Differences in Purpose
- Stacks no longer sit right at the entrance.
- The layout is far more open
- An explosion in number of dedicated group study rooms. (3 -> 19).
- Campbell contains the Performing Arts Collection, which Savitz did not hold.
- The microform area of Savitz dwarfs that in its postdecessor's.
- Where Savitz had typewriters, Campbell has computers.
Stacks farther from entrance ... Layout more open ... Increase in group study rooms ...
These three are all caused by the same source: a change in culture toward collaboration.Back in the 80s and before the trend was that students would work individually, but as the culture of the university shifted toward collaboration and group projects and team-based assignments so too did the use of the library. This gives an answer to why stacks no longer sit at the very entrance: people are not coming in for the stacks. The stacks have been bumped up a couple floors to grant users easier access to work areas, lounges, study rooms, and the like. The layout is more open to accommodate and encourage visitors to explore the library with their groupmates to find a good spot to work (and to manage the noise level of multiple groups working together in close proximity). The dramatic increase in group study rooms (633% increase) and floor space dedicated to noisy work areas are self-explanatory: more people looking to use group work spaces calls for more group work spaces for people to use. As Davis quipped in our interview: "[back then] everyone was whispering. Don't get much whispering in here now"I can see the shift ... it's more study groups now whereas before it was a lot of individual study and research as opposed to group study and research. Before it was, like, you had a table and one person and it would be full of whatever, and now it's like five people ... shuffling papers back and forth.
[Regarding the number of people coming to the library], I think it's evened out a little bit more because it did drop off a little bit before we had more group study spaces and more study rooms, then that picked it back up ... Group study is really what people come to the library for.
(Davis, 2019)
Campbell collects the Performing Arts Collection
The Performing Arts Collection (PAC) takes up a significant portion of Campbell's second floor, but is nowhere to be seen in Savitz. This is because it never was in Savitz -- it was in Wilson Hall as the Music Library. The Music Library at Wilson Hall was combined with Rowan Department of Theatre and Dance's collection and moved into Campbell in the 2015-16 school year. Because the Music Library was located in Wilson, an academic building, access to the collection was restricted at late hours and on weekends which is detrimental to a student body that works increasingly during those hours (Davis, 2019). By moving the Music Library into Campbell its open hours increased to fit the needs of its users; the Theatre and Dance department's collection was added with it for similar reasons.What surprised me the most about learning about this during the interview with Davis was learning I knew this already. In a stroke of serendipity, I remembered that I, solely from curiosity, was in attendance of the dedication ceremony of the PAC in Campbell Library back in my freshman year. I at the time did not understand what the event was celebrating, but now looking back, I understand the significance of the event and am delighted by the then-random action that I now get to look back on as participating in history.
Campbell downgraded its microform service ... Traded typewriters for computers ...
These are caused by a cultural shift towards new technologies. The library does not have typewriters anymore because no one uses typewriters anymore. It was a gradual shift, but eventually we got there, Davis told me:When we first came over [to Campbell] we still had some typewriters. Well, you had people who really, really wanted typewriters; we were trying to ween them off of them, so we would take a typewriter away a year ... and then we had the one that just had to stay because somebody always wanted a typewriter, and then finally it was just like ... we have a computer lab and electronic reference. ... It was older students who were like "On no, I have to use a typewriter". Now everybody's comfortable with computers.
An expected journey (surely very few people reading this article are surprised to learn the Rowan University Library does not have typewriters available to use), but certainly a journey to have undertaken.
A similar journey occurred with the library's microform -- reduced demand for a service reduces space dedicated to that service, especially in this place full of groups calling for workspace. The appeal of microform is that it is an inexpensive, dense, stable medium to store information. However, these advantages also apply to digital archives, which do not suffer from such drawbacks as requiring specialist facilities or special training to use (Deakin.edu.au, 2019). Digital archives also largely can be accessed anywhere, something a physical medium cannot contend with. Due to the increased ease and size of digital databases, the use of microform fell out of favor; the entirety of Campbell's microform services is a single machine tucked away in a nook on the second floor.
The library has been changed by the outside culture. But the library is not solely a receiver of influence -- it influences right back. How have the changes in the library influenced the greater culture on campus?