英文原文：
Modeling Your College Library after a Commercial Bookstore? The Hong Kong Design Institute Library Experience
Patrick Lo, Dickson K. W. Chiu amp; Wilson Chu
Abstract
The Hong Kong Design Institute (HKDI) is a leading design education institute in Hong Kong under the Vocational Training Council (VTC) group. Opened in September 2010, the HKDI Learning Resources Centre is a specialist library for the study of art and design. The mission of the HKDI Library is to support and promote the academic goals of the Institute, i.e., to prepare the students for professional careers; emphasize learning through a creative and interactive environment; meanwhile uphold a positively relaxing, and yet inviting environment that is very much similar to a commercial bookstore. In order to accomplish this, the HKDI Library aims to serve as a user-centered library for creative learning—by providing an important place for both students and faculty to actively engage in study, research, as well as socializing. Through a series of small focus group interviews with both students and faculty staff at the HKDI, the study investigates how influential the library environment could be in fostering studentsrsquo; learning and other social activities under a creative environment.
KEYWORDS: college library, modern design, learning commons, interactive environment, user interview
INTRODUCTION
It is widely acknowledged that libraries are regarded as educational and informational, while bookstores are seen as recreational and commercial. Generally speaking, libraries are more heavily used to find information or as a place for formal learning; meanwhile bookstores are strongly associated with socializing and “casual use.” According to Pennington (1997), bookstores are defined by the presence of in-store reading space, cafes, events, classes and exhibitions, etc. Sanderson (2001) also highlights that a bookstore is a place in which individuals are “encouraged to linger—to drink coffee, meet their friends, read magazines, listen to music or to an author reading.” As described by Torsi (2001), the bookstore is a comfortable, pressure-free environment, in which to explore, read, listen and discover, etc.
Large and successful bookstores do not simply rely on sales figures and feedbacks from the customers. They also conduct a wide variety of studies to determine their customersrsquo; needs and reading interests. Such studies aim at determining who their existing as well as potential customers are. They are also designed to identify what these customers want and need.
Bookstores are no doubt driven by financial gains; however, libraries are sometimes viewed as boring, and many users simply find them uncomfortable and uninspiring to visit
voluntarily. For such reasons, there are many services and features that we libraries and librarians could learn and adopt from bookstores. In particular, Woodward (2005) wrote:
Bookstores have become enormously popular places where customers can do many of the same things that librarians once viewed as their exclusive province. Unlike bookstores of the past, modern “superstores” encourage people to read and spend time just as they would in a library. They have been highly successful in attracting customers, and there is even some evidence that bookstores are taking costumers away from libraries hellip; It is probably true that some people are choosing to visit their local bookstores rather than their public libraries. However, that surely doesnt mean that libraries have less to offer. Isnt it possible that we can cherish all the things that make libraries wonderful and vital to our society, while at the same time learning from the bookstores success? In other words, cant we be better than a bookstore? (xiii)
With the advancement of the Internet and mobile technologies, Worpole (2013) has recently confirmed such a need further:
The new libraries are no longer places of regulated patronage in formally distinct rooms, but are increasingly open-plan—places where independent users come to solve their intellectual problems on their own. They may even bring their own laptops, but want the space, the comfort and the associational life offered by the company of fellow citizens, to support them in their personal endeavours. The modern library is now much more than a book depository, formerly accessed by a catalogue, but is a meeting place for books, media, people and ideas (including talks, events, readings and childrens activities). In this new world, the external appearance of the library has a weakened symbolic importance; it is now the open-plan interior with its circulation patterns and dis-aggregated service points that embodies the symbolic value of the contemporary library ethos.
This motivates our interview-based exploratory study on the recent setup of a college library, the Hong Kong Design Institute (HKDI) Learning Resources Centre (Library), which is modeled after a commercial bookstore. The reasons for choosing this college library for our study are as follows:
- The library theme and users of HKDI are focused on art and design instead of multi- disciplinary so that the motivation and requirements can be easier to analyze;
- The community college setting is closer to the requirements of the younger generation, as well as junior libraries in schools and for the public, which we plan to extend our study in the next phase;
- Project, collaboration, and inquiry-based learning in this community college is also the trend of recent worldwide curriculum reform and enhancement at various levels of college and school learning and teaching.
THE HKDI LIBRARY IMAGE amp; BACKGROUND INFORMATION
As Freeman (2005) notes, the library “must serve as the principal building on campus where one can truly experience and benefit from th
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