting to genius for deliberately altering their environments, and to deny or minimize this gift is to be ignorant. But this human genius can be more or less informed, more or less disci-plined, more or less effective in achieving its goals. And this is what environmental psychology is all about: giving people informed, disciplined, and effective means of coping with what surrounds them.

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PRIVACYPreviously, privacy was viewed as an excluding process—as “being alone” or “get-ting away” from others. Practitioners often translate the traditional “keep-out” idea of privacy into the design of solitude areas in homes and other places. From the perspective of this book, privacy is better approached as a changing self/other boundary-regulation process in which a person or a group sometimes wants to be separated from others and sometimes wants to be in contact with others. Thus I have portrayed privacy as a dialectic process, in which forces to be with others and forces to be away from others are both present, with one force dominating at one time and the other being stronger at another time. As a corollary, being alone too often or for too long a period of time (isolation) and being with others too much for too long (crowding) are both undesirable states.

To translate this viewpoint into practical environmental designs is not easy. However, a general principle is that we should attempt to design responsive environments, which permit easy alternation between a state of separateness and a state of to-getherness. If privacy has a shifting dialectic quality, then, ideally, we should offer people environments that can be responsive to their shifting desires for contact or absence of contact with others. Environments that emphasize only either very little interaction or a great deal of interaction are, to my way of thinking, too static and will not be responsive to changing privacy needs. Thus, environmental designers should try to create environments that permit different degrees of control over contact with others. Such a philosophy is already used to some extent. For example, the door is a simple example of an environment-design feature that is responsive and that permits regulation of social interaction. Opening it signifies a desire for social interaction, and closing it represents an impermeable self/other boundary. On the other hand, much environmental design does not have the flexible capability to meet changing privacy needs.

The “family room” in suburban American homes seems to be primarily a place for social interaction. It is hard to imagine someone using a family room as a place to be alone. In the American home, the den, the bedroom, and the bathroom are typically places to be alone and away from others. In fact, some people use the bathroom to read or think, since it is one of the few places in the home where people can be sure of maximum privacy. We seem to have single-minded functions—low or high interaction but not both. To achieve different privacy states requires, therefore, that we literally “go” to a different place. Why not think about having the same place serve different functions and have it change with our needs, rather than our changing needs requiring us to shift our location? This approach is used in certain other cultures—for example, by the Japanese. The interiors of their homes are flexible environments in

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which the same space is changed to reflect different social functions. In many Japa-nese homes, walls can be moved in or out of place; the same area may be used for eating, sleeping, and socializing at different times. The logic of our framework calls for more use of changeable environments so as to permit a greater responsiveness to changing needs for privacy.

Privacy has a variety of meanings in everyday speech, in the law and politics, and in behavioral science. These diverse meanings of privacy fall into two broad categories: withdrawal from other persons and control over personal information. Irwin Altman defines privacy as the selective control of access to the self or to one’s group. The principal research method for studying privacy has involved self-report survey and questionnaire measures concerned with people’s experience of privacy in a variety of real-world settings. A small number of investigators have also employed naturalistic observation and unobtrusive measures to study privacy.

An important psychological function of privacy is to regulate social interaction be-tween a person or group and the social world. For example, privacy regulates the disclosure of personal information and helps to maintain group order. Privacy also serves the important psychological function of helping the individual to establish a sense of personal identity. Privacy helps us to define our personal boundaries” to evaluate ourselves in comparison with other persons” and to develop a sense of personal autonomy.

Theoretical models of privacy have been based on the notion that privacy involves the control of information between people and groups. Altman proposes that privacy is a dialectical process, in which the oppositional qualities of being open or closed to social interaction shift over time as social circumstances change. Thus the dialecti-cal model views privacy as a two-way street, sometimes involving a separation from other persons and sometimes involving social contact. At the heart of the dialectical model is the notion that privacy involves the regulation of interpersonal boundaries, controlling both social inputs from other persons to the self and social outputs from the self to others. According to this model, people strive to attain an optima/level of privacy; either too little or too much is unsatisfactory. In order to optimize personal privacy, individuals employ multiple behavioral mechanisms, including verbal behavior, nonverbal use of the body, and environmental behaviors.

DEFINING PERSONAL SPACEPROXEMICSToday’s interest in the ways people use space in interpersonal relationships is based on the ground-breaking observations and speculation of Edward Hall an anthropolo-gist. In 1966 Hall published The Hidden Dimension, a book that summarized and extended his earlier work in this area (Hall, 1955, 1959, 1960, 1963a, 1963b). He coined the term proxemics to define the scientific study of space as a medium of interpersonal communication.

Hall’s observations were based on earlier work in the field of ethology, a branch of bi-ology that studies the adaptive behavior of animals. Heini Hediger (1950, 1955,1961), an animal psychologist in Switzerland, had identified a series of spatial zones sur-rounding each animal of a particular species that systematically regulate interactions with other animals of the same or other species. Two types of distance zones control interactions with members of other species. Flight distance is the point at which an animal will flee from the approach of another animal of a different species; criti-cal distance is the narrow zone between flight distance and the point at which the stalked animal will turn and attack the intruder. A captive lion, for example, will flee an approaching human until it reaches a barrier. If the person continues to approach and enters the lion’s critical distance, the lion will reverse direction and begin to stalk the person (Hall, 1966).

Two additional distance zones regulate interactions between animals of the same species. Personal distance is the space that is normally maintained between animals that have no intimate relationship to each other. Social distance is the point at which an animal begins to feel uneasy because it is out of touch with its own group. Thus personal distance is based on the notion of separation, social distance on the idea of containment. Hall suggests that although flight distance and critical distance have generally been eliminated from interaction between humans, personal and social distance still exert a regulatory influence on human interaction.

INTERACTION DISPLAYS IN HUMANSOne of Hall’s major contributions to the psychological study of -spatial behavior is his identification and description of four distance zones (each with a near and far phase) that regulate social interactions between human beings (Figure 9-1). Intimate distance is the zone from the point of physical contact to eighteen inches from ‘an individual, and is the area reserved for lovemaking, comforting, and physical contact sports, such as wrestling. Personal distance is the area from eighteen inches to four feet from a person, and is appropriate for interactions between very dose friends and personal conversations between acquaintances, (This concept is related to Hediger’s

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notion of personal distance in animals.) Social distance, which extends from four to twelve feet around the individual is used for business contacts, with more formal and distant business restricted to the far extreme. Finally, public distance is the zone from twelve to twenty-five feet or more beyond a person, and is reserved for very formal contacts, such as those between a public speaker or an actor and an audience.

Figure 9-1: People carefully regulate the spatial distance between themselves and other people.

PERSONAL SPACESpurred by Hall’s classic studies in proxemics, an extensive body of research and scholarship has developed in the area of what has come to be called “personal space.” Personal space is defined as the zone around an individual into which other persons may not trespass. It has been compared to a bubble surrounding the indi-vidual, creating an invisible boundary between the person and potential intruders. Unlike a real bubble, the bubble of personal space is highly variable, and will shrink or expand in accordance with individual differences, changing circumstances,and the nature of particular interpersonal relationships. While personal space has often been referred to as circular, some recent evidence (Hayduk, 1975) suggests that personal space may not be a perfect circle. And while the notion of a bubble emphasizes spa-tial distance between people, we shall discover that behaviors other than distancing, including eye contact and body orientation, are also employed to maintain personal space. It is important to recognize that personal space is a product of forces toward both approach and avoidance, and, as such, identifies an appropriate range for spe-cific types of interactions, rather than simply a defense against intrusion. As Robert Sommer has colorfully commented: “Like the porcupines in Schopenhauer’s fable, people like to be close enough to obtain warmth and comradeship but far enough away to avoid pricking one another” (1969:26).

The most current models of personal space view it as a complex pattern of related behaviors that are adjusted systemically to changing circumstances. This theoretical position emphasizes that personal space is maintained by a range of interrelated behaviors in addition to interpersonal distance, including eye contact, head posi-tion, and body orientation. In discussing invasions of personal space, we shall see that a person whose personal space is invaded responds with a complex variety of patterned behaviors.

These systems models of personal space (and of spatial behavior generally) have drawn on a broader theoretical framework in the human and physical sciences known as general systems theory (see Boulding, 1968; von Bertalanffy, 1968). Essential to systems models is the notion that social and biological systems (e.g., an industrial organization, the human body, a forest ecosystem) consist of a variety of interlocking variables that function 50 as to maintain an overall state of equilibrium in the system over time. For example, the various organs in the human body function together in a complex interplay of mutual influences to maintain a steady body temperature while external conditions of temperature and humidity may vary greatly.

PERSONAL SPACE, PRIVACY, AND TERRITORIALITYWe must distinguish personal space from two related though distinct concepts we examined in Chapter 5-privacy and territoriality. In distinguishing personal space from privacy, we must keep in mind that personal space always has a spatial referent-the distance between two people. Although, as we shall see, the physical distance between people may be less important in itself than the manner in which it regulates cues in interpersonal communication, the spatial referent is invariably part of the definition of personal space

Privacy, in contrast, refers more broadly to the control of access between the self and others, and involves multiple mechanisms, such as verbal messages and type of clothing, in addition to spatial cues. Yet there is an important link between personal space and privacy: personal space provides one mechanism that can be used to achieve a desired level of privacy (see Altman, 1975). For example, a person who wants to keep other people from claiming his or her attention while studying in a col-lege library (desires a high degree of privacy) might choose to sit at some distance from other persons in the area (to increase the personal space zone)

Personal space must also be distinguished from territoriality. Sommer (1969) notes that often the defense of personal space is 50 enmeshed with the defense of an immediate territory that the two processes may seem to be identical. We should remember, however, that personal space is an invisible boundary that moves with an

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individual as he or she changes location. Territory, in contrast, is a visible area that has a stationary location. For example, your personal space bubble moves with you as you go from your house or apartment (your territory) to the home or apartment of a friend (your friend’s territory)

SEXAn especially interesting finding involves differences in personal space that are as-sociated with sex. In fact, many of the other findings in this field tend to interact with sex, such as ethnic and developmental effects on personal space.

