Most school libraries have little funding for books, much less for redecorating. So what can a librarian do to give his or her library a makeover? This article presents a few cost-effective ways to renovate in just a few weeks. These tips include the use of colors, rearrangement of furnitures, signages, and more.

The opportunity to design a learning space does not come along often. Usually, it involves the construction of a new building or the complete remodel of an old one, and both of these require a lot of money. Smaller projects, such as renovation of a single room or a defined space, can be the best way to test ideas and establish a model for…

Des Moines is an urban community located in the heart of Iowa. Des Moines Public Schools serves 32,000 students in a system with 62 buildings, including Central Campus--a Regional Academy. Central Campus is housed in four buildings, including the main campus at 1800 Grand located on the western edge of downtown Des Moines. As a regional academy,…

This qualitative case study approaches early childhood education and care practices from a socio-spatial point of view. One Finnish daycare group for one- to three-year-olds participated in the study. The ethnographic observations from the practices are analyzed together with the ECE practitioners' audio-recorded team meetings and video-elicited…

Colleges are looking for ways to cut costs, and most students now own laptops. As a result, many campus technology leaders are taking a hard look at those brightly lit rooms with rows of networked computers, which cost hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to maintain. More than 11% of colleges and universities are phasing out computer labs or…

At Santa Clara University (SCU), Vice Provost for Information Services and CIO Ron Danielson led the design and construction of the campus's 194,251-square-foot Harrington Learning Commons, Sobrato Technology Center, and Orradre Library, a single building opened in March 2008. Danielson and his team were responsible for describing design goals,…

The paper presents findings from 560 interviews with undergraduates on 10 campuses distributed across the US, as part of Project Information Literacy (PIL). Overall, the findings suggest that students use a "less is more" approach to manage and control all of the IT devices and information systems available to them while they are in the…

It can be difficult for any customer service environment to keep up with the whirlwind pace of change in today's technology-centric world. The challenge can be particularly daunting in an institutional setting accustomed to deliberative, consensus-driven change. The Office of the Registrar at Indiana University Bloomington (IUB) has a…

Teachers' lounges are often thought as places that breed negativity. This two-year ethnography conducted in the United States explored teachers' interactions within teachers' lounges and congregational spaces. This article discusses that an important occurrence in these spaces, professional knowledge sharing, took place instead of perpetual…

Sixth Form Colleges (along with the general Further Education sector) in England and Wales have of late begun to appoint new chaplains and to set aside space for quiet, prayer and reflection. This article explores this phenomenon as exhibited by three colleges in the English Midlands, utilising spatial theory and the sociology of…

Moving a library collection is no easy feat. The librarian will need time, energy, and plenty of help to accomplish this enormous job. Although seldom easy or painless, the job can be simplified if the librarian and her staff plan carefully, prepare the collection, and organize the move. This article describes the planning, preparation and…

When "The Chronicle" asked college employees what they value about their jobs, they put the physical environment in which they work at the top of the list. They said they were concerned not only that their spaces met their needs but also that their campuses had a pleasing appearance. That's no surprise to Thomas G. Contos, university architect at…

The University of Dayton (UD) used a multi-method research approach to evaluate current space use in the library. A general campus survey on study spaces, online library surveys, a week-long video study, and data from the "National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE)" were examined to understand student choices in library usage. Results…

Research Findings: Research on early literacy development within the family focuses primarily on parent-child interactions as they use literacy materials, typically books. However, features of the home environment and organization of family life, which provide the framework within which these interactions occur, are rarely investigated. These…

This study explored how high school students negotiate school spaces beyond the classroom within a broader context of citizenship education and identity construction. Using visual hermeneutics, researchers worked over three years with students and staff in a large, diverse, urban, public high school. Through student-produced photographs of school…