Creating a Learning Commons: A Practical Guide for Librarians

Creating a Learning Commons: A Practical Guide for Librarians provides experienced and detailed research-based guidance for academic librarians and other professionals charged with creating a learning commons. Readers can follow the entire process of developing a library learning commons design and implementation plan from inception to post-occupancy planning and assessment.

This practical guide is designed to help librarians develop sound strategies for navigating the challenging issues that often emerge in launching a dynamic and collaborative new library learning commons space within a university or college setting.
Lampert and Meyers-Martin provide a practical guide, complete with examples and photos of award-winning learning commons designs. This book will help dedicated professionals identify best practices within today’s existing learning commons settings and get up to speed on how to best approach developing their own library’s new and innovative learning spaces.

Lynn D. Lampert is the coordinator of information literacy and instruction at California State University (CSU)–Northridge. Lynn served as a key member of the Oviatt Library’s Learning Commons Planning Team, which managed the $2.5 million learning commons renovation project. Lynn also helped develop and design the learning commons’s new makerspace area, which opened to students in the fall of 2014.

Coleen Meyers-Martin is coordinator of outreach services at the California State University (CSU)–Northridge’s Oviatt Library. In 2013, she coordinated a multifaceted marketing campaign that promoted the Library’s $2.5 million learning commons renovation to students, faculty, staff, and community members.