Text by Liam McGurl, ’17, ’19, & Jennifer Pulver | Photography by Danny Bush, ’13, ’15
The Friedsam Memorial Library, having evolved through generations of St. Bonaventure culture, offers communal workspaces with shared printing and experts on staff. Collaboration breathes through each connected room in the building, from digital-only conversations with classmates to conference room run-throughs of group presentations.
It’s the one-stop, academic oasis for students of all majors and professors of all backgrounds.
In a digital age of untrustworthy sources, the internet offers valuable, but sometimes limited, information, Library Director Ann Tenglund explained. For that reason, she stressed the multitude of benefits a library offers are more important than ever.
Between benefiting from the experienced knowledge of a reference librarian and delivering free access to important research articles that are a licensed resource, the library steps up where an internet search cannot.
St. Bonaventure librarians have always played an important role in research conducted at the library and university. Since the inception of the library, reference librarians have assisted students and professors with identifying resources for academic work.
In the past, these services might have been restricted to library hours. Today, the reference librarians are the most accessible they have ever been.
Students, faculty and staff have 24/7 access to reference librarians through “Ask Us 24/7” virtual chat. The 24/7 reference cooperative provides an around-the-clock reference service, built by a cooperative of participating libraries. Libraries agree to answer questions for each other in real time, using shared virtual reference software.
Some students like the open work areas of Friedsam Library so they can easily collaborate and work together. Others find the tucked away cubbies are more their niche.
This ease-of-access initiative, provided to both on-ground and online students, is implemented by a network of reference librarians around the world who dedicate time to answer questions and assist “customers” at a location in the network.
With Friedsam Library as a participating member, the St. Bonaventure community gains access to reference librarians at any time of day or night including holidays, so a student writing at 3 a.m. can access the virtual chat provided through the service and receive the help he requires to locate sources and materials for his work. Likewise, our own SBU library staff may answer inquiries from other locations during their on-call period.
“We’ve always helped people find resources and determine a way they can approach their research,” Tenglund said. “Now, we also have to work a little bit harder to make sure people realize what a good source of information is and isn’t.”
Developments are in progress to expand the technological tools the library has at its disposal so that further assistance such as screen sharing of resource results and message scripts are more easily accessed.
A Professor’s Best Friend
Dr. Paul Barretta, professor of marketing, sees the library as the foundation of both his own and student research. Barretta, as a professorial requirement, is expected to publish scholarly works every academic year.
Citing the library as his “favorite place on campus,” he admitted that he’s a bit of a bookworm for casual reading. However, the library’s resources that make professorial research affordable and timely is what draws him to the building most often.
It is the combination of traditional elements of the library (the books) and the digital tools, such as being able to run an electronic search for books and academic articles, that opens up a world of potential knowledge and helps users make the most of the library, Barretta said.
“What ties it all together is knowing that the reference desk is always manned with the brightest, most resourceful librarians one could ask for,” he said.
Barretta said he recently utilized the library for his own research, focused on sports and music consumer behavior research, in order to fulfil his university requirement and satisfy his innate curiosity.
“I used a lot of library resources over the summer as I was doing some research,” he said. “It took a lot of work in archived information and contemporary academic journals.”
Barretta offered two examples of times when library resources made what could have been an arduous process a breeze.
“When I was writing a particular paper I came across an author who had written some very meaningful work on the subject of my paper. It turned out that we happen to have one of his fairly rare books in our archives,” he said.
“Another time, on a final revision of a paper I was asked to run a particular statistical test. I spent two full days in the library researching how to best run this test. This involved finding examples of the specific method the editors requested I use, then downloading and installing a particular software that I needed to run the test, interpreting the findings and revising the paper before it could be accepted for publication. I am not sure how I would have managed this without the resources provided me by the library and the library staff.”
For his on-ground students, though, the library becomes especially important given the university’s geographic location – removed from in-person access to major institutional research initiatives. Barretta often asks groups of students to utilize diverse library resources in order to uncover more well-rounded discoveries.
