ATG Interviews Steven J. Bell — Part 2 Associate University Librarian for Research and Instruction Services, Temple University Charles Library by Donald T. Hawkins (Freelance Conference Blogger and Editor) <dthawkins@verizon.net>
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hen you open up the morning paper and the lead story on the front page is about the opening of a new university library,1 you know something big is happening. By coincidence, that very same day, I went to Temple University, home of the new Charles Library, to interview Steven Bell. In this issue you will find part two of my interview with Steven. Part one can be found in ATG v.32#2 April 2020. The full interview is also available online at https:// against-the-grain.com/2020/04/v32-2atg-interviews-steven-j-bell/. — DTH DTH: Many public libraries are reinventing themselves and becoming community centers. They have makerspaces, outreach programs, meeting rooms, etc. for the community. Is the same thing happening in the academic world? SJB: I believe so. I think that many academic libraries see that they have a community mission as well. We are not putting up walls and gates to keep the community out. Rather, we are doing those kinds of things for the people who are affiliated with our university. You must keep in mind that although the College of Engineering might have a makerspace and the College of Communications might have a great video production studio, you cannot use those unless you are a student in those schools. So it is up to the library to be the place on campus that provides those kinds of facilities for the entire community much like a public library might provide those kinds of space for everyone in the community. Not everyone has access to a private makerspace, so we see that as being very important to our mission,
Against the Grain / June 2020
and we have all of those things. We have extensive community programming, such as lecture series or musical series that are open to everybody that wants to come. We also have our Loretta C. Duckworth Scholars Studio, a digital scholarship center for faculty and students from across the university who want to learn how to use digital scholarship techniques, and we have expertise in how to do that. We have a virtual reality and visualization studio in the library for any student who wants to learn how to use those technologies and tools. So if you are a student in the Tyler School of Art that wants to learn how to use virtual reality for your art, you can do that at the TU library. Plus, we have a makerspace that has 20 3D printers in it. We already have humanities faculty coming in and showing their students how to use makerspace technology to create 3D replicas of ancient artifacts. DTH: Some of the public libraries are getting into areas that an academic library would not. I am thinking of the Fayetteville, NY Public Library that has sewing or woodworking classes as well as 3D printers (which are the most popular).2 I don’t see that coming into academic libraries. SJB: Probably not. The reason we would not do that is because we probably have that expertise in other areas. So our Tyler School of Art,
for example, has extensive resources for people who want to learn how to do woodworking, sewing, fashion design and those sorts of things. It would not surprise me if at some point our Scholar’s Studio might bring in something like that. It is really up to what people want; if students said, “We want to start a sewing club and need a place to put our sewing machines,” we would provide that. A couple of years ago, students came to us from our Gaming Club and said, “We need a place on campus where we can have our monthly meeting and gaming tournaments, and we created a “Gaming Den” in the library; our Scholar’s Studio will be where all the gaming takes place. I should mention that TU Library, being in a highly densely populated urban area, does collaborate with the Free Library of Philadelphia (FLP) which has five branches in North Philadelphia that are somewhat near to our campus (the closest one is a mile away). For example, we held a “sign up for a library card” event here so our students and faculty could get an FLP library card. That is very valuable for our students and faculty because, for example, we do not collect any audio books. We therefore encourage our students and faculty to get a FLP card because they have extensive audio book collections. We asked our FLP colleagues if they would mind if we directed our students and faculty to sign up for an FLP card, and they said, “Tell as many people as you can!” DTH: Do they have to be Philadelphia residents? SJB: The state is moving toward a “state library card” to reduce barriers between counties. Even though I am a Montgomery County resident, there are some things I can get from FLP when I show my local library card because they have cooperative agreements between the counties. But the main thing is that any student affiliated with TU can get an FLP card. We collaborate with the FLP branches in our area and talk together about what kinds of offerings to have. In this region of the city, the libraries do not have makerspaces and sewing clubs like continued on page 46
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