The personal space zone has been found to be greater for men than for women, even when the potential confounding influences of relative status and warmth have been controlled for (Wittig and Skolnick, 1978). Researchers who have observed interac-tions between two members of the same sex have consistently found that male-male pairs maintain greater interpersonal distance than female- female pairs (Aiello and jones, 1971; Pellegrini and Empey, 1970; Sommer, 1959). Mixed-sex pairs have been shown to maintain closer spatial proximity than same-sex pairs (Duke and Nowicki, 1972; Hartnett, Bailey, and Gibson, 1970; Jourard, 1966a; Kuethe, 1962a, 1962b). Observations of spatial positioning between close friends on a college campus in South Africa reveals that the close proximity of mixed-sex dyads was due primarily to the spatial behavior of the women, who tended to move closer to men they liked (Edwards, 1972).

Research that has examined the relationship of ethnic background and developmental stage to personal space has shown a complicated picture of interactions with the sex of the subjects being studied. Aiello and Jones (1971) observed the behavior of first- and second-graders in a schoolyard, and found that, while white boys showed larger personal space zones than white girls, no sex effects were observed for black and Puerto Rican children. In a later study, Jones and Aiello (1973) reported that interactions between school-aged children in free discussion showed that, while black girls stood closer together than white girls, no ethnic effect was found among boys. Using a simulation technique, Guardo and Meisels (1971b) found that girls’ figure placements showed relatively more stability than boys’ between the third and eighth grades, but there were few sex-related differences in placements by the time students reached the ninth and tenth grades.

MEASURING PERSONAL SPACEThe use of simulation to study personal space was originated by James Kuethe (1962a, 1962b, 1964). In Kuethe’s jigure-placement technique, a subject was given two or more felt cutouts of human figures and asked to place them on a felt field in any manner the subject wished. Kuethe discovered that his subjects did not place the felt figures randomly or haphazardly; they responded according to particular response set: that determined both which figures belonged together and the degree to which they belonged together. These social response sets help to structure ambiguous situations, and individuals from the same cultural background tend to share very similar response sets. For example, subjects placed figures of a woman and a child nearer together than figures of a man and a child; but a figure of a dog was placed nearer to a man than to a woman (Figure 9-3).

To measure personal space with the figure-placement technique, the researcher asks the subject to imagine that one figure already on the field is a particular person, such as the subject’s mother, father, or best friend. The subject is then asked to imagine that a second figure is him- or herself and to place that figure on the field in any position he or she chooses. The researcher assesses personal space by measuring the distance between the” self” and” other” figures on the field. Rae

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More recent evidence, however, has suggested that the correlation between simula-tion measures of personal space and actual personal space behavior may be lower than was previously assumed. After an extensive review of studies of personal space, Leslie Hayduk (1978), concludes that simulation measures do not provide a sufficiently strong index of the way people use personal space in real social settings. The chief problem is that simulation measures must rely on subjects’ cognitive abilities. For example, in order to use figures to represent real interpersonal behaviors, subjects must be able to imagine a particular social and physical setting, to view themselves in interaction from a third-person perspective, and to transform the scale of real social relationships to the scale of small figures. The influence of cognitive ability on measures of personal space is of particular concern in testing children, where the range in cognitive ability may be considerable.

Some support for Hayduk’s position comes from a recent study by Kathleen Love and John Aiello (1980). They asked pairs of female college students to have a discus-sion on a prearranged topic in an experimental setting. During their discussion, their interpersonal distance was unobtrusively recorded. The subjects were next presented with three traditional measures of personal space-two simulation measures (felt figure placements and doll placements) and the stop-distance procedure.Love and Aiello then explicitly asked subjects to place their figures or to stop the ap-proach so as to reproduce the interpersonal distance they had themselves maintained during the discussion. The investigators found that the two simulation measures and the stop-distance procedure correlated poorly with the actual interpersonal distances in the discussion. They concluded that because personal space behavior occurs outside of people’s awareness, it is difficult for them to duplicate actual in-terpersonal distances on simulation or stop-distance measures even when they are explicitly asked to do so.

On the basis of the accumulated research evidence concerning the external validity of simulation measures of personal space, we may conclude (1) that environmental psychologists interested in, studying personal space should use naturalistic ob-servation methods whenever possible; (2) that when naturalistic observation is not possible, the stop-distance procedure is preferable to simulation measures (Hayduk, 1978); and (3) that when simulation must be used (such as when a large sample of subjects is to be tested), the findings based on it should be accorded relatively less weight than findings based on naturalistic observation.

Carlson and M. A. Price (1966) used Kuethe’s (1962) original set of human and nonhuman figures (see Figure 9-3) in their investigation of developmental trends in the way people employ space in interpersonal relationships. Alternative methods for simulating personal space include paper-and-pencil measures, where subjects are asked to mark a piece of paper to show the distance between themselves and another person (Duke and Nowicki, 1972), positioning small dolls on a field (Little, 1965), and expressing preferences for photographs showing people interacting in varied positions (Haase, 1970),

As we noted earlier in regard to other environmental behaviors, it is essential to ascertain whether subjects’ responses to simulated conditions are similar to their behavior in real-world contexts; that is, the external validity of simulation techniques must be systematically explored, If simulation measures of personal space are to provide valid information, we need to be sure that there is a close correspondence between the way people place simulated human figures on a field and the way they use actual interpersonal space.

Kenneth Little (1965) examined this question by using both a simulation technique and real actresses on a stage. First he had subjects place simulated figures on a background field representing a variety of settings, such as a street corner, a lobby in a public building, and a location on a college campus. He then asked the subjects to play the role of a theater director, and to situate two real actresses on a stage representing the same environmental settings simulated earlier. The correspondence in interpersonal distance between the simulated figures and the actresses was re-markably close.

One shortcoming of Little’s study was that in the real-life situations, subjects situ-ated actresses rather than using interpersonal space themselves. Edward Gottheil and his associates (Gottheil, Corey, and Paredes, 1968) repeated Little’s study in a manner that permitted a direct comparison between figure-placement distance and interpersonal distance used by subjects in a real-life setting. First they arranged an interview situation in which subjects were asked to place simulated figures rep-resenting themselves and the interviewer on a field. Later they photographed the actual distance from the interviewer selected by the subjects during the interview. The correspondence in interpersonal distance between the simulated and real-life situations was again remarkably close. Holahan and Levinger (1971), using a similar interview situation, also found a close correspondence between figure-placement distance and real interpersonal distance in an actual setting.

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PSYCHOLOGICAL FUNCTIONS OF PERSONAL SPACESELF-PROTECTIONEnvironmental psychologists believe that an important function of personal space is self-protection. Personal space operates as a buffer against both physical and emotional threats from other persons. In fact, some researchers (Oosey and Mei-sels, 1969; Horowitz, Duff, and Stratton, 1964) have referred to personal space as a “body-buffer zone,” thereby explicitly recognizing the self-protective function of the personal space boundary. Researchers have observed that when people find themselves in a threatening situation, they automatically enlarge their personal space zone in self-defense. For example, people maintained greater interpersonal distances when they were told that their physical and sexual attractiveness was being evaluated (Oosey and Meisels, 1969), and when they were given negative feedback about their performance on a task (Karabenick and Meisels, 1972).

Consider for a moment how we might experimentally study the protective function of personal space. One procedure would be to intrude into another person’s personal space zone and systematically to observe that person’s reactions. In fact, the most widely used and most dramatic technique employed by environmental psycholo-gists to investigate the protective function of personal space has been just such an experimental invasion of another individual’s personal space. This invasion technique has been used with particular effectiveness by Robert Sommer and his associates (Sommer, 1969; Felipe and Sommer, 1966,1972).

In one study, Sommer invaded the personal space of psychiatric patients in a 1,500-bed mental hospital in Mendocino, California. As subjects he selected male patients who were sitting alone on benches and who were not engaged in any particular activ-ity. To invade the patient’s personal space, Sommer walked over and sat beside him, without saying a word. He situated himself just six inches from the patient, and if the patient moved slightly away, Sommer moved also to keep the distance between the patient and himself at six inches. In order systematically to assess patients’ reactions to the invasion of their personal space, Sommer selected a control group of patients who were also seated alone in the same general area, but whose space was not invaded. He reports that patients’ reactions to the invasion were dramatic. Within two minutes, one-third of the invaded patients had fled their seats, while not one control patient had moved away. After nine minutes, half of the invaded patients had been driven away, while only 8 percent of the controls had left their seats (Figure 9-4),

In a second study, Nancy Felipe invaded the personal space of female students who were seated alone, reading or studying, in the study hall of a college library. Again control subjects were selected among other female students who were also seated alone in the study hall. In the most dramatic invasion situation,

Felipe sat in the chair directly alongside the subject, and moved her chair as close as possible to the subject’s chair without causing physical contact. After thirty minutes, 70 percent of the invaded subjects had retreated from their positions, while only 13 percent of the controls had left their seats. In a less serious invasion situation, however, when another chair or a table was situated between the invader and the subject, subjects showed little reaction to the intruder.

We might ask whether there are additional ways individuals cope with an invasion of their personal space in addition to simply fleeing the area. In fact, Sommer reports that in both invasion studies, subjects attempted initially to cope behaviorally with the invasion before fleeing. These behavioral adjustments to invasion were quite complex, and tended to vary from individual to individual. Some subjects altered their orientations toward the intruder by facing away or by subtly adjusting the angles of their chairs. Some subjects also adjusted their posture in a defensive fashion, by pulling in their shoulders, moving their elbows to their sides, or placing their chins in their hands. Other subjects used books and other objects as barriers against the invader. If these defensive maneuvers were unsuccessful, the subject then resorted to flight. Miles Patterson and his colleagues (Patterson, Mullens, and Romano, 1971) reported a similar pattern of complex behavioral responses to spatial invasion in a library. When we discuss theories of personal space, we shall see that the complex behavioral adjustments people make to such invasions are a central aspect in sys-tems models of personal space.

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CHARACTERISTICS OF THE INVADERSome studies have examined how characteristics of the person who invades some-one else’s personal space affect the response to the invasion. Research evidence has indicated that the invader’s sex, age, and social status influence an individual’s reaction to an invasion of personal space. Male invaders cause more movement on the part of an invaded party than female intruders (Bleda and Bleda, 1976; Dabbs, 1971). Interestingly, research has shown that men are also more disturbed than Women by invasions of their personal space (Garfinkel, 1964; Patterson, Mullens, and Romano, 1971).

