Tagged: design

Our Artist-in-Residence Program 2012-2016 & Beyond

I gave a talk to the VALA AGM earlier this week on our Artist-in-Residence Program: the thinking behind it, who has been involved, what has been produced and why we think it is a good thing. Below are the slides I used (29 MB PDF) and in many of the images there are links that take you much deeper into the works created by those artists.

I think my talk was very well summarised in one tweet by @StevenPChang (who is a Senior Research Advisor from La Trobe University Library). He said that I was “lauding the value of intuition, ambiguity, and aesthetics in a world obsessed with metrics and efficiency.” That is exactly what I was trying to do.

air-coverUTS AIR Program for VALA short version

Great Videos from the Aspen Leadership Roundtable on Library Innovation (Pt. 2 of 2)

In this second part, I feature the talk by Michelle Ha Tucker, from IDEO. She deals with Library Innovation By Design.

Michelle’s talk is very easy to understand and quite inspiring for those thinking of taking this path. It is the path we’ve been on for some five or six years in developing a design mind-set with the aid of several design mentors and guides from UTS and elsewhere around Sydney. I’d agree with her observations and recommendations.

She described user centred design or design thinking as more of an approach than a process and then runs through a few different ways to describe the various stages that you tend to work through such as Inspiration > Ideation > Iteration > Scale, or Explore & Understand > Synthesize > Prototype > Refine & Scale, or simply moving from Research through a Concept Prototyping phase into Design. What I liked most is that she also said the best way to learn about it is to actually start doing it. There are a number of guides and toolkits around that can help. For example Design Thinking for Libraries, the Design With Intent Toolkit, and the (Social) Innovator’s Toolkit.

Michelle sees three reasons libraries should try design thinking:

  1. Libraries are the last great living lab (for designers?): we have dedicated spaces, a steady stream of users who can be observed and questioned on a day-to-day basis. And you can prototype, experiment and co-create with a diverse range of people.
  2. Librarians are great service designers. They really know their users best and the challenge is empowering front-line staff to create better solutions.
  3. Libraries are networked community infrastructure. We are at the centre of the communities strength and resilience connecting education and learning systems, public safety, economic development and civic engagement. MIchelle believes  the best solutions are systemic, complex and cross institutional, so with libraries at the centre of all of this, we’re well positioned to connect and make those partnerships deliver. The partnerships must be activated.

Michelle also recognised some tensions or barriers such as moving from:

  • just reflecting on data (historical benchmarking) to imagining a future or possibilities;
  • research answers questions to (design) research opens up new questions (be comfortable with ambiguity);
  • organisation structured around operational teams to an organisation driven by strategic teams; and
  • failure is avoided (at all costs!) to failure is invited.

Some resolutions or thought starters: hiring T-shaped people with one depth but a broad affinity with others and also X-shaped people who have developed expertise in two different areas (like art and science). Those people will lead changes in libraries.

On Innovation, Michelle said it was a verb (not a noun), both process and outcome, something that can be taught and about thinking big and starting small. It is not always new and she encourages taking something you see and contextualising it for your needs.

Finally she said that change happens at a large scale not top-down, but by empowering people on your front-line to act.

Great Videos from the Aspen Leadership Roundtable on Library Innovation (Pt. 1 of 2)

Over the last two days I’ve watched and noted a couple of great videos from a recent event in Aspen on Library Innovation. The two speakers were Michelle Ha Tucker from IDEO on Library Innovation By Design and John Seely Brown on Re-imagining Libraries for the C21st. I think they are both great talks and very relevant to what we are engaged in at UTS – designing a future library, its services and our future organisation. I recommend watching both videos, but for those too lazy to take notes, I’ve done that for you below, with a few of my own observations thrown in for good measure. So here we go, mind the step …

John Seely Brown (hereafter known as JSB) is talking about re-imagining public libraries in the C21st, but most of what he says can equally be applied within a university community.