Whether students are on the SBU campus or part of an online cohort, Zoom meetings with the library are typical occurrences. As students delve deeper into their own academic endeavors, they often find a greater need for in-depth and specific reference materials. Students are often surprised and pleased to learn that they are able to “meet” with an experienced reference librarian from the Friedsam staff, virtually, to assist them with locating the correct reference materials.
Collaboration is Key
As the library continues marching into a digital-dominant, collaborative culture in higher education, online and virtual tools will continue to improve, creating greater access to information and increased methods. Tenglund touched on the improvements already made to the space, and shared her hopes for the future.
Ann Tenglund, named library director at Friedsam in 2018, has worked at the library since she was an undergraduate student.
Tenglund explains: “There is a concept of ‘library as place’ that is well known among librarians. This concept describes the concept of people gathering in one location with others involved in similar tasks.”
The library is the only centralized location where new and emerging information technologies can be combined with traditional knowledge resources in a user-focused, service-rich environment that supports today’s social and educational patterns of learning, teaching and research.1
In recent years, this concept has grown even though increased internet use and substantial online resources allow people to work in solitude. The importance of co-working in some type of central space has emerged as an antidote to this isolation, allowing many people to balance autonomy against a need to connect with others.
In many places, such as in academic libraries like Friedsam, people involved in solitary work gather in open workstation areas to soak in the vibe of connection.
Many people who enjoy this type of work or study arrangement attribute a greater focus to their own individual efforts when sharing a common space with a common focus.
In an effort to further support its three-floor setup, St. Bonaventure’s library has continually focused on collaboration by enhancing accessibility and expanding workspaces.
In 2002, an accessibility lift was built for community members with mobility limitations.
In 2015, the Library Instruction Lab and reference librarian desk were moved to the facility’s main floor for easier access.
The library boasts two seminar rooms and two study rooms, but Tenglund envisions more workspaces that are private. This, she added, will help to accommodate a wider range of academic processes.
“It would be great to have some moveable partitions — not floor to ceiling, but maybe shoulder height so that views from windows, etc. are not obstructed,” Tenglund explained. “One of the requests we have had from students is for more study rooms, because they want more private workspaces, and this type of arrangement would allow for a more open atmosphere while still giving small groups additional options.”
A development already underway was made possible through a Class of 2018 gift to the university. As part of this senior gift, $10,462.84 worth of student donations were put toward a new space area of the library. These donations came from class event ticket sales, individual donations and fundraising efforts over four years.
The library is named for Col. Michael Friedsam (1858-1931), known for his philanthropy and involvement in education. Trustees of his fortune gave $125,000 to the university for the construction of the library.
Offering a comfortable and modernized learning environment, this space will include bright couches and booth seating that give students an escape from long-term study sessions in more formal structures. Tenglund added that this workspace would serve as an exemplar, small-scale model of the library’s hoped-for design transformation over time.
“Ideal collaborative workspaces would look a lot like how the back part of the main floor is shaping up, thanks to the Class of 2018 gift,” she said. “Some of the furniture is already in and has been getting use.”
The future, as Tenglund sees it, is the ability of the library to serve online, virtual efforts while amalgamating an increased ability for in-person collaboration. She sees libraries as the perfect bridge toward that goal, particularly in a university setting.
Rachel Pelsang, a biology major in the Class of 2019, said she frequently utilized library research in her studies, but most of all appreciated the library for offering more of these diverse, collaborative workspaces over time.
The library is where she learned to study her freshman year, mostly because of a workspace layout that allowed her to receive academic support from peers, she said.
“Making the transition to St. Bonaventure was so much easier by being able to study alongside my friends and upperclassmen who had already taken the class,” said Pelsang, a native of Blue Grass, Iowa. “I can remember not understanding a concept and walking over to the table next to me to discuss it with a sophomore. There is definitely a helpful atmosphere in the library.”