Three things inspired this post:
- Brian Mathews’s appeal for academic librarians to think like a startup.
- The potential for library renovations at MPOW.
- A recent conversation thread on Facebook.
A colleague of mine recently posed the following question: what would it take for you to give up your office? We were having a conversation about startup culture and types of working environments that inspire creative thinking, serendipity, and synergy (everybody drink!). In particular, we were looking at Mashable’s Startup Spaces Series. What we noticed about the offices of companies like GetGlue, Pinterest, and Yelp was that most employees didn’t have an office. They didn’t have a cubicle either. Instead, there were designated spaces (like conference rooms of various sizes, picnic tables, lounge areas) for working in groups of various sizes.
The benefit of this layout, I hope, is obvious: more conversation, more serendipitous collaborations, improved communication and collegiality. It also makes it difficult for an employee to spend his entire day behind a door or in between three foam partitions except when those moments are absolutely necessary. “Shutting everyone out” is not an option an exception to the rule rather than a daily practice in the workplace. Instead, colleagues are always working together in a shared, open space. This, of course, would require certain technological changes (i.e. abandoning our reliance on the desktop computer, strengthening wireless access points, etc.), but come on, we’re librarians. We can adapt.
When I proposed the question on Facebook, the immediate reaction was “hell no!”* Most of the people who responded cited the need for privacy: a space where they could meet one-on-one with students, faculty, and colleagues. Ok, I will grant that. But what if private spaces could be guaranteed? What if, like student study rooms, a small number of private spaces could be set aside (and immaculately decorated) for consultations and private meetings?
Instead, work spaces would form organically based on the resources needed (number of people, projector access, proximity to coffee machine). Conversations would mostly be public and, unless privacy was needed, would allow any member of the office team to contribute. Work areas could be opened up (due to the lack of walls) and not only provide additional space for creative work (whiteboards, e.g.) but offer a more aesthetically pleasing environment (open air, natural light, minimal number of metal filing cabinets). Again, I point to some of the office spaces linked above.
Personally, I believe we are too attached to our work spaces. Over time, we develop a sense of ownership which, although charming, is anathema to creative work. On the other hand, there is good evidence to suggest that the best ideas arise from collaboration, conversation, and distributed mental work despite the potential for distraction.
The future of libraries in higher education demands new approaches to service and new [collaborative] ways of getting things done. How can we even begin to plan for this future when we rarely come together? It is high time we changed the way we work; else, how can we expect to innovate? As Mathews points out:
We can’t hire a few creative and improvisational individuals and expect them to deliver new service models if the work culture is not ready for new service models.
Let’s break down the walls (literally) that separate us and explore new ways of working together. What, at worse, would happen if we failed? And what if we succeeded…
Update: Anthony Molaro, a forward thinking librarian that I greatly admire, has also written on this topic: Department Silos II or Why You Need a New Workspace: “I have seen libraries create powerful spaces for patrons, but I have yet to see a library create appropriate spaces for 21st century librarians.”
photo credit: plewicki on flickr (used under CC licesnse by-nc-sa)
* Personally, I am suspect when any proposition inspires immediate and fierce objection.
So I responded pretty quickly that I wanted to keep my office, but the reason is that I need to be able to shut out the noise sometimes. I work in a space where we each have shared offices surrounding a centralized discussion area (picture comfy chairs and a coffee table with a makeshift kitchen). A lot of collaboration and discussion takes place there, which most of the time is awesome, but if I need to write I can’t get it done with all the chatter going on. I love the look and feel of wide-open office spaces, but I’m not good at getting work done in those environments.
I, for one, really value mobility and flexibility in my work spaces. I don’t have my own, private office at work, and don’t really want one. It’s nice to work in an open, shared space. We do a lot of collaborative work that way. There are also ways to guarantee that we have private work spaces if we need them, so that makes it more viable. In addition, I do a lot of offsite work: at home, at libraries, in other places. This is so important to me… it lets me tailor the workspace to my needs for the best productivity on a particular project, and helps me maintain that work/life balance much better. I wouldn’t give up my laptop and the freedom it allows me for anything.
One major difference between the folks who work at Get Glue or Pinterest and librarians is that they aren’t required to be working out with the public all the time. Maybe they help their customers virtually, but I don’t see a place in those pictures where their customers are physically walking up to them to ask them questions, like they would in a library. Perhaps they work collaboratively with each other in those communal spaces, which I think is pretty neat, but librarians who have to help students on a daily basis might need that time off the floor. I don’t think the employees at those companies interact with their customers in the same way that librarians do.
