Learning Spaces in EDUCAUSE Quarterly

photo by Alice Wasielewski
A recent special issue on learning spaces of Educause Quarterly contained a photo of the Information Commons at the University of Kentucky taken by yours truly (at the bottom of the page second from right if you click on the link).

The Information Commons at UK is a great place for students, and I'm glad that I had the opportunity to be a part of it. At my current job at Eastern Kentucky University, we are working on our own great new space for students, The Noel Studio for Academic Creativity. Construction is beginning soon!

What a Huge Hubbub at Spring KLA!

photo by Shawn Livingston
I really enjoyed presenting a mini-session with Stacey Greenwell about the University of Kentucky's annual freshmen event at this year's KLA spring conference.

"What a Huge Hubbub: Welcoming students to the library by having a party!" introduced our audience to the ins and outs of holding an enormous library event as part of freshmen orientation week. UK Libraries' "Hubbub" attracted about 400 students in its first year in 2007 and doubled to nearly 800 in 2008. That makes for an event that is wonderful publicity for the library but also takes a great deal of preparation and hard work from lots of library employee volunteers.

The best part of our presentation, for me, was putting a lei around everyone's neck as they entered, just like we did at our freshmen event. Thanks to Stacey for presenting again with me this year!

American Libraries Direct

The Hub @ WT's got some national attention this week, appearing in the American Library Association's e-publication, American Libraries Direct.

A huge Hubbub

On August 25, we had our 2nd annual "Hubbub," a party in the Hub for our new freshmen students to introduce them to the library and the Info Commons. Although I'd thought our first Hubbub was pretty great, this year's seemed like a whole different league of fun. It was almost twice the size of our first Hubbub, with about 700 students and more activities for them to do.

One of our great new activities for this year was a photo booth. Beth Kraemer set up a green screen and Photoshopped students (and faculty/staff) wearing funny hats and holding props onto interesting backgrounds. We showed these on our flat-screen TVs and some of our Video Windows, as well as making a flickr set of them.




Our remaining Video Windows were used for video games. We also had balloon animals, makeovers, a caricature artist, palm reading (had to definitely have this again as it was our surprise last-minute hit from last year), and two tarot card readers. We had pizza and drinks. I think our surprise hit this year was the board games. Students sat on the floor and played Monopoly and other retro board games enthusiastically.

A small touch that I think went over well was putting leis over the heads of attendees as they walked in. Nothing says "party" like wearing a lei. The balloon hats that the balloon artist made also added to the festivities.

photo credit Alice Wasielewski

As for lessons learned for next year:

Ordering more pizza and drinks and having the cups poured ahead of time. Not only did we have many more students eating, but we switched vendors, and the quality of the food was better this year, so students were taking more.

Having a longer Hubbub. We had the prize drawing at 7:15, which seemed too early since all the activities were still going strong, but by the time it was over at 7:45 the library closing announcement was coming over the P.A. Maybe next year we could have a 3-hour Hubbub.

It's only September, but I already feel excited about our Hubbub 2009.

photo credit Kopana Terry