Rethinking Space and Services – Academic Libraries as Learning Hubs #ECIL2025

 Christine Gläser from Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, Germany, gave an invited talk on learning spaces and information literacy. This is Christine's third ECIL conference, and she hopes to present a development of her work. In common with the theme of the conference, Christine asked Copilot (an AI application) to define a learning hub, which it defined as "a dedicated space designed to support learning, collaboration and academic success. It goes beyond traditional library services by integrating various forms of academic support in one location". Christine has an interest in the impact of digitisation on academic libraries, the role of libraries to build digital and information literacy, the design of learning spaces to meet user needs and higher education library transformations. Learning spaces can be defined as spaces that promote social learning, and spaces that enable, inspire and stimulate learning. In higher education, libraries are commonly conceived as learning spaces, and are drivers for change in learning space design. Students need a greater number of, and more diverse learning spaces, which has driven the development of a variety of learning space designs. This mirrors the shift from "teaching" to "learning" in universities, and the need for self-study environments for independent learning. Students need technical infrastructure, different seating options and a mix of collaborative and silent study options. Formal learning environments in universities are also now being developed, with the provision of flexible and adaptable formal spaces that support creativity and active learning.

The concept of information literacy is broadening with the proliferation of new aspects, for example, media and information literacy, digital literacy, data and AI Literacy, news literacy, metaliteracy, transliteracy, multimodal literacy etc. This has led to the development of models for "future skills". Hybrid learning environments take into account online and offline, physical and digital, formal and informal, collaborative and individual learning. Hybrid spaces are very diverse, and furniture in these spaces tends to be lightweight and flexible, easy to move. Hybrid spaces are also technologically rich and allow learners to access private soundproofed spaces to engage with online lectures and meetings. Christine showed a lot of pictures of hybrid and flexible spaces at German universities. There is a transformation taking place from the teaching library to a learning library, to a library that is concerned with both teaching and learning. This has led to three dimensions of transformation: 1) learning content around digital and academic literacies and future skills. 2) the design of the learning process including the professionalisation of educational concepts and staff and digital and hybrid learning. The library can be thought of as a "third teacher" supporting information literacy, digital learning and active and hybrid learning. Librarians must see the library space as a service for students; it must be flexible and adaptable.

At HAW Hamburg, they have transformed the academic branch library into a learning centre. Participation of students was key to the redesign of the space and engaging with user-centred design. This was done through workshops, co-creation activities, observations, interviews, mapping and cultural probes to really understand the needs of users. They uncovered the concept of "together alone", that students wanted to avoid distractions and have a calm environment. This led to a space design that had multiple and diverse learning spaces, which were rich with IT and media equipment. 

Photo: Christine's slide showing some learning spaces (Pam McKinney)