Anna Fry and Frank Willis (1971) have demonstrated that the age of the invader also helps to determine the victim’s response. They had children stand less than six inches behind adults on a theater line, and found that while 5-year-olds were given a posi-tive response, 8-year-olds tended to be ignored, and 10-year-olds were accorded the same negative reactions shown to intruding adults. Finally, David Barash (1973) found that the apparent status of the invader affected subjects’ reactions in a library. When a male intruder was formally dressed in a suit and appeared to be a faculty member, students fled more precipitously than they did when the same intruder was casually dressed and appeared to be a fellow student.

THE INVADER’S PERSPECTIVESo far we have examined the psychological effects of an invasion of personal space on the person whose space is invaded. We might also ask how the intruder is affected psychologically by the prospect of invading someone else’s personal space. After all, someone who intrudes into another person’s space is at the same time allowing an invasion of his or her Own personal space. Environmental psychologists who have addressed this question have consistently found that people report discomfort and generally negative feelings about intruding into other people’s personal space. For example, people tended to avoid drinking at a water fountain in a university building when another person (a confederate of the experimenters) was situated within five feet of the fountain (Baum, Reiss, and O’Hara, 1974). Interestingly, however, when the fountain was screened off (inserted into the wall rather than extending from the wall), people were more willing to stop and drink even when another person was nearby.Nancy Thalhofer (1980) speculated that an individual’s reluctance to drink from a wa-ter fountain when another person stands nearby might vary according to the overall number of persons in the area around the fountain. On the basis of an information overload model of crowding (see “Theoretical Perspectives on Crowding,” Chapter 7), she reasoned that if people pay less attention to social Cues in crowded conditions, they should feel less discomfort in violating another person’s personal space when social density is high than when it is low. To test this hypothesis, she conducted a

field experiment at a water fountain in the corridor of a university classroom building. The proportion of passers-by who drank from the fountain was observed under four experimental conditions: when the area around the fountain was typified by high and low social density, and (within each of these conditions) when an experimental confederate and when no one stood one foot from the fountain.

Table 9-1 shows the proportions of passers-by who drank from the water fountain under each of the four experimental conditions (300 subjects were observed under each condition). Consistent with Thalhofer’s predictions, the confederate’s personal space was violated more often when social density was high than when it was low. Thalhofer’s study is especially interesting because it examined two social processes in the environment Simultaneously the invasion of personal space and coping with crowding. The joint effects of two or more psychological processes offer interesting possibilities for future research.

Additional research has demonstrated that people are reluctant to invade the space of two people who are interacting together-an indication that social groups are per-ceived to have a personal space zone comparable to an individual’s. Research by James Cheyne and Michael Efran (Cheyne and Efran, 1972; Efran and Cheyne, 1973, 1974) demonstrated that individuals were reluctant to penetrate the personal space of two people who were conversing, but were relatively unconcerned about intruding when the pair was simply standing around. And when the two were more than four feet apart, intrusions increased. The sex of the pairs was also found to be important. Reluctance to intrude was greatest for mixed-sex pairs, intermediate for a pair of women, and least pronounced for male pairs. The behavior of the intrud-ers revealed their own discomfort at invading other people’s personal space. They tended to lower their heads, close their eyes, and mumble apologies as they passed through the interacting pair’s space.

Eric Knowles (1973) reports that the size of the invaded group also affects an indi-vidual’s inclination to intrude. He found that while people were generally disinclined to invade the personal space of a conversing group, the effect was more pronounced for a four-person group than for a two-person group. When we compare Knowles’s findings with Thalhofer’s, we should keep in mind that in Thalhofer’s experiment the passers-by did not invade the space of a social group, but of an individual in the vicinity of other persons. Also, while Knowles’s foursome was a coherent group of conversing persons, Thalhofer’s condition of high social density consisted of a more disparate collection of individuals. It appears that when social density involves a co-herent social group involved in conversation, the personal space of the group itself will be respected. Knowles also found that people were more reluctant to invade the

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space of a high-status group than of a low-status group, as reflected in the group’s age and manner of dress. A further study (Knowles, Kreuser, Haas, Hyde, and Schuchart, 1976) found that pedestrians walked farther away from a group of people than from a single individual.

INVADERS AT THE MCAD LIBRARYThere is a certain table at the MCAD library that I consider to be the best table. It is hidden amongst the shelves, right next to all the illustrated children’s books. I think it’s safe to say that this is one of the most sought-after tables in the library. The only problem is, that only one person ever works there at a time. They take up the whole table (on occasion with a buddy) and work away, that is, until an invader comes. Since it is the most sought-after table, people are always walking to the back of this room to see if it is claimed. The result is an awkward, usually non-verbal interaction between the invaded and the invader.

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ENVIRONMENT AND BEHAVIOR AS A COMPLEX SYSTEMVarious mechanisms for the regulation of privacy operate as a coherent system. These mechanisms include verbal behavior, paraverbal behavior, nonverbal behav-ior, personal space, and territorial behavior. These behaviors operate in different combinations, guided by needs and perceptions associated with desired levels of privacy. Thus we are dealing with a complex set of perceptual, motivational, and behavioral processes. I propose that environmental design deal with all these levels simultaneously, not one at a time. We should pose such questions as: To what extent is personal space a more dominant mechanism of privacy regulation by a particular person or family than other behaviors? Under what circumstances is territorial be-havior combined with nonverbal behaviors? When territorial mechanisms cannot be employed, what combination of other behaviors is used by members of this group?

There are no simple answers to these questions, but they are intended to reflect the idea that environment design can involve more than only the physical environment. It is possible that we can design environmental systems in which the environment and various types of behavior are meshed together as a unity. But the designers, in collaboration with researchers, must become specialists in many levels of behav-ior, not merely those directly associated with the environment. The designers must become tuned in to the behavioral mechanisms for regulating privacy. If they can understand the regulation of privacy, designers may create extremely flexible and responsive environments, because a whole new set of resources will become part of the environmental-design package.

How can the designers get information about behavioral mechanisms? The designers can integrate information from researchers and clients, much as they do now. But other types of information also need to be gathered. The type of query I speak of is more expansive than thy typical “user-need” and “user-want” questions that ask: What are they psychological needs of the user that should be satisfied by the envi-ronment? What do consumers want in the new environment? The direction I propose asks not only these questions but also additional ones. The designers need to deal with the behaviors that users employ in order to achieve desired levels of interaction. They should ask, for example, How are the territories used? What mechanisms and combinations of mechanisms are employed to regulate social interaction? These questions are behavioral and focus on the user as an active, coping organism that interacts with and employs the physical environment and other behaviors in various combinations. Thus these design questions imply the theme of creating responsive environments that users can interact with and that become extensions of their behav-ioral repertoires. To gain such information may require direct observations, however informal, of user activities, in addition to interviews and questionnaires. People often

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cannot report accurately what they do or how they behave. It may be necessary to spend time watching them function in their actual environments to understand the total profile of their privacy-regulation system.

If profiles of user needs, desires, and behavioral styles can be determined, the environmental designer can then capitalize on both environmental and behavioral capabilities in an integrated fashion. Thus if one is designing an environment for a group that places considerable value on primary territories, then the design should build this style into the environment. But if a group uses territories in a more casual and changeable fashion, then the environmental design should permit such shifts to occur. Or if a group relies heavily on verbal and paraverbal mechanisms to control interaction, then the design should facilitate the operation of this coping style and not be so concerned with physical territories. So two areas of investigation seem important in environmental design: (1) What is the combination of mechanisms used by the consumer to regulate social interaction? Which behaviors are predominant? Which are unimportant? What seems to be the most appropriate combination most often used? (2) How stable or changeable does the environment need to be in regard to use of these mechanisms? Does the environment need to be a continually fluid one, or can it be relatively fixed, given the group’s response profile?

In summary, I propose that environmental designers pay attention to behavioral styles of consumers, as well as to their perceptual-cognitive-motivational states. To focus on only one level of behavior misses the point that we are dealing with a complex system of needs, wants, and behavioral styles.

A dilemma arises, however, concerning this approach. Behavioral styles of an indi-vidual, a group, or a culture may have evolved because of the press and constraint of environments. For example, members of an inner-city, urban family may have developed other than territorial mechanisms simply because it is impossible to es-tablish territories in densely populated homes. How can persons who sleep several to a room or to a bed use these places as primary territories? Should the practitioner, using my proposed strategy, then conclude that new environments should not include primary territories because the people did not use them in the earlier environment? If the answer is reached that no primary territories should be incorporated into the new environment, then the user is locked into a situation in which old environmental constraints are re-created and in which there is no opportunity to change his or her life-style. The path out of this dilemma is not totally clear, but at least two steps may be necessary:

1. Maximize environmental capabilities. Although people may not employ all mecha-nisms to the same degree, it may be wise to allow for the possibility that more than the current repertoire can be used. Thus, even though primary territories may not be a central concern, designs might allow for the possibility of their development in a flexible fashion at some future time. In this way, if people have inclinations toward territorial usage, or if a norm gradually develops that involves use of territories, then the environment will be sufficiently adaptive to permit that to happen. And, if they don’t develop such mechanisms, then they at least are not locked into using them.Thus environments should not only be responsive, but they should also permit a degree of “evolutionary flexibility” and growth over time.

2. Train people to use environments. Sommer (1972) highlighted the idea that people often are overly passive and not willing to reshape environments, and they adapt too quickly to even the most undesirable places. For example, I have been in several con-ferences at which the arrangements of tables and chairs were simply not conducive to free discussion (they represented the janitor’s idea of how our meeting should be organized!). Yet people hardly ever protest such arrangements or ask for a redesign of the place. They are willing to stretch their necks to see one another, speak to people sitting behind them by twisting around, fidget in uncomfortable chairs, and so on. We are simply unwilling to act on our environments to make them fit what we desire. Because of this problem, Sommer called for environmental workshops to sensitize people to possibilities for acting on and shaping environments. He described one such workshop designed to make teachers more aware of their classroom environ-ments. Discussions were held about seating arrangements. Personal-space distances, and the effect of classroom configurations on student participation. Also, a series of awareness sessions was held in which teachers adopted the role of small children, sat in their chairs, and used the classroom environment much as children do to heighten their sensitivity to their environment from other than their own perspective.