I can get behind rethinking how we design our library spaces to encourage more collaboration. Some libraries are moving towards that, but it’s more for the patrons, not as much for the staff. I think people resisted giving up their office space because they were thinking they would lose privacy and time away from being in the public eye. If you asked me if I would give up having a separate desk and instead sharing a communal work area with my coworkers, I might be more inclined to say yes, as long as I could keep some of my desk toys with me.
i don’t have fierce objection, but the open space offices i’ve seen tend to be dominated by those who can work well with interruptions. we have one here and those who need a quiet space to concentrate on projects are always complaining about the loud talkers who never shut up (and seriously they don’t). i think you have to have clear established boundaries of acceptable behavior and people need to feel empowered to say that they need quiet space. otherwise the workplace would be appropriate for only one particular work type/personality. just my two cents :)
And I do agree that we need both types of spaces. My tendency, however, is to shift the balance toward more collaborative space, whereas now most of our offices are modeled after the one-private-space-for-every-person model.
Thanks for the comments, Annie! Each library is different, but in many of our libraries at USC, you have to make an effort to get to staff offices. There really is no “walk in” space: you either have to get entry via locked door to staff offices, or you have to find the floor where all the offices are at.
Emily, we should talk more. Do other people at your place of work have the same setup? What are their thoughts?
In my last position, I worked in such an open office configuration. It did indeed allow for easier conversation and collaboration, but it also made for a very distracting and, for me, perpetually frustrating environment. I felt like I could never focus on one task let alone complete it without fending off a barrage of interruptions, however well-meant. For every instance of productively serendipitous interaction with colleagues, there were several instances of desperately trying to finish this lesson plan or article in one rare moment of relative peace. Furthermore, without the opportunity to think and mull in private, I found that my creativity was hampered. Susan Cain makes a compelling case for the importance of solitude to creativity and the ways in which our collaborative culture actually stifles innovation.
That said, I really like the idea of a flexible model, with open spaces facilitating teamwork and private spaces for solitary work/thought. Having now gone to other side, holed up in a private office separated from all other staff, I often miss both the casual and professional conversation that so easily flowed elsewhere. However, when I recently needed to prepare a conference presentation, I was so thankful for an enclosed, distraction-free (well, except for twitter) place to put my head down and work. As with most things, I think, balance is the ideal.
Our whole building is set up as collaborative spaces. We don’t work with the public, but I can’t see why staff office spaces in libraries couldn’t be more like this. I feel like if librarians were encouraged to be more mobile, do work in whatever spaces lend themselves to productivity for them and the project at hand, go offsite, etc. this would go a long way towards encouraging librarians to get out into their communities for interactions with their customers as well.
1) You should read The Customer-Driven Academic Library, by Jeannette Woodward. You’d like her idea for what to do with desks; it would meld nicely with yours and with what some of the other commenters are alluding to, about the public.
2) As a semi-introvert who has to do serious coding (and, lately, a lot of fairly intensive writing) as part of my job, I (with apologies) hate both your idea and hers. If I were primarily a reference or subject specialty librarian, with only the kind of work that those folks do, I think I would really enjoy that kind of environment–at least some of the time. (Even as a ref librarian, I’d still be part introvert, and I’d still need at least some time, each day, to work alone–probably while doing the writing that comes with those jobs.)
That all said, I do think a lot of libraries are really poorly set up, with respect to staff spaces. Our Systems department is hidden way in the corner of the third floor, our Reference department is also on the third floor but closer to the center of the building, our Tech Services and ILL departments are on the first floor, in mostly non-public areas (though ILL’s easier to get to than Reference), etc. We’re totally spread out, and the most [physical-]customer-facing librarians are the second hardest to get to–Systems (which faces the most virtual customers) being the hardest. I don’t see why we couldn’t have had offices all in one area, with doors and windows and everything, but all together, not split up by department.
I guess I’m saying I’d really go for somewhere between your vision and what we’ve got now. :)
I really appreciate the feedback, Coral, and no need to apologize! I fully recognize that I’m in the minority when it comes to work style preferences. As an introvert, I fully understand the aversion to working publicly all the time. I need my “me time” when it comes to putting nose to grindstone.
You make a good point when you recognize that some functions within the libraries are more amenable to this setup than others. I would assume at most universities, the work space layout is determined by (1) already existing space and (2) academic culture. My biggest problem is with the second of these: why should the library mimic the academic department? But I digress… =)
Agreed. And that is what I like so much about some of the startup spaces I’ve looked at: there are spaces for both. Academic libraries, those that I’ve seen and those that I’ve heard about, are shifted heavily in the direction of private space. I’d like to see us shift the balance. Thanks for the comments!