He begins by saying that the challenge is not developing new ideas, but escaping old ideas. He says we face exponential advances in computational technologies that rapidly become almost irrelevant on what is now as short as an 18 month cycle. So how do we keep pace with that and plan a future library that can adapt quickly and transform as the eco-system changes?

I like the quote he uses from David Weinberger who says we live in a time of “Too big to know”. Knowledge is now in networks; topics have no boundaries and nobody agrees on anything. We must learn to deal with ambiguity in our daily lives and in learning.

We are moving from “stocks” (protected and fixed) to “flows” (tacit, created knowledge that flows and moves and this makes it much harder to capture).

Everyone now is embedded in vast networks with libraries already in or approaching a state of flux (certainly, we will be if we cannot adapt!).

So JSB sees libraries as:

  • becoming hubs of communities
  • making the most of digital technologies and creative media
  • mentoring, connecting, guiding and curating

These are all the things we are saying about our role here in the UTS community.

We must move from “knowing” to creating and making. And the building of CONTEXT is now more important than CONTENT (collections). He says the basic architecting of context can result in amazing things. Learning how to read context is now as important as reading content. I think it comes with the environment of almost everything now being instantly available. The context helps you to navigate to what is most relevant and authentic. It also gives meaning.

He also talks about “reverse mentorship” – learning from the young(er) and I think we’ve done a fair bit of that over the last several years here, by empowering relatively junior staff and by hiring current or recently graduated students. They helped those of us who are not so young and who were trained and qualified well before this networked world understand the potential of new technologies and how these networks work best.

The importance of play is also stressed as this helps us to push boundaries and with the invention of things within spaces of rules. Play also helps us to unlearn and this too is critical.

He talks of the critical nature of IMAGINATION  |  CURIOSITY  |  AGENCY (or having some effect in the world). These are very important for libraries to understand. I’ve been saying for some time now that libraries need to understand discovery as well as search (they are quite different) and now I am suggesting that a major role for all libraries is in encouraging curiosity. Agency is something we’ve only just started to understand, but I’ve seen enough hints and mentions to realise that it too is important for us.

Now there is also networked imagination and JSB cites the example of communities playing WoW in which teams from across the world share their actions and plans in imagined connections. He also cites the example of Harry Potter fans doing amazing things with civic imagination behind the stories and achieving results in the less developed world accordingly.

Henry Jenkins talks of a global collective that students are used to creating (in their networks) that is intertwined within a networked imagination and asks us whether we are prepared for this? If not, we risk becoming irrelevant. Transmedia is very important in all of this.

The key challenges for us:

  • Expanding the notion of literacy to include the visual, musical, procedural and cinematic 
  • Understanding that yesterday’s cutting edge is today’s dustbin – this is a big challenge for CAPEX and OPEX investment and also for staffing. He thinks we need a VISION that transforms and an evolving tool set.
  • How to get our institutions on board with all of that? This is perhaps the biggest challenge, so he offers the following advice:
    • “leverage the edge and let it pull you to the core” (don’t ask permission, take some risks & show results)
    • show what you can do by “spiral” (as opposed to perfect) development
    • gather metrics for you and others
    • show rapid learning & results
    • leverage open source and open
    • engage a wide collection of beta-participants (especially skeptics)
    • exploit cloud computing and social media
    • THINK LIBRARY AS PLATFORM and a network of our patrons within an ecosystem (this I think becomes infrastructure)

I’ll cover Michelle’s talk in the next Part.

11-808 & Conversations : Artist-in-Residence, 2014

11-808: Visualising the Library's Retrieval System (screen) 1

Elisa Lee and Adam Hinshaw partnered as the UTS Library Artist-in-Residence for 2014. Works from this Residency are now prominently displayed in the UTS Blake Library in Haymarket, Sydney.

Their brief was to provide an artistic interpretation of the UTS Library Retrieval System (LRS). Their resulting major work 11-808 is a live data visualisation that interprets the use of the LRS in real time. The purpose of the entirely underground system needed to be communicated to a wide audience, illustrating how the system was being used and demonstrating its value to the UTS community. The brief was extremely challenging, with a tight budget and deadline, but Elisa and Adam’s work has exceeded expectations.

