The Contemporary Library

What Students Want In A Library (Module D)

Our students have short attention spans, and according to the US Centre for for Biotechnology Information, this is due to social media (2018) and the practise of constantly scrolling through articles and information. According to their research, the average attention span of a person today is only 12 seconds. When faced with these startling statistics, teacher-librarians must ask themselves: how can I make sure that my library is keeping up with students’ engagement levels and competing with other learning environments in our contemporary world?

One possible answer is blogging. Amongst the many advantages that blogging can have on an individual, such as improving mental health if used correctly (Novotney, 2014), is the improvement that the practise can have on cognitive functioning. Why Your Students Should Blog: 6 Powerful Benefits lists several reasons why teachers should incorporate blogging into the classroom.

• It builds student creativity
• It sharpens brain performance
• It promotes expression of self
• It boosts confidence
• It builds communication skills (2018)

A library blog, created and monitored by the teacher-librarian but published and run by students, would help students to become text producers as well as consumers, and would allow that participatory culture to be built even further.

On that note, let’s see what else today’s students want in a library.

Photo by Tamás Mészáros on Pexels.com

Our school libraries are no longer solely for quiet, individual study. Over recent years, “a shift in [educational] pedagogy has placed more emphasis on group projects and collaborative work” (Yoo-Lee, Heon Lee & Velez, 2013) and as libraries are learning hubs, the space should reflect these changes. We can make spaces more collaborative in the following ways:

• Using furniture which encourages collaboration
• Using library spaces for different activities (i.e. a space for a teacher-led lesson, a smaller room for group work, a quiet reading area)
• Renovating and modernising library spaces

If you make your space a place where students want to be, then they will come.

Teachers must also be happy with the library space too, as the library should be a place that is visited by all within the school community, so make sure that you discuss any potential changes with the staff at your school!