In a different setting, Sommer held workshops with hospital staff members. Nurses and other personnel were placed in the role of patients as a way of giving them a different perspective on the hospital environment. In Sommer’s words:

As turn-on devices we used such prosthetic aids as crutches, wheelchairs, and gurneys. These produced some interesting perceptual experiences which were shared with the group at large. Distances seemed three times as long on crutches as they had previously. It took a very long time to go down the hallway in a wheelchair; when one person wheeled another, the speed of passage was very important. Wheeling a person at ordinary walk-ing speed seemed much too fast; the person in the chair felt as if he were a bowling

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But increasing environmental sensitivity is only a first step. One of our guiding themes is that people actively use and shape their environments, so that, ultimately, one goal of workshops should be to teach people how to use their environments more effectively. We might develop environmental user manuals. Just as we use instruction books with new electric toasters and washing machines. More analogous would be learning how to use a stereo system, for the rules and procedures are less fixed, and the sound quality must be adapted to room and acoustic configurations, user prefer-ences, specific mood states, nature and quality of the recording, and other factors. Many new stereo users simply do not appreciate the wide options available to help them create variety or the adjustments that are possible to fit changing personal moods, recording artists, and record quality. So it is with people and environments. Aside from stereotyped ideas we all have about the location of furniture, places for privacy, and kitchen layout, few people are really aware of possibilities for shaping our environments. Furthermore, only a few of us consciously see the complex interplay of environment with verbal, nonverbal, personal-space, and territorial behaviors. How many people are sensitive to the fact that various personal distances change pos-sibilities for nonverbal and other forms of communication, such as body beat, smell, and touch? How many people arrange their homes or offices in terms of personal-space concepts? How many families reshape their environmental life-style to match the different needs of growing children, or as they move from being middle aged to being elderly? Without selling down specific rules, I believe that environmental awareness and environmental-usage training might help people to better use, shape, and reshape their environments. There is another feature of the environment as a complex system that needs to be considered, beyond the notion of many levels of behavior fitting together. Willems (1973. 1974) stressed the theme that a change in one part of the environmental system can have serious and reverberating effects, often unpredictable, on other parts of the system. It is easy to point to dramatic examples in the physical sphere. The increased use of detergent soaps often ends up with soapsuds in water supplies, insecticides sometimes speed up evolutionary processes and produce resistant strains of insects, and horrendous problems of disposal and pollution are sometimes created by new forms of wastes. But aren’t such reverberations and ecological “stupidities” possible and even evident for social processes? Willems gave several examples of these social reverberations, one drawn

ball going down the alley. Tall men were particularly bothered by being looked down on as they sat in a wheelchair; this did not seem to bother short men, who apparently were used to being looked down on. Riding on the gurney, a long flat table with wheels, made a number of people nauseous; the ceiling became the visual environment and the overhead lights went flashing by bang bang bang in a very annoying manner [p. 44].

from Turnbull ( 1972), who studied the impact of governmental relocation of the Ik tribal group in Uganda, Africa. The Ik lived a simple, cooperative life, hunted for their food, resided in small tribal bands, and were a kind and good-natured people. For a number of reasons, including conservation of land and wildlife, the Ugandan govern-ment declared their land a national park and forced them to live at the edges of the park. They were prevented from returning to their homes and were encouraged by the government to become farmers. Over time, Ik social life disintegrated. Willems’ (1973) summary of Tumbull’s account is vivid:

Thus a seemingly simple relocation produced a change in one part of a complex system that reverberated throughout the group’s total social life and disrupted a once stable system.

In a sense, much of what has been proposed really deals with interpersonal commu-nication. The goals of the system for the regulation of privacy include management of interpersonal communication, regulation of self/other boundaries, and enhancement of people’s responsiveness to one another. The use of the physical environment is part of a complex interpersonal-communication system. Applying environmental design and training people to use their environments really deal with effective social com-munication; that is, the physical environment becomes part of a complex behavioral repertoire that people use to deal with one another.

The social and behavioral fabric of the lk society fell apart completely. Malicious competition replaced cooperation. Hostility and treachery replaced kindness. Laughter became a raucous response to the misfortunes of people, rather than an expression or good will and humor. Members of the group were left to die and sometimes goaded to die instead of being nursed and helped. Strong isolation in booby-trapped enclaves replaced openness and companionship between people [p. 156].

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libraries

Libraries have an ancient, honorable history. More than five thousand years ago, the Sumerians stored clay tablets containing agricultural and other records in temple buildings. Rameses II (1292- 1225 B.C.) set up a library of sacred literature. In the seventh century B.C., the Assyrian ruler Assur~bani-pal established several royal libraries, one of which contained more than 20,000 clay “volumes” recording many of the most important Near Eastern literary works. The famous library in Alexandria, Egypt, held as many as 900,000 papyrus rolls which, in effect, contained the whole culture of the ancient Greek world. When this library burned, a considerable portion of Greek civilization was obliterated. By 300 A.D., there were twentyeight public librar-ies in Rome as well as many extensive private collections. About a hundred years later, many of these “’pagan” libraries were destroyed or allowed to fall into ruin. As a result, what we speak of as the classical heritage is a relatively meager collection of leftovers, not the banquet, preserved in part by copyists in medieval scriptoriums.

Because libraries have historically served as the seedpods or memory centers of human culture, it is understandable that librarians have tended to be a conservative breed. In fact, the plan of most medieval libraries (usually found in the monasteries) was more akin to that of museums, designed to discourage the use and/ or borrow-ing of the precious, rare volumes. This is part of the tradition which modern librarians have had to overcome. Even today, it is probably not unfair to say that most librarians would put books first, people second, and buildings last. But librarians also want to get books and people together, which means that they usually want people to come into their libraries and stay awhile. And this -means that libraries must be preferred environments.

There are of course libraries and libraries. Enormous, venerable institutions like the Bodleian, the British Museum, the Bibliotheque Nationale, the library of Congress, some university libraries, a few great publics like the New York Public Library, and specialized, privately endowed collections like the ]. P. Morgan or Huntington are essentially research libraries. Such libraries, containing many millions of volumes, including some rare or priceless items, have too many worries vis-a.-vis space and security problems and need not be overly concerned about attracting scholarly types who’ll go there regardless of environmental conditions. But most people are under no great compulsion to visit or remain in the more common variety of libraries, public

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school, local community, and some undergraduate libraries need all the environmental help they can get if they are to fulfill their functions.

Let’s start with the dominance aspect. Most libraries elicit a good deal of submis-siveness from their users one’s library behavior is extremely circumscribed, requiring a hush-hush, tip-toeing degree of self-control amounting almost to the reverential. As we shall see, this temple-like behavior is really not always necessary or desirable if libraries’ are properly designed.

Access to the stacks is another facet of library design that can sometimes needlessly detract from one’s feeling of competence, control, or freedom within the library envi-ronment. In older libraries, books were usually laid horizontally on shelves or tables and were often chained to them. In the post-Gutenberg era, when the number of books began to increase exponentially, books were stored vertically on wall shelves. Still later, shelves were placed at right angles to the walls, forming small alcoves in the process. In the mid-nineteenth century, the British Museum, under the direction of its librarian, Antonio Panizzi, was the first library to segregate its book storage areas from its reading rooms. In many libraries that follow this arrangement, the stacks are often not open to the general public.

People have to locate titles they want in the card catalogue, fill out a complicated ‘request slip, wait in line to hand the slip in at a delivery desk, and then wait until the book is located and delivered-or not delivered if “in use,” or “at the bindery.” This may be the only way to go for libraries having enormous noncirculating collections that must he stored as economically as possible in labyrinthian stacks~ but it is a time consuming and frustrating procedure that may even turn off some motivated readers. Unfortunately, many medium-sized undergraduate and public libraries have adopted this procedure quite needlessly. Some people who have access to univer-sity libraries would rather Use their local public branches for generalized research in areas outside their own specialties. If they know only one title in some field they’re trying to learn more about, they can locate that title in the catalogue and then go to the stacks and look at the other books in the immediate vicinity. There is , bound to be something there that they can use, even if the book they are looking for is out. Moreover, since most books in a small public library circulate l if they find something they’d like to read they can take it home.

Most research libraries today are undergoing a technological revolution which is bound to lead to a far greater sense of dominance for the User. Computers are now being introduced into libraries for catalogue and bibliographic search. Imagine the difference between systems before and after the installation of computers: an involved

search through a complex cataloguing system one does not understand, a visit to the stacks to get some idea as to whether the books selected are appropriate, or a long wait at the desk for some of the books to be delivered versus simply walking up to a computer terminal, typing in a few key terms (such as “libraries,” “technology” and “environmental psychology”), and having an immediate visual display of those volumes which are the intersection points of these topics. Add to the latter alternative the convenience of next requesting abstracts of journal articles or volumes in order to scan any particular Source and determine its relevance.

A second convenient (pleasure- and dominance-inducing) trend associated with technological advances in library design is the addition of storage media which supplement the printed page. Microfilm, microfiche, punched cards, perforated tapes, magnetic tapes, and many types of digital and graphic techniques are now available for the storage and transmission of textual or pictorial materials. The advantage of facsimile transmission when such media are used is temporarily offset by the cost of specialized display stations for the user. However, as such display stations gradu-ally become more common in libraries it will be possible to view materials stored in other libraries. This will minimize the necessity for each library to duplicate materials housed in others and will allow for more specialization. Given the escalating rate in the outpouring of books and journals, libraries would have a choice of provid-ing incomplete coverage across different fields of specialization or specializing and then relying on network transmission with other libraries that have different fields of specialization.

Another aspect of libraries that has been conducive to a more comfortable and more dominant feeling for the user is the idea of the circulating collection, which in time will include audio and video cassettes as well: The idea of a circulating collection of popular reading matter was put into practice for the first time by the Boston Public Library in 1854. It was a good idea because it gave people an opportunity to read books in an environment that suited them, thus allowing more control or indepen-dence. Often, the great libraries are too possessive about what they will permit to circulate; but if they made their reading rooms more preferable, it wouldn’t matter nearly as much. Even libraries which have good-Sized circulating collections often make the use of their books more circumscribed or more difficult than need be. For example, the cataloguing system is frequently complicated enough to befuddle even experienced adults, who sometimes find themselves searching for some title in the wrong place because they fail to notice a letter or number which indicates that the book they want is in the Rare Book Collection or in the Young Adult Section. It would be relatively easy to color code the cards; for example, you could instantly recognize from a blue card that the book you want is in reference, not in the stacks.

