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The future of the undergraduate library:
Asking questions with too many answers and too many opportunities
By John E. Ingram, Senior Associate Dean of University Libraries and Director for Collection Services, University of Florida, Gainesville, USA

The University of Florida has 51,000 students, of whom three quarters are undergraduates, about 4,000 teaching staff and nine libraries. Library West, the humanities and social sciences graduate library, has been completely redone, so successfully that student users call it “Club West.” But what of the needs of others?

Following a library report in late 2006 on the future of the library, four task forces were formed. One task force, which I head, focuses on the future of the undergraduate library. All stakeholders are represented, including undergraduates and student government.

The initial fact-finding stage included a LibQual survey and will expand into focus groups not only of current undergraduates but also of high school students — the UF undergraduates of the future.

Academic libraries must continue to ask questions, and today’s answers, while effective, will seldom provide constancy and permanence for the future.

Among questions the task force is asking itself are:

• How have other ARL institutions addressed the specific needs of their undergraduate populations?
• What does the LibQual process provide, if anything, that addresses undergraduates' specific needs?
• What does UF need to do to enhance access to collections, to facilities, to services for undergrads?
• What are we doing that no longer appears to have meaningful use to undergrads?
• What is the level of effectiveness of “virtual” resources in the learning process?
• What is or is not online and what are realistic expectations of providing it?

Initial findings include:

• No matter what level of resources — electronic especially — might be
• Undergraduates recognize that perhaps what is needed is better preparation in how to use what is already available.
• If more material is added, it will only be used if it is digital.
• Space within the library remains a paramount desideratum — not for checking email and not only for social interaction and coffee, but for individual “pods of peace and quiet,” for contemplative space that a student can call her or his own for at least an hour.

Whatever the final conclusions of the task force, it is clear that academic libraries must continue to ask questions, and today’s answers, while effective, will seldom provide constancy and permanence for the future.

www.ufl.edu/libraries