The result is an elegant and poetic display of data that shows how this system is being used and, via the catalogue of library metadata, the dynamic movement of collections around the Library ecosystem. Through their artists’ perspective, beauty and the interaction of colour, Elisa and Adam have conveyed meaning and understanding to an extent that I think Joseph Albers* would have approved.

They also provided a playful sound installation, Conversations, that explores the random nature of the ways books are stored within the 11,808 steel bins of the LRS, arranged only by spine height. Here they have provided audible “conversations” between the books in selected bins.

Their work is artistically beautiful, superbly designed and technically very clever. Both works are eloquent in conveying meaning as well as exploring and highlighting the nature of this system. In doing so they have provided attractive and engaging works that appeal to the curiosity of Library users and that speak to them in very contemporary language.

* See also https://www.lib.uts.edu.au/news/304412/colour-on-concrete-exhibition

Academic libraries, design and creative futures

This is a presentation (slides and speaker’s notes) from a presentation that I gave last week. It was a public talk at a UTS Shapeshifters event on Creative Futures. I was humbled to be on stage with Paola Antonelli from MoMA and Professor Anthony Burke and Hael Kobyashi from UTS. Read more here:

http://newsroom.uts.edu.au/events/2013/12/shapeshifters-creative-futures

I should explain more about the 3rd slide. The things listed on that slide are often forgotten or discounted in the blind pursuit of efficiency or traditional KPIs. For libraries, these things (i.e. delight, surprise, engagement, serendipity and curiosity) are at least as important and should not be forgotten, dismissed or left until later.

The video of this talk is also now available:

James B. Hunt Jr. Library, NCSU

More rain garden from L4iPearl Immersion TheaterEmerging Issues CommonsRain Garden Reading LoungeFurnishingsDesign, spatial design
Spatial designMore yellow stairsRed front deskYellow stairs (long)Yellow stairsArt lounge
Entrance foyer (from the inside)Group study rooms overlooking quiet reading roomLounge with a viewYellow featuresGroup study with a viewColours
Sky pano, HuntSkyline terraceRain Garden from Oval ViewMusic roomEven more yellow stairsFunky furniture and spaces in the NextGen Learning Commons

Hunt Library, NCSU, a set on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
Here is a large set of images from the new James B. Hunt Jr Library at North Carolina State University (NCSU).
I was fortunate enough to attend the second Designing Libraries Conference that was held this year in the Hunt Library. It was massively over-subscribed by librarians from all over North America and various parts of the rest of the world, such is its reputation already.
There are some duplicates in this set (high & low res versions) because I had uploaded many in low res format whilst travelling. I’ve tried to add some explanatory text to the most significant images as well as titles and tags. If you’re confused or really interested in something just leave a comment in Flickr.
Please have a decent look as I think they’ve really done a brilliant job.
The library is a credit to the vision of Susan K. Nutter (Vice Provost and Director) and her staff, the architects Snøhetta & Clark Nexsen and the design team.

And for those of you too lazy to look through all those images on Flickr, here is a slide show set to the Cillo remix of Bon Iver’s Calgary:

A comment on my work blog asked for information about how spaces in the Hunt Library (or our own future library) relate to teaching, learning and research strategies. Rather than just reply directly I thought I would put some additional information in this blog post along those lines. Thanks to my colleagues Belinda, Sally and Beth who provided comment and suggestions on all of this. So here it is, mind the step …

One of the most impressive aspects of the Hunt Library is how it has been planned with the broader university mission in mind, and encapsulates the aspirations of NCSU. As a research-intensive, technology University, NCSU’s mission and goal statement is not so different to ours at UTS:

As a research-extensive land-grant university, North Carolina State University is dedicated to excellent teaching, the creation and application of knowledge, and engagement with public and private partners. By uniting our strength in science and technology with a commitment to excellence in a comprehensive range of disciplines, NC State promotes an integrated approach to problem solving that transforms lives and provides leadership for social, economic, and technological development across North Carolina and around the world.