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Recent experiments in certain circulating libraries also indicate that the common practice of limiting the number of books one may check out during a visit, and the period of time for which books in a given Dewey classification can circulate, together with the system of fines, may not be the most efficient way of running a library. Some small town school and public libraries have completely done away with the whole business of library cards, checkout procedures, and fines; instead, people are given unrestricted access to the circulating collection. They walk out with as many books as they want and bring them back when they feel like it. To the great surprise of those librarians who’ve tried this experiment, the number of books taken out goes up and the rate of nonreturns (and also of damage) goes down significantly, sometimes by as much as 1.0 percent. The lesson in all this seems to be that if we increase people’s sense of independence and control (dominance) in a small community, we will also increase their sense of responsibility to the community. At any rate, there won’t be any overdue library books at home ticking away like taxi meters.

A collection of books is not a library but a warehouse. A library is by definition a place where books are used” and if a library environment is such that the use of books is discouraged, those responsible for administering the library have failed to perform one of their essential functions. What then are some of the things that can be done to increase preference for the typical public or undergraduate library? Besides envi-ronmental load, which we’ll consider in detail shortly, it is important to increase the comfort (pleasure- and dominance-eliciting quality) of the library. We have so far noted the dominance aspect of libraries. To see how something as elementary as pleasure is ignored in most library designs, consider the stacks, which are often drearier and more uncomfortable or inconvenient than they need to be. Since these are essen-tially storage areas, one’s impulse is to make them economical storage areas. But there is such a thing as being penny-wise and avoidance-foolish. For example, the shelves, invariably painted a dull gray, are usually metal. Many libraries also have floor surfaces which cause a person shuffling along them to generate a good deal of static electricity. The result is that people are constantly being shocked when they inadvertently touch the shelves, which is a classical avoidance conditioning situation. That’s the way you get people to stop doing anything; it is certainly not the way to encourage them to approach and explore a situation.

To encourage exploration, stacks should be as pleasant as possible. Special displays, which are usually set up in library lobbies where they are least needed, could be in-corporated directly into the stacks, thus providing variety and relief from the endless row-upon-row effect. Also, stacks are often too close together, so that two people looking at opposite shelf spaces cannot both bend down to examine the contents of a low shelf without bumping into each other. When the stacks are far from the reading

rooms, it is convenient to be able to examine books with some care on the spot rather than carry a whole pile of them somewhere else. In such cases, the stacks could be provided with upholstered benches so people could sit down in relative comfort. People with two or three books in their hands could then sit down and peruse a fourth before deciding whether it’s what they want. They wouldn’t have to sit on the floor, which is invariably covered with dusty and heat-conducting (cold) tile. Many newer libraries are getting back to the older practice of making some of the stacks part of the reading room environment, thus providing subject area alcoves:

This is somewhat inefficient in terms of space, but far more efficient in terms of getting people to explore a pleasant and moderately loaded book-filled environment.

The most important aspect of library design is careful consideration of the load in the various facilities. Most of us try to adjust the environmental load while reading. For example, when reading at home, many people turn on 50ft music because loud music or news over the radio or the TV is too arousing. We know that people pre-fer less loaded settings when they read difficult (complex and slightly unpleasant) materials, but that they prefer more loaded places for light, pleasant reading. Since environmental preferences while reading are dictated by one’s ability to comprehend, recollect, and enjoy what is being read, this means that libraries should have more loaded places for persons who are doing fun reading and less loaded places for those doing complicated reading and research.

An example of the incorporation of more loaded areas is to have a central patio and surrounding terraces entirely within the confines of the library. There might be a variety of snack shops, comfortable lounging areas, or even places to stroll among plants and where conversation is acceptable. Once a person enters the library through one or more of the checkpoints, he would be free to take whatever books he has selected to one of these areas. He could visit these areas after periods of intense concentra-tion, or when he is fatigued, to increase his arousal. Such casual areas within the confines of the library would eliminate many unnecessary logistic problems. Most

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people are reluctant to check out books and have briefcases and bags examined in crossing a checkpoint in order to leave the library for a snack; instead, they either speed up their reading and leave to do other things, or they are forced to stay on while feeling uncomfortable, hungry, or tired.

Unlike the traditional severe and somber library environment, a library which had such terraces and snack facilities would provide many behavioral alternatives for the visitor; the result would be a feeling which most people call “comfort” namely, dominance and pleasure. Users would have the option of selecting places within the library to suit their kind of reading material or their emotional state. We mentioned in passing that concentrated reading leads to fatigue, which is a low arousal and unpleasant state. Since performance_ ability to concentrate and recollect what is read-deteriorates with fatigue, it is important that libraries provide opportunities for periodic relief from demanding work. Casual outdoor areas would be ideally suited for much needed, varied physical activity. People differ in the ways in which they relieve the low arousal state associated with fatigue. Given such areas, Some might socialize; others might choose to keep to themselves and daydream while drinking a cup of coffee; and still others might seek stimulation from a small snack or ·a short walk. In any case, when a library provides opportunities for any of these alternatives, the users have the advantage of taking breaks without having to check out and can conveniently maintain an optimum level of arousal and pleasure for the work they are doing.

Libraries possessing a variety of high-load areas for fun reading and low-load areas for demanding and somewhat unpleasant reading would greatly appeal to nonscreen-ers. Needless to say, such libraries would also be valued by screeners, but not to quite the same extent.

The various spaces that constitute the traditional library can be analyzed in terms of the appropriateness of their respective loads. For example, one local public library is set up something like Figure 1 1. The reader who has followed our discussion thus far will recognize that the Reading Room, with its small, round tables surrounded by four or five chairs, has a design that strongly encourages personal interaction or so-cializing. As a result, nonscreeners or those engaged in high-load, difficult work shun this room in the late afternoon and early evening when students from the nearby high school use the area to complete research projects assigned as homework. The latter usually amounts to copying things out of encyclopedias or other standard reference works. Such boring or low-load tasks demand an environment that is moderately loaded and pleasant. The high school students can create one instantly by looking at each other, giggling, talking, and teasing the poor librarian, who is desperately

trying to maintain a proper low-load environment. On the other hand, the Periodical Room is mainly furnished with comfortable armchairs, far enough apart so as to discourage personal interaction. It is an ideal place for somewhat complex reading tasks except that it is difficult to perform research and note-taking assignments which require keeping several books handy for constant cross-reference. Although this area contains a very good collection of domestic and foreign newspapers, it only provides one smallish table to spread a paper out on.

Since it is difficult to hold and read a non tabloid-size newspaper for any length of time, the newspaper collection rarely gets the use it deserves. In effect therefore, a small community library possessing more than adequate resources has been sabo-taged by its failure to provide sub-environments suited to the tasks which could be performed in them.

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In order to make this library more effective environmentally, one would have to split the Reading Room up in a task-oriented way. For demanding tasks, a modularized area is needed-preferably consisting of doored cubicles containing a single desk and chair in which people could, if they chose, smoke, pour coffee from a thermos, or open a lunch box without disturbing others. Such measures would be aimed at increasing pleasure levels and permitting short smoking and munching breaks as fatigue sets in. Meanwhile, the cubicles would shield their occupants from the higher loads outside, such as more varied and complex visual stimuli or people walking about.

For moderately loaded tasks, a lounge area containing comfortable armchairs with small, movable tables would be appropriate, especially if these chairs were grouped along the walls to discourage interaction. Some small tables seating no more than two would also be provided, although moderately loaded tasks tend not to require a lot of writing or note-taking.

A third, pleasant, and more loaded environment would also be provided in which people could optimally perform more routine, repetitious, or boring” tasks, and where they might take their breaks to increase their arousal levels. This room might be given over to round tables as in the Reading Room pictured in Figure 11. Ideally, a separate conversational lounge (similar in spirit to the casual patio-terrace- snack areas already noted) would also be available in an adjacent area. Friends doing their homework at the round tables could then get up and stretch their legs, take a break on the lounge chairs, rest their eyes, or even indulge in a short snooze. Students, professional colleagues, and others might also carry on discussions here in a normal or even animated tone of voice. Frequently people come across things in the course of their library work that they like to talk about with others but usually cannot unless they leave the building. This conversational lounge should of course be pleasant and fairly arousing in decor.

The Periodical Room shown in Figure 11 probably could be abolished as a separate room, assuming the library abandoned the typical but completely unnecessary rule that magazines and newspapers must not be removed from wherever they’re dis-played. The Periodical Room could either be integrated with the conversational lounge or the moderately arousing Reading Room. People merely wanting to flip through an issue of Town & Country could do so without being in the least distracted. Those wanting to read a complex journal article could take the journal to a less loaded part of the library.

example of open space for light-load reading, MCAD library

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The casual and informal areas should occupy the bulk of the space and are especially important in public libraries located in working-class or low-income neighborhoods. These informal areas should be as pleasant as possible, with lots of plants, comfort-able chairs, pleasing color schemes, and a minimum of rules, regulations, and other dominant aspects. Only then will the library begin to fulfill its potential as a community resource center, or “people’s university.”

In the not too distant future, libraries will probably begin to take over some of the functions now served by schools and universities, especially those functions having to do with basic education or elementary instruction in a given discipline. Indeed, the learning-center concept used in some of today’s more progressive colleges is approaching this goal. At Oklahoma Christian College, the top two stories of a three-story learning center contain over 1,000 electronically connected carrels, with each student having complete and private access to one of these. The lower floor of the center is “ the library. Students have access to a centralized bank of audio-tapes which they can request and listen to in their individual carrels. In addition, a scheduled series of audio presentations is accessible from each carrel so students can hook into a scheduled program if they see fit. To use visual materials, students check out projectors and films to watch in their carrels. A more expensive setup in the future might include individual TV-style monitor screens in each carrel with vid-eotapes stored at “the central bank, thus allowing students to watch any educational program without having to leave the carrel to obtain projection equipment or films. Since the carrels are individualized, students are encouraged to decorate these ac-cording to their individual tastes, that is, at the pleasure and load levels they desire. And of course the flexibility of the setup provides a strong boost to the students’ dominant feelings. Soundproofing allows students to meet friends in the carrels, either to listen jointly to a program or to discuss work they share. It is therefore not surprising that there has been a 40 percent increase in the rate of book and journal Use at this particular library.

