Field Trip to Children’s Library in Palo Alto, May 20, 2008 

 

I visited Palo Alto Children’s Library with other members of the Art library team. It was a great chance for me to observe many examples of user-centered design and reflect some of my ideas on the art library project.

First thing I noticed even before going into the library was a placard hanging next to the entrance “catch a reading bug.” The drawing of the reading bugs was cute and vivid and I thought it could attract children’s curiosity.  

  

Inside the library, I found myself being excited and comfortable at the same time thanks to the atmosphere of the library. The walls and pillars were bright and colorful. And there were many character figures and dolls on the top of each stack and in every reading space. I think the tangible figures help children have more imagination and it can be a good way to motivate them to wonder about stories in the books. Also I could see that the library put a lot of efforts to offer its users interesting and motivational visual effect such as the character book drop wall, huge wall-painting in the tree reading room, and art exhibition in the reading area.

    

Although every visual effect was great, I liked the art exhibition in reading area the most. There were several art pieces such as paintings, origami, and craft work of children on the top of the magazine stacks. The art pieces done by children were making the reading space cozy and I thought children can even get creative ideas from the art work (peer influence). According to this example, our team plans to have more student art pieces in the art library to put more artistic atmosphere there. Also students can get influenced or new ideas from other students’ work, too. 

 

In addition, I liked their user friendly design of furniture in the library. The chairs and stacks were pretty low, so children can reach books even on the higher stack.

   

Although their main target audience is children, the library also needs to care about parents, mainly mothers, too. I found that it is pretty hard to satisfy various kinds of target audience in any learning space. In children’s library case, they are very cautious about caring both parties, children and mothers. For children, they provide lower computer desks for browsing and even multicolor keyboard computers for children to design their own animal character. For mothers, there are also high computer racks and community news section, so parents can get information about events happening in the library and the neighborhood as well. Also, the express check out area was impressive, too since they had props to help children reach the machines.

  

Although the library did a good job to meet needs of their audience, I thought it would be better for them to have cushions or comfortable chairs in the “New Reader’s Nook,” which is a reading area for younger kids who just started reading. They didn’t have any chairs in the room even though the atmosphere there was comfortable and the light was so great for reading. Maybe the younger kids read books on the floor more often than on the chairs, but more comfortable seats seemed to be needed. Also, they had only one multicolor - keyboard computer for the activity, designing their own animal character, but many children wanted to try that program one after another. It would be better if they have more of that program installed in more computers for the crowded time.  

 

Dan - I'm glad to hear about your trip there.  I also like how you have pointed out the many competing needs of the designers for various audiences of parents and kids at different levels.  I wonder for the Art library project how you can acknowledge the ery different starting points of university faculty and first year undergraduate students.  Can a space support interactions between experts and novices in ways like the Children's library does?

 

Field Trip to East Asia Library May, 21, 2008 

 

It is shame on me that I have not been to the East Asia library in Meyer although I oftentimes study on the first floor of the building. East Asia library is on the fourth floor of Meyer, and you can get to the library only by elevator. The first impression I got about the library was it is more like a work space for librarians than a study or reading area for students. There are a couple of reasons I felt like that in the library. First of all, the half of place was staff office and there was few (only two) study and reading area for students. However, those two areas were not even efficiently used for students since the reading area near the loan desk was so noisy because librarians talked each other quite loud and often.

   

And there were two open partitions for librarians right next to the reading desks. Even worse, there were many books piled up on the desks, so it was impossible for students to use the space for studying or reading. The other study area was quiet and had good natural light for reading, but the space was used for meeting of librarians. The space was booked from 2pm to 3 pm for the meeting, but it (pretty loud one) continued till around 4 pm. Maybe this is why I only saw two or three students studying and more than ten librarians working there.

After I looked around the fourth floor, I noticed that there were not many books or references there. And I asked one of the librarians why, and he said the fourth floor was only for current references and magazines, and books were in the Main stack where I can reach only by elevator. It was very inconvenient to move around the library by elevator. And even the fourth floor, I could get there only by elevator from the first. I went downstairs by elevator to see how the main stacks look like, and the main stack was really dark and the air was very stuffy. Not surprisingly, I found only one student roaming around Japanese Manga section and saw five “more” librarians sorting books there. The main stack was horrifying and I couldn’t imagine reading any book in that kind of “bunker-like” space.

 

Although the East Asia library didn’t reach my expectation at all in term of providing nice learning space to students, I like its atmosphere since it had many Asian art pieces all around such as Chinese porcelains, paintings from Japan, and Korean calligraphy. And there was a huge glass ceiling in the middle of the library, so it was offering good natural light and bright atmosphere to the space (only the fourth floor). Also I like the Asian art posters on the partition for the multimedia space. Although I am not sure how many students come and see the posters there, it was a good way to inform upcoming events to students who are interested in Asian culture. 

    

 

Dan - These are some nice reflections here.  I especially like how you have pointed out the distinctions between nice artifacts and the access to books which is what you expected when coming to the East Asian Library.  It seems there are many many things that you could try in the Art Library that could leverage what works for you and what doesn't in the East Asia Art Library.

 

Free Write #2

 

What have you learned in graduate school? How do you know?

 

*Critical thinking

In fact, students in my home country, South Korea, were not highly expected to think analytically when I was in K-12 system. (I think they stress critical thinking in learning now, though.) However, professors in Stanford expect students to think critically and express their ideas in class as much as possible. At first I came to Stanford, that was the biggest culture shock I have ever had in formal learning settings, and I had a difficult time dealing with the new educational way. (Moreover, I had to go through that mental adjustment in English, which is not my mother tongue.) Fortunately, I feel much more comfortable now to think and read in critical ways and speak up if I have a different opinion. I guess I have naturally adapted myself to the new circumstances.

 

 

Evelyn: I agree. In Asian countries, students usually accept ideas instead of challenging them. But in the states, not only in peers, but also between professors and students, many debates are going on. Students are asked to present different perspectives.  Because of this attribute of teaching method, I feel like being respected to be a student here.  Everyone is unique!  

 

 

Free Write #1

 

What are your goals for graduate school?

I would like to prepare myself to be a good teacher who teaches the Korean language and culture.

Through LDT program, I want to learn how to combine innovative technologies with language learning.

After the program, I might stay in the States or go back to Korea and teach students who are interested in learning Korean with various learning materials and curricular.

 

What are your goals for this class?

First of all, I want to learn how different designs of spaces affect people and their learning.

I have not taken any design class at Stanford yet, and I think this class can help me have creative perspectives on learning to be more interesting and meaningful experience.

 

How do you see them intersecting?

I am excited to apply what I have learned from other classes to innovative ideas for improving current designs of learning spaces.

Also, when I have the opportunity to teach my own students after LDT program, I hope I can use my knowledge from this class to design my future classrooms for the students to learn their new language with more fun.  

 

Dan Thanks Lin.  I hope that you can apply some of the things that we do here to your classroom in Korea.  Going forward in this class,  I encourage you to keep a log of all the specific ideas that you see in other spaces that might be valuable for making your own classroom  work well for you.

 

Ashley Thanks for posting on my page! I am really excited to hear that you will be teaching, too. This class will definitely come in handy for both of us!  I'm looking forward to working with you this quarter!

 

Annie A Hi Lin, That's great that you will be teaching after you graduate.  I hope you will learn plenty about the design process and various learning styles, so that you can use those skills in creating the classroom environment and your teaching plans.  I think Dan's idea of maintaining a log of classroom-centered design solutions would be a great way to keep your learnings focused.   It's been amazing to me how quickly I can forget key insights from classes I took only a year ago.