Its aspirational vision statement is also similar to ours:

NC State University will emerge as a preeminent technological research university recognized around the globe for its innovative education and research addressing the grand challenges of society.

As the gateway to knowledge for NCSU and its partners, the NCSU’s libraries play an important role in achieving this vision.

Hunt Library is one of two main libraries on campus, and is described as the face of NCSU in the 21st century, a space that expands the frontiers of learning and research. To enhance innovative learning and teaching practices, Hunt provides a place for students to connect to peers, faculty and researchers across disciplines, work with tools that erase distance and promote collaboration, access world-class research collections, showcase their work in digital and physical displays, and explore new technologies that encourage and enable the creation of games, films and music, and working with “big data”, 3D models or prototypes. It is also a space designed to inspire and elevate; encouraging creativity, curiosity and the pursuit of new knowledge through the quality of the building’s design and finish, the ubiquity of accessible technology, the thoughtful inclusion of collections, scholarly reading rooms and exhibition spaces throughout the building, and a program of cultural events and displays.

For other members of the NCSU community, including faculty, researchers and industry partners, purpose-designed, technology-enriched spaces enhance their teaching, research and scholarly activities in line with the NCSU vision to be a leading technological research university and an innovation centre for their region driving economic and social benefits.

These are achievements we think our future library should aspire to in order to support our own strategies for learning and research.

Fortunately we have a strong basis to build a library that furthers the UTS vision to be a world-leading university of technology and provides a competitive advantage for UTS. Like Hunt Library, our Library Retrieval System (LRS), will free library space from housing our entire collection of print material, enabling expanded spaces for a full range of scholarly activities, while keeping the collection easily accessible. Looking to the successful example of Hunt, the types of spaces we will provide should include:

  • a variety of individual and group study spaces from quiet individual study to group study spaces that account for different learning needs and individual preferences;
  • ample power, data and wifi to cater for current and future technology;
  • incubator spaces for exploring new technologies;
  • digital media editing and production facilities;
  • sophisticated areas for creating simulations and virtual environments;
  • gaming spaces for the scholarly study of games;
  • panoramic (digital) displays to showcase academic and student work;
  • makerspaces for model making; and
  • spaces for special collections and exhibitions that provide exposure to culture and inspiration.

Importantly and in addition to the spaces and technologies in their libraries, both NCSU and UTS libraries provide services that enable the success of their students and support researchers including:

  • improved information discovery through online catalogue search and discovery tools;
  • online reference, interlibrary loan, access to 7.2 million shared books available on request through Bonus+;
  • open and closed reserve services for all required textbooks and 24 hour access to electronic reserves;
  • online guides to library resources for all faculties;
  • lending services for technologies such as laptops, tablets and e-readers;
  • Copyright and eScholarship services, collaborating with scholars on digital publications, our digital repository, IP/Copyright issues and our Open Access press – UTS ePress;
  • extensive data support services providing advice (via training sessions and consultations) on data management planning, discovery, description, sharing and preservation;
  • research support services from specialist librarians who have experience in searching for resources in particular fields;
  • training and instructional support, from literature review to navigating subject specific databases and also advice on how to find, use and attribute unrestricted resources such as images, film and media; and
  • tailored information literacy programs from orienting new students to expert researchers, – including workshops, video tutorials or games such as treasure or scavenger hunts.

We see that a future library like Hunt can create a new heart for our redeveloped campus that helps form a hub of creative collaboration between students, academic staff, researchers and industry partners. Just as Hunt Library has done, our future library could become the University’s intellectual, cultural and social centre. The future library should promote learning and knowledge creation, enable experimentation, support innovative projects and partnerships and showcase UTS research and scholarship, providing inspiration for our current and future students. It should complement other campus redevelopment projects that breathe life into the aspirations of our University.