Such developments in our colleges make a lot of sense when We consider that most introductory courses, especially those at the college level, are given as lectures to anywhere from fifty to 500 students at a time. Instructors often lack the preparation, social skills, or personality to make these presentations stimulating or entertaining; furthermore, most students do not have the stenographic skills necessary to take good notes. This results in inadequate notes based upon lectures that are less in-formative and less well organized than standard textbooks in the field. But in fields requiring laboratory experiments, three-dimensional models, or the demonstration of the proper use of tools, even the best textbooks are not always the most effective medium of communication.

There is a tremendous amount of creative talent available today, of which only a small portion finds expression in feature films or TV productions. It ought to be possible for educators and creative media artists to get together and produce vivid, exciting films or video tapes presenting the most up-to-date basic findings in each field. These films or tapes would therefore constitute the basic texts for many introductory courses. Since they would be used on a nationwide basis, they could be budgeted and produced within the same economic parameters as feature films. Students and members of the general public could then have access to these educational media through local public libraries, either checking them out for home viewing or availing themselves of library facilities. This would enable individuals who for a variety of socioeconomic reasons cannot attend college to expose themselves to educational materials of the highest caliber and to study at their preferred rate of speed. It would also free faculty members from wasteful and ineffective· procedures for which they are not intellectually or temperamentally suited. Research-oriented scholars could do what they do best and not fiddle around with lectures, tests, and so on. Educators could do what they do best and not have to engage in halfhearted research banalities to justify their university positions. They would instead be responsible for updating, summarizing, and transmitting existing knowledge to the general public (including the undergraduate public) through the most effective and sophisticated communication channels modern technology provides. Public libraries are natural distribution centers for such educational media. Public schools and universities could then concentrate their physical and human resources on more specialized, more advanced, or more dynamic learning contexts.

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STUDENTS IN THE LIBRARYJ. Daniel Vann IIIThe library has been described as the heart of the college or university. It can be as-serted just as readily that the student is the heartbeat of the academic library.Without students there would be no library; with students the criteria, development, and evaluation of library collections and services can be effectively focused.

The smaller academic library affords the potential to participate in the educational process in ways not generally possible in larger academic libraries. It is easier for the librarian to be a member of the educational teaching team, easier for the librar-ian to participate in the teaching program, easier for the librarian to concentrate collections in limited curricular areas. The smaller academic library may find it more difficult to provide a cultural center for its students. But it can more adequately serve as a social center in which students may mature as an academic as well as a social community.

THE LIBRARY AS EDUCATORIn any academic setting the library is above all an educator. Regardless of the magni-tude of the collections or the number of librarians engaged in bibliographic instruction or on-line searching, the purpose of the library is to be an educational center of the institution alongside the other two common centers of higher education, the class-room and the laboratory. Every decision in the library should be based primarily on the effective use of funds and personnel to further the institution’s educational mis-sion to its students.

The smaller academic library is well situated to participate in determining the evolving educational mission of its institution and in effecting its implementation throughout the institution as well as in the library. Close relationships within the decision-making process are possible as librarians, faculty, administrators, students, and even trustees continually come into contact with one another. Librarians are able to contribute in-formally to developing plans long before they become formal presentations. Teaching faculty are more apt to consult with librarians before plunging into new programs or even offering new courses. In this situation it is imperative that the librarian be an educator by background, experience, attitude, and temperament. Textbook answers for developing educational plans to meet student needs are not proper because they are generally not relevant; rather, study, the development of alternatives, compro-mise, and teamwork are necessary. The educational plan is the institution’s, and the library is a central part of that plan. The guidance of the library within such a plan is the challenge of the librarians.

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THE LIBRARY AS INSTRUCTORA second function of the library is instruction. More limited in concept than education, instruction is the practical feature of the modern college and university. Effectiveness of instruction is a prime element in student recruitment, student success within the educational programs, and student satisfaction and success in the workplace after the baccalaureate. The smaller institution has generally been more Successful in breeding and offering quality instruction, and it is to be expected that the library will be responsible in positioning itself centrally in the instructional process.

As with its role of educator, the smaller academic library is particularly well poised to be involved effectively in instruction. The librarian is in constant contact with students and faculty and often participates in multiple functions like reference and reserves and collection development with the same constituents.Instructional needs are more visible and the opportunity to work with individual students and faculty to address these needs is more available than in larger institu-tions. More students tend to be known individually by librarians, and the faculty’s assessment of individual students and their needs is more likely to be heard by librarians in a smaller institution. By dealing with the same student again and again, the librarians can discern and inculcate development, which is after all the primary aim of the faculty as instructors.

Thus the librarian must be an effective teacher as well as a knowledgeable educator. Beyond being a master of the reference interview and the location of information and materials, the librarian must have pedagogical skills to make presentations in the classroom and to teach “one on one” in a wide array of areas: research methods, bibliographical searching, writing term papers. The skills must be so well hewn that faculty of the disciplines may themselves readily and willingly become students in the library arena without fear of embarrassment.

THE LIBRARY AS RESOURCE CENTERThe third function of the library is to provide the resources required by students for their academic programs and related endeavors. The library is the extension of the student’s bookshelf, record rack, videotape collection, and personal computer software. When the material desired is not in the dormitory room, the family room at home, or the public library branch down the street, it is expected to be available at the academic library. Because the collections here are larger and services like interli-brary loan and on-line searching are more complex than in the dorm or at home, the student expects guidance to quick and easy access when seeking resources in the academic library. This means that all tools to library access are an integral part of the materials themselves: the on-line or card catalog, the serials guide, the indexes and

abstracts, the arrangement of stacks and location of collections, the accessibility of on-line searching. It also means that the research and study tools of the dorm room or home must be available for the student in the library: not just the dictionary and course syllabus but also a typewriter and a computer. Even services unavailable at “home”—such as a photocopier and the helpfulness of a reference librarian—are expected to be available.

The magnitude of students’ demand for resources requires the majority of the library’s energies in the vast range of areas in which the librarian is the expert: collection de-velopment, acquisitions, cataloging, processing, preservation, stack maintenance, circulation and reserves, reference, on-line searching, and the provision of space and equipment. These are the internal mechanics of librarianship but also the art of the librarian. The validity of decisions regarding how to deploy librarians’ time and how to budget for materials and services in providing resources will determine the basic effectiveness of an academic library.

The smaller academic library can provide collections, access, and facilities that are custom tailored to its student clientele. Unlike the larger library, its fields of coverage are smaller and more clearly defined, its collections can be developed selectively by acquiring individual items rather than by purchasing en masse, its collections can be more easily cared for, and the spaces for students can be planned with a more intimate knowledge of student-use patterns. The lack of adequate funding is often an advantage because it offers the challenge to develop excellence through innovation and requires wise fiscal decisions.

The provision of resources requires the library to plan carefully, keep in constant touch with faculty and students, maintain a keen awareness of developments in information technologies, become accustomed to adopting technologies only after they are proven rather than When they are new and exciting, and find the best ways of delivering the best possible mix of resources to students with the library’s limited financial resources. Evaluation of collections and effective access through interlibrary loan and on-line data bases can be continuous because adjustments in acquisitions and services must be performed with dispatch. The librarian must be a multispecialist and share specializations with other librarians and paraprofessionals so that library operations can be maintained with a limited staff.

THE LIBRARY AS CULTURAL CENTERA fourth function of the academic library is to serve as a cultural center of the institu-tion and often also of a town or neighborhood. Providing access to resources may be the library’s duty, but the cultural “extras” establish the place of the library within

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the students’ life-styles. A sparkling exhibit, a film showing, a room with music in the air, an appearance by an author or film maker are events that cause students to view the library as a place to go for its own merits rather than a place that must be visited only for fulfilling course requirements.

Especially in the smaller library, this cultural influence is important. Larger libraries are usually on campuses with art museums, lecture and concert series, foreign-film theaters, and political and religious events of many types. Unless the smaller library is in the midst of a bustling city where the institution’s students customarily swarm to the community’s cultural events, the opportunity for the library to foster cultural events is great. The library is a logical place, because the resources supporting hu-mankind’s cultural experience are themselves in the library.

Provision of broad cultural opportunities often not otherwise available on a campus requires librarians that are alert to students’ interests. It requires the knack of the entertainer as well as the educator and dilettante in each librarian. It requires a sense of adventure that can be shared with students in planning and producing events as well as experiencing them.

THE LIBRARY AS SOCIAL CENTERThe function of an academic library that has been least developed and that is most disquieting to libraries is its place as a social center for students. The “sssh” of the scholar and public librarians in times past has overshadowed the visual evidence in any well-used library that students are social beings wherever they are. Academic libraries must recognize this and provide the spaces where differing degrees of ex-pression of student social behavior may occur. A smaller academic library has more need to satisfy the social needs because the campus may be isolated and adequate social centers may not be available on or off campus. The opportunity to work with students to help them plan with librarians for facilities arranged to promote socializa-tion in a proper environment is a yet unmet challenge for academic libraries.

This cursory view of the functions of an academic library illustrates the truism that the student is the central figure in the academic library. Serving the student, satisfy-ing the student, satiating the student, and at times solacing the student become the primary aims of the library. The small academic library can succeed in placing the student at its center.

IDEAS FOR THE EDUCATORAn academic library’s primary responsibility, along with functioning as a resource center, is to serve as an educator for students. This means, first, the planning of

an educational program that will attract students’ interests and effectively prepare students with knowledge and skills that will be useful in a career or personally satis-fying. Often librarians can launch or participate in an undergraduate library-science program, especially one that prepares students in elementary and secondary educa-tion for school librarianship. Other academic programs related to library skills can be developed, such as records management and archives management.

Responsibility for academic programs may not be possible in all smaller academic libraries, but certainly, the development of specific courses can be pursued. Credit courses can be taught in research methods, reference resources, information retrieval, bibliographic searching of on-line data bases, preservation, and the history of the codex. Noncredit seminars, workshops, and clinics can be offered within the com-munity on these topics and also practical office skills like records management and data-base search techniques. Although these courses will usually be offered as library or library-science courses, other courses in research methodology and materials in specific disciplines and professions can be offered through the several academic departments. When the librarians have subject master’s degrees or doctorates in these fields, they may well teach courses of a subject nature in a department, thus cementing a mentor relationship with students as well as a colleague relationship with that faculty.

Approaching the student and student needs as paramount, the library will often determine that opportunities should be available for bibliographic and research train-ing on an informal basis. From this perspective come term-paper clinics, how-to publications like guides to research, bibliographies of reference materials support-ing each academic program, videos explaining how to use the library’s resources, and computer-assisted-instruction (CAl) programs for bibliographic and research strategies. Such educational services make available to students the fundamental knowledge and skills they need to develop.

