Primary tabs
You don't need to be an ALA Member to purchase from the ALA Store, but you'll be asked to create an online account/profile during the checkout to proceed. This Web Account is for both Members and non-Members. Note that your ALA Member discount will be applied at the final step of the checkout process.
If you are Tax-Exempt, please verify that your account is currently set up as exempt before placing your order, as our new fulfillment center will need current documentation. Learn how to verify here.
- Description
- Table of Contents
- About the authors
- Reviews
Can we create library environments that inspire people to be more creative, collaborative, reflective, or engaged? That is the driving question of this imaginative book. Brian Mathews (Virginia Tech Libraries) weaves elements together from architecture, psychology, retail, neuroscience, and many other disciplines in this narrative about the evolution of library buildings. Re-conceptualizing libraries as showrooms, studios, salons, and boutiques, some new directions are outlined for discussion about the future. The text encourages you and your team to look beyond the functional value of your facility, and to consider how libraries can also serve as an experimental landscape that helps foster well being and personal growth.
Featuring drawings and renderings from interior designer Leigh Ann Soistmann, Encoding Space is ideal for librarians and campus administrators looking to spark their creative thinking and push strategic conversations about the purpose, value, and future of library buildings.
PROLOGUE: What's the Building Trying to Tell Us?
THE GUIDING QUESTIONS
THE IMPORTANCE OF PLACE
Swayed By Our Surroundings
What Makes A Space A Place?
From Dichotomy To Ecology
Knowledge Spillovers
Purpose = Elevate
Attachment
How Does This Space Make You Feel?
When A Chair Is More Than A Place To Sit
Space Imparts Action
Programmable Space
RETAIL (EXCHANGE)
Persuasive Spaces
The Most Important Thing
Vocabulary
Merchandising
Visual Cues
The Soul Of A Space
Audit Your Atmosphere
Color
A Point Of View
Nurturing The Scholarly Impulse
Is It What You Thought It Would Be?
Primed For Success
Store-Within-A-Store
Away From The Desk
Omni Channel
Curating Behaviors
Personalization
Responsive Space
DESIGN CONCEPTS
Knowledge Showrooms
Knowledge Studios
Knowledge Boutiques
Knowledge Salons
ENCODING ENVIRONMENTS
Individual Effects
Communal Effects
Empowerment
But Can We Encode?
CONCEPTUAL TRANSITIONS
Transition #1: From Third Place To Magnet Place
Transition #2: From Commons To Community
Elements of Community
Dwelling
Transition #3: From Transactions To Transformations
The Danger Of Being Service-Oriented
Transition #4: From User Centered To Learner Centered
Build It and They Will Come, So What?
COMPLEX ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS
Dynamic > Static
You Can't Study Just One Bee
Play
Instruments of Innovation
A Great Big Box Of Parts
WELL-BEING
Heart
Hope
Brain
RADICAL COLLABORATION: A Manifesto
About the Authors
"Given the breadth of its research and the accessibility of its writing, Encoding Space should be required reading for librarians and library administrators."
— Portal: Libraries and the Academy
"[R]eading this book and understanding the basic concepts proposed is well worth consideration for any library and librarian as we move forward, deeper into the 21st century."
— Journal of Learning Spaces