Comments on: Who is in charge of the atmosphere? http://dbl.lishost.org/blog/2009/06/11/who-is-in-charge-of-the-atmosphere/ Just another WordPress weblog Tue, 07 Feb 2012 15:51:38 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: jenjen http://dbl.lishost.org/blog/2009/06/11/who-is-in-charge-of-the-atmosphere/comment-page-1/#comment-31198 jenjen Wed, 24 Jun 2009 18:05:32 +0000 http://dbl.lishost.org/blog/?p=258#comment-31198 From recent experience it's easier to design zones into a space during renovation or new construction than to impose it on existing space. We've had pretty good adoption of the zones we tried to establish in our building's expansion/renovation. The issue becomes one of enforcement, or reinforcement. We don't have security staff who walk through the building, so users have to "police" the areas themselves and we've found that students who want a very quiet space are not the ones who are eager to tell their colleagues to shut up, get off the phone, stop slurping soup etc. So we've posted in the quiet areas how to IM us at the service desk when there's a noise or smelly-food problem and students do use it to ask us to have a staff person come up and resolve the situation. From recent experience it’s easier to design zones into a space during renovation or new construction than to impose it on existing space. We’ve had pretty good adoption of the zones we tried to establish in our building’s expansion/renovation.

The issue becomes one of enforcement, or reinforcement. We don’t have security staff who walk through the building, so users have to “police” the areas themselves and we’ve found that students who want a very quiet space are not the ones who are eager to tell their colleagues to shut up, get off the phone, stop slurping soup etc. So we’ve posted in the quiet areas how to IM us at the service desk when there’s a noise or smelly-food problem and students do use it to ask us to have a staff person come up and resolve the situation.

]]> By: Cheryl Bryan http://dbl.lishost.org/blog/2009/06/11/who-is-in-charge-of-the-atmosphere/comment-page-1/#comment-30685 Cheryl Bryan Fri, 12 Jun 2009 16:42:08 +0000 http://dbl.lishost.org/blog/?p=258#comment-30685 I just lead a workshop for teh circulation services staff of one of our member automated systems in Southeastern Massachusetts on just this topic. Most of our libraries are too small to have a position titled Design Engineer as do Darien Public (CT) and Georgia Tech, but I think all libraries should designate someone whose responsibility it is to bring user patterns and conveniences to staff meetings for discussion. On the volume level in academic libraries I recently visited the new satellite library for Brown University and they had decimal signs indicating quiet and noisy zones in the mostly open floorplan library. I just lead a workshop for teh circulation services staff of one of our member automated systems in Southeastern Massachusetts on just this topic. Most of our libraries are too small to have a position titled Design Engineer as do Darien Public (CT) and Georgia Tech, but I think all libraries should designate someone whose responsibility it is to bring user patterns and conveniences to staff meetings for discussion.
On the volume level in academic libraries I recently visited the new satellite library for Brown University and they had decimal signs indicating quiet and noisy zones in the mostly open floorplan library.

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