As an educator, the library may become a center for self-paced instruction, either independently or serving the academic programs. Such instruction is usually multime-dia, using a combination of slides, films, videos, print materials, and CAL Television courses developed within the institution or purchased from outside are often used. Testing and grading are sometimes effected by the library, sometimes by a continuing-education office or the academic departments. Another opportunity in education is training programs for student workers within the library. Formal training with manuals, audiovisual kits, and continuing supervision has been evaluated by many graduates as practical training for future careers.

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Keys to planning educational opportunities within an institution are an understanding of the mission and program of the college or university, knowledge of student needs and the academic offerings and opportunities on campus, a desire to make library and information skills available to students, and the arrangement for resources to make the needed educational services readily available. Often students, faculty, and administrators are not aware of students’ educational needs in these areas, but it is evident that once programs and services are begun, the demand for more and bet-ter services is almost immediate. A library’s educational program is the key to the library becoming a focal point within the institution. The representation of the library’s director as a dean or chairperson participating in an institution’s decision-making on educational matters is essential. Representation of other librarians on principal academic committees is highly desirable.

IDEAS FOR THE INSTRUCTORIn its role as instructor, the library is dedicated to presenting its educational programs effectively to students and, as appropriate, to faculty and the Community. Using proven and popular methods of pedagogy, librarians trained in teaching skills trans-mit the knowledge and training established in the library’s educational program or plan. Instruction takes five primary formats in today’s academic libraries: the lecture, print resources, audiovisual presentations, Computer workshops, and the reference interview.

The lecture, which will normally integrate print and audiovisual materials with the spoken word, is still the standard for credit courses, seminars and workshops, and bibliographic instruction (BI) presentations. Whereas courses, seminars, and workshops are usually “packaged” so that they can be repeated again and again, sometimes by different librarians using the same notes, BI has taken a peculiar approach. Although the same lecture is sometimes given for orientation sessions and repeated sessions of the same course, such as freshman English classes, the general practice is to fabricate each lecture to treat the specialized topic and a specific assignment for a credit class. The librarian has conferred carefully with the faculty teaching the classes so that the lecture can prepare the students to perform a library-related assignment. It is expected that the librarian making the presenta-tion will be available to the students at specific times in the library to give tutorial assistance as needed.

Print resources are probably the most used instructional format offered by a library. Whether a guide to reference materials in a subject field or a sheet with current cita-tions to a topic of current concern, the publication tends to be picked up, perused, tucked away to be taken with the student, and later used in locating materials for

classroom assignments, assigned papers, or personal interest. Libraries that pro-vide publications that are carefully selected, attractively printed, and prominently displayed provide a major instructional tool. Incidentally, unattractive or poorly pro-cessed publications suggest that the librarians who produced them are shoddy in their workmanship.

Audiovisual presentations can be especially helpful to students, save countless hours of librarians’ time, and serve as a crowning glory to an academic library.Used primarily as an embellishment to the lecture- and an important one-the audio-visual presentation can also have a primary effect on student instruction when used as a stand-alone medium. Examples of this use include audio explanations of the use of reference sources (dictionaries, indexes, 10K reports) through a telephone-type receiver with a printed example of an entry from the source posted at the receiver; videotapes showing how to use an on-line catalog, certain reference materials, or the facilities and collections of a specific area of a library; and an audio tour of the library building or piece-by-piece description of an exhibit. When it is possible to obtain audio and video productions from other libraries that can be augmented for a given academic library, countless planning and production hours can be saved. Many students learn primarily through hearing or seeing rather than through reading. Libraries must furnish materials in all primary learning formats if they are to be expert and successful in instruction.

Computer workshops, a recent instructional mode of academic libraries, serve two major library instructional purposes. First, they are used to teach on-line search techniques to campus, regional, and national data bases so that students can use these services directly, often at night when rates are cheaper. Second, computer workshops are effective means of training students to use the on-line catalog. With the introduction of the compact-disk-read-only-memory (CDROM) format for in-dexes and data of many kinds, the computer laboratory regularly used for training within library facilities is a distinct benefit to students. If the computer laboratory is equipped with personal computers with a selection of programs (like WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2- 3) on hard disks, students can use the laboratory for their classroom assignments when formal presentations are not in progress.

There still remains the function that was the beginning of library instruction the refer-ence interview. Despite the emphasis on formal or BI teaching by reference librarians, the instruction of students in bibliographic retrieval at the reference desk- whether general, government documents, or periodicals-is still fundamental. The function of the academic librarian is to teach bibliographic search techniques whenever possible in answering students’ questions. Although success in this strategy will inculcate

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more advanced questions, that will be a true indication of success at the reference desks of academic libraries.

Although the library is the students’ instructor, it is also the advisor of students’ in-structors. Effective Iibrarianship finds means to give feedback to classroom faculty regarding students’ performance of assignments requiring library skills. Effective librarians are effective colleagues.

IDEAS FOR THE RESOURCE CENTERThe academic library began as a resource center for students, and it is this role that must remain paramount despite the incursions of low budgets and the ambitions of some professionals to champion other functions to the detriment of student access to materials and information. In providing access to its resources, the smaller academic library focuses its services on students’ needs and demands: access to collections, access to the means of using collections, access to information, access to working space and supportive services, and access to library facilities.

Access to resources requires careful selection of materials in a variety of standardized formats in a single facility. The student studying Beethoven’s composition of the Ninth Symphony should be able to sit in one place with an edition of the score, standard music reference works, relevant books and articles, several recordings by different maestros and orchestras, films or videos of performances, and critical studies of the composer. Books and journals alone are not sufficient.

The selection of materials should reflect not only the academic programs but also the interests of students and the subjects that are naturally highlighted by location, politics, economics, and even religion. Student governments have been known to provide special funds to libraries for the establishment of browsing collections, cir-culating video movies, and even framed art collections that can be borrowed to decorate dormitory rooms.

As skillful as the choice of resources may be, they are of limited use to students with-out access tools that are timely, standardized, and complete. Uncataloged collections are generally unusable collections. An on-line catalog is essential with multiple-access files including key-word, Boolean search capability, and a number of other indexed files. Within the next few years on-line serials records will also be essential. Students can expect to have access to these bibliographical files through computer terminals or personal computers with telephone modems from dormitories or private residences even when the library facilities are closed.

Programs for access to materials must include the proper selection, ordering, and care for collections, including cataloging, binding, specialized preservation, and proper shelving and handling of materials. They must also include access to other collections, not only through interlibrary loan (twenty-four- to fortyeight- hour delivery is essential) but through student access to national bibliographic data bases (like the Online Computer Library Company [OCLC] and the Research Libraries Information Network [RUN]). If a student cannot readily and easily find materials that appear in the on-line catalog, the materials are effectively not available. Access to materials also requires the technical means of using media: microform readers and plain-paper printers, video and audio players, and CD-ROM players and monitors. Formats that cannot be easily used and reproduced (like microcards) should not be purchased.

The reference librarian remains the primary information factor in the library. This pro-fessional skill in organizing reference and research materials and assisting students in finding information in a systematic manner determines whether a library will be considered an effective information center for students. National bibliographic data bases available through on-line computer searching have become standard. But they are being replaced by indexes on CD-ROM that can be used directly by students, who can immediately walk away with a printed copy of the entries they retrieve. Still it is the guidance of the librarian that is essential. The new data bases, although generally more economical to the library as well as more convenient, have serious flaws relating to completeness, consistency of indexing, and timeliness. Older years of some CD-ROM indexesStudents in the Library 265 disappear as new years are added. Thus at this transi-tional stage in the development of on-line indexing technology librarians must weigh the advantages of each format of indexes and other reference sources on the basis of both the present needs of students and their anticipated needs twenty years hence. Choices are easier when there are sufficient funds to purchase reference sources in multiple formats. Information sources should also include access to the campus’ instructional computing capabilities with workstations for student use.

Fundamental to the student is the provision of sufficient and efficient working space and related services. Students working independently, yet bumping arms and jock-eying for space for books on the same table, cannot work effectively. Usually, fewer than half of the chairs at a given table for four or more are filled.Supporting services include inexpensive copiers (5 cents a copy is usually possible), rental typewriters, and personal computers with appropriate software.

A final key to the academic library as a resource center is access to facilities them-selves or the hours of service. Schedules must be programmed to satisfy typical

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student patterns in using the library. Often demands for additional hours are really requests for a place to study when residences are noisy or a place to meet friends. Late evening studies can answer many supposed needs for longer library hours.

IDEAS FOR THE CULTURAL CENTERThe library ‘s role as a cultural center for students begins as an extension of its role as a resource center. The experience of learning that is enhanced and expanded through library resources can be further advanced through the flaunting of available resources. Exhibits of library materials on subjects of current interest, cultural events within the institution or community, and the academic areas provide visible incen-tives for students to use the library’s resources. Film and video showings- perhaps allowing brown-bag lunches-can be offered during the noon hour. Film classics are popular for evening viewing.

Beyond the library’s resources, attention can be focused on cultural events within the institution and community. A lecture on music to be played in a concert, an exhibit supporting a campus lecture, and bibliographic and background data on issues be-ing debated on campus can make the library a part of the proverbial “action” or, in other words, “the place to be.”

Long-range plans for a library should include a cultural program sponsored by the library itself. Visiting exhibits of books, artifacts, and art will attract student atten-tion. A reception featuring persons related to the exhibits heightens interest. Recitals featuring students, readings by a poet, and lectures by speakers known to students will prove popular.

The availability of a public functions room within the library that can be used by student, faculty , and community groups to offer programs that students can at-tend is a primary asset. A small grand piano, projection room, pullman kitchen, and comfortable seating can make the room attractive for public programs of interest to students.

Probably the ultimate in programming combines students, library, and other campus resources with high community interest. One example was an afternoon presenta-tion on the Commedia dell’ arte, Opening with a formal exhibition and refreshments in the fine-arts area of the library, the festival proceeded to an amphitheater where the art librarian spoke on this art form in the printed book, professors of modern languages and art explained the effect of the form on their disciplines, and students performed first an operatic scene from Pagliacci and then an adaptation of this art in contemporary mime. Each guest received a published exhibition catalog.

