Tutoring and Peer Support Students benefit from the availability of tutors in their preferred productivity spaces. Learning commons frequently feature student tutors, or staff tutors, or a mix of the two. Hours of service are gradually lengthening into the evening when students are most in need of assistance. Key skills required in writing, math, computing, and foundation courses are supported. The University of Massachusetts Amherst Learning Commons features peer tutors who are available over extended hours. http://www.umass.edu/learningcommons/ Full-time staff and peer tutors have offices in the Weigle Commons at the University of Pennsylvania’s Van Pelt-Dietrich Library. http://wic.library.upenn.edu/ The Learning Commons at University of Guelph’s McLaughlin Library “offers a wide range of peer helper programs, with students helping students through writing assistance, study workshops, supported learning group sessions, and one-on-one teaching of IT skills.” http://www.learningcommons.uoguelph.ca/contact_us.html Cafés and Refreshment Libraries have been inspired by the refreshment centers in commercial bookstores. Today most libraries have relaxed food-and-drink rules to permit refreshment throughout all or most areas of library space. Ready access to good food and drink serves to keep constituents in libraries for long stretches of time, and forms a cornerstone of most new learning spaces. The café at Georgia Tech Library has helped to double library attendance. At certain times of the day, the café bristles with laptops and flipcharts that are dragged in from nearby study areas, and serves as a communing ground for students and faculty. http://librarycommons.gatech.edu/lec/jazzmans.php Bookends Café in the Parks Library of Iowa State University is an anchor for the Learning Connections Center, and “immensely popular” with students. The extensive Friedman Café occupies a substantial footprint of the Brown University Friedman Study Center, offering a mix of standard and relaxed seating, and with vending machines available to customers when the café closes. http://www.brown.edu/Student_Services/Food_Services/eateries/friedman.php RLI 264 15 Learning and Research Spaces in ARL Libraries: Snapshots of Installations and Experiments ( C O N T I N U E D ) JUNE 2009 RESEARCH LIBRARY ISSUES: A BIMONTHLY REPORT FROM ARL, CNI, AND SPARC
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