IDEAS FOR THE SOCIAL CENTERThe role of the smaller academic library as a social center requires contact and insight into each student generation, informed alliance with student-services officers, and sharing of ideas and concerns with student government leaders. A student-advisory committee reporting to the library director can open informal conversations into students’ needs and desires. Student behavior at the service and reference desks should be discussed regularly by librarians and support staff.

Four types of services to provide for students’ social proclivities are popular. First, smoking and nonsmoking snack areas with concession machines offering sand-wiches, fruits, candies, and nonalcoholic drinks can be located within the controlled library area or, preferably, outside library space but convenient enough so that a wrap will not be necessary to reach them. Students who come to evening classes directly from work with a sandwich and an apple in the briefcase or coat pocket need a place where they can eat legitimately. Crumbs and liquids should not reach the reading or stack areas of the library because of the potential harm to collections.

A second service is an area with lounge furniture where students may haveSome materials available- perhaps newspapers, popular magazines, a browsing collection, or music tapes and video programs. Although student lounging and nap-ping sometimes disturb patrons and library staff, this behavior is a fact of life for traditional college students.

A third controversial but effective service is enclosed outdoor spaces where students can study during warm weather. A sculpture garden, reading deck, or glassed-in portico that is constructed to safeguard collections while offering space for shared study and conversation will become a student favorite as well as a place where loudly conversant students can be directed.

A fourth service is the group study room, preferably walled by glass from open read-ing areas. When students can study together in visible privacy, there will be more silence for the students who wish to study solo.

A final word. The excitement of the smaller academic library, akin to the hearty in-tellectual ferment of the classroom, is experienced as librarians participate in the development of students. The success of libraries can be measured by the response of students to finding successfully the collections and services they need and taking pleasure in using them. Successful libraries and successful students are inseparable.

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SPACE UTILIZATIONWendell A. Barbour, Catherine Doyle, and Hugh J. TreacyToday’s small-academic-library director is faced with a variety of options when reno-vating an existing library or designing a new building. Developments in automation, shelving, and microform offer many new alternatives to the traditional arrangement of books on the shelf. However, many of these alternatives cost a substantial amount of money and make demands on buildings designed for the static storage of books. Staff members who work well within methods already in use might be unhappy with the thought of changes in these areas.

EFFECTIVE BUILDING DESIGNEffective use of space is dependent upon the shape of the existing or planned struc-ture. Square-shaped floor plans require less corridor space and provide more usable space than any other configuration. Any design that departs from the versatile square creates wasted or “nonassignable” space (Cohen and Cohen 1979).

For example, one small academic library is arranged around several long corridors leading to staff offices. At the end of corridors on the first and second floors, large stairwells inhibit stack space, which is arranged in rectangular sections perpendicular to the corridors.

This particular design creates an unappealing separation of service areas and an emphasis on staff space over that of stack and user areas. Priorities for space should be given to the library collection and users, followed by staff areas (Cohen and Cohen 1979).

A successful plan for space utilization in a building addition might include the use of modules. A midwestern library employed square modules to increase its total usable space dramatically. Modular building also allows for changing space requirements as library functions evolve.

AUTOMATIONAutomating library functions enables the staff to perform its functions more efficiently. Using space properly will allow the director to take full advantage of automation by redirecting the work flow to fit the new patterns dictated by computer usage .

Many small libraries might be able to use microcomputers to automate several func-tions. This will enable the library to take advantage of the benefits of computerization without the additional expense of creating a special room to house a minicomputer. The power supply can be a major problem. The typical library building does not have

enough outlets to house a computer on every desk, and the middle of the room might not have any at all. An option to consider is adding a power pole in the middle of the room or along a wall. Wires are run from the ceiling in a thin metal pole to provide additional power outlets. Telephone wiring can also be included, if modems will be used. If an existing outlet does not provide enough capacity, a duplex outlet can be converted to a fourplex. Surge protectors, which will allow up to six plugs, also provide an inexpensive alternative. Modular furniture, with its own outlets, provides a more expensive alternative. This furniture can be configured as necessary and changed easily. Modular furniture can provide a work space tailored to each job’s requirements, with stations for computer terminals, typewriters, or microfiche read-ers. Before buying standard furniture, you should examine modular furniture. With modular furniture, each desk can fit the requirements of the job to be done, not some ideal standard. If modular furniture cannot be purchased, special computer furniture should be, so that operators will be able to work in comfort and safety.

Multiuser terminals can mean the addition of workstations in a crowded area. This can be especially difficult in the card-catalog area. If room is not available for more workstations, the card-catalog worktables can be used for terminals. A low worksta-tion should be provided for handicapped patrons. If public access catalogs will be housed in different areas of the library, a simple user survey, described in the January 1986 issue of the Library Systems Newsletter (“Terminal Requirements for Online Catalogs,” I 986), can help determine where the terminals should be placed.

CONCLUSIONMany methods are being developed to help the director increase space utilization that will work even in the smallest library. Compact shelving, microform, automation and renovation can help make today’s library function in tomorrow’s environment.

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the mcad library

The following section contains photos of certain aspects of the library. Some parts of the library function really well, and this section serves as a way to point out their successful functionality. I also point out parts of the library that could be improved, including some ideas for doing so.

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SUCCESSFUL SEATING

Computer Workstations:Individualized seating and a sizeable amount of personal space to set belongings on and around. Equipment available in this area varies enough that some computers may be used for long periods of time while others have a short turn-around time for usage.

Back Room Area:Good mix of soft spaces, com-puter stations, group work tables and private space. This com-bines all the neccesary elements so that most any person walk-ing in the space will find the spot that’s right for them!

Equipment Cubicles, as I say:Individulized workspaces that may be too cramped for some, but are generally roomy enough to accomplish the task at hand.

Backroom Couch: Would most likely never be used by more than one person at a time, and therefore provides a comfortable lounging space for reading or using a laptop computer. Would not usually be used for napping, unless other couch is in use.

Work Tables in Main Room: These tables are often filled during class time when a teacher herds their class down to the library for re-search. During other times, one person will be sitting at it, with their personal belongings spread all around. No one else dare sit down. At later hours, this area of the library gets quite dim. The tables in this room could benefit from small reading lights for those times.

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UNSUCCESSFUL SEATING

Yellow Periodical Area Chairs:To be honest, I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen anyone sitting in these chairs. Although they are beau-tiful and one of the most striking features of the library,

Low Chair and Table Set:These chairs and table are too low to sit causally in, you really need to settle in. A good setup for two friends meeting, but not for someone who is trying to get work done. This table isn’t optimal for working on a laptop, which is one of the main activi-ties students do in the library.

Padded Chairs in Back Room:While they may be comfortable, no one would sit in these chairs unless every other seat in the room was taken. It is just awk-ward to sit side by side against the wall, alone or with another person.

Spy Chairs:I call these the spy chairs. They remind me of agents having a secret conversation while facing opposite directions. It is convenient to have extra chairs around in case a table has an extra person at it, but this is just an awkward placement that isn’t functional.

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SUCCESSFUL FEATURES

Online Catalog Center:I think that this is a great central location, clearly marked so that users know these aren’t just com-puters to do work or surf the internet on. They are fully accessible, including a wheelchair-friendly station. This area also has plenty of scrap paper and pencils available for jotting down call numbers and author names. Its proximity to the check-out desk makes it easy to ask for help if needed.

Printing and “News” Station:One of the best set-up areas in the library. Recycling bins for prints gone wrong, and even a bulletin board of recent art news to gaze at while wait-ing for papers to spit out of the printer. Nearby is the copier, as well as extra paper for both machines.

Check-out Desk:A great big inviting counter for all to approach and ask a range of questions from “Where can I find _________?” to “How many books can I check out?” I like that there is plenty of counter space that students can place armfuls of books on to it. Also, good utilization by having the lower shelves.

Display Case:One of a few display cases nestled into the nooks and crannies of the library. This is a great step towards The People’s University because it encourages exploration of new topics and gives students a break from the monotony of shelf-after-shelf.

Return Carts:One of the best parts of the MCAD library is that there are red cards in many convenient loca-tions around the rooms so that anywhere you happen to be when you decide you no longer need a certain book, it can be soon put back on the shelf by someone who knows what they are doing!

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UNSUCCESSFUL FEATURES

Card Catalog:No longer being updated, no longer being used. Maybe should no longer be taking up valuable space? Some could say it is nostalgic, but nevertheless it is taking up space!

Shelf Room:The dungeon-like state of this large room makes it a less-than-pleasant experience for someone wandering up and down the aisles looking for a particular book. Not sure what could improve this space, but maybe more air circulation or sunlight! Or plants.

Entrance/Exit:I have always thought that the entrance to the library could be more inviting and welcoming and the exit could be kinder as well, with more of a “thank you come again vibe.”

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library staff questionnaires

As part of my research I provided the MCAD library staff with a questionnaire. In their answers, they unknowingly elaborated on the idea of the library’s shift from an education center to an entertainment center. When asked about the true purpose of a library, one staff member said it was to “allow users access to materials that educate, enrich, and inspire.” But when asked what students spend the most time doing in the library, the answer was that students are “always at the computers” and that “many movies get checked out.” One staff member defined his role as helping patrons find information, but when asked what students spend time working on, he replied 1) Working on the lab computers or laptops, 2) Group/individual study, and 3) reading periodicals. Has the role of the librarian also been diminished?

I think these questionnaires speak for themselves, so I have included them in their entirety for your enjoyment. The touching responses on the true purpose of the library would inspire anyone to try to improve its current state. Better yet, the basic principles of the dreamed up changes to the library, could easily be incorporated.

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bibliography and credits

EXCERPTS TAKEN FROM

PHOTOS:Dust Jacket image by Ben InnesInterior Library photos by Jon Bucholtz

SPECIAL THANKS TO:The MCAD Library StaffKelly AbelnAnna DohertyLouisa FryLars MasonBrock Rasmussen

Altman, Irwin. The Environment and Social Behavior: Privacy, Personal Space, Ter-ritory, Crowding. Brooks/Cole Pub. Co., 1975.

Holahan, Charles J. Environmental Psychology. McGraw-Hill College, 1982.

Mehrabian, Albert. Public Places and Private Spaces: The Psychology of Work, Play, and Living Environments. Basic Books, 1976.

The Smaller Academic Library: A Management Handbook. Ed. Gerard B. McCabe. Greenwood Press, Inc., 1988.

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