I love the idea. I briefly wrote about it months ago http://informationactivist.com/2012/04/18/department-silos-ii-or-why-you-need-a-new-workspace/.
I think that as long as private rooms are made available, there aren’t really too many reason to be opposed. I would also keep the staff space separated from the public space (but I encourage my staff to sit in public spaces to get perspective on how i feels to sit there). I also think a locked roller cabinet would be needed to store physical objects (folders, notes, pens, pictures, etc…)
I hope that you are successful!
I am a fool for not checking your site first! I’m going to update my post to include yours. =)
i for one would give up my office for a cookie. i’ve been trying to ditch it for years and they keep telling me to sit back down. workspaces should fit the project, collaboration, and mood. this cubicle? doesn’t fit anything.
I wouldn’t want to give up my office completely, for many of the reasons that have already been noted. But I think my biggest objection to giving up my office is the assumption that it’s only good for alone time. Why can’t my office be a collaborative space too, when the work calls for it?
My library underwent a renovation right before I started last year, and that included designing an office suite for my department that was built to foster collaboration. We have a large, open workspace, with four offices facing that, then a hallway to a kitchenette and four more offices. All of the outward-facing walls on the offices are frosted glass – so more open than an opaque wall, while still providing some division of space. During my first year, my office was one of the four facing the large collaborative space – in some ways it was great, but in some ways it was way too distracting. When other folks were meeting about something that I have nothing to do with, I would still find myself listening in instead of doing what I needed to be doing. So I moved to an empty office on the other side of the suite, which happens to be right next to someone I collaborate with a lot. And we wind up in one another’s offices pretty regularly. With the glass walls, it’s hard to hide!
But, more importantly, the department culture is such that nobody chooses to go into their office and shut the door unless they’re on a conference call, frantically trying to meet a deadline, or something. There are more ways to encourage that sort of culture without having to take away the physical walls entirely!
Since you are thinking about a renovation, one of the BEST features of our collaborative workspace is the fact that it is lined with glass whiteboards. Two of the walls are exterior walls, and we have whiteboards covering every available inch… And when we ran out of room on those this past summer, we expanded to use office walls (we tested a small mark first to make sure the dry-erase marker would erase cleanly first!).
“Why can’t my office be a collaborative space too, when the work calls for it?” is a great point. And +1 to the increase of whiteboards! Yes, I think the culture of an institutions matters so much when it comes to the potential for collaboration and perhaps, it ultimately comes down to that: what is your work culture and what can be done to maximize X within it?
I now have staff members and students I supervise working in a shared and mostly open area doing cataloging. This has been a Tremendous ( with a capital T) improvement over them working alone in different parts of the building. Cataloging involves judgement and I hear them talking with each other frequently about what to do. I believe morale has improved as well. I have been observing that I feel jealous of their collab space over in my office across the way.
I work in an academic library with an office. I really have to try to get around to see my colleagues and I do. Opting to meet in their offices instead of mine. Personally I don’t go in my office to get things done because I am a “the door is always open” type of manager. I come in during off hours or go hide somewhere else on campus or in my car sometimes to get the quiet time chores done.
I would be totally on board with dumping my office, but I don’t know if all of my colleagues would. We have a fair amount of door shutters.
Just as an aside, Erica, I did the same thing with my student catalogers. I’ll be honest, the productivity (records created/edited per week) isn’t quite as high as when they worked separately, but the quality of cataloging is beyond superb. Like you said, they learn from each other, teach each other. One of my students even started writing scripts in OCLC to make the process simpler. Plus, I think they are more likely to self-police each other if one starts slacking off. ;-)
I’ve worked in both environments – quiet space for specific activities and collaborative spaces. My preference is collaborative, but it could be because the main type of work I do works best in a collaborative space.
I’ve seen high cube walls generate negative morale among staff instead of giving privacy. While privacy is needed in the workplace at times, being able to have the spontaneous conversations happens easier with more open workspaces.
This conversation has been happening quite a bit at my workplace as we are moving to a new building in a few months. Throughout the building the workspaces are going to be a mixture of collaborative and semi-private with limited offices. I am curious to see not only how the library staff adjusts but also the non-library staff.
I would love to see you do a photo tour of your new work spaces! Perhaps American Libraries or one of NMRT’s publications could do a highlight piece.
I work in an academic library that recently switched from librarian offices to cubicles. I cannot begin to tell you how much both productivity and morale have gone down. The noise level is unbelievable, and there are constant distractions. While we have “guaranteed” private areas, the reality is, when many of us teach/provide consultations/etc., those spaces can be difficult to get. There’s also the issue of space — most of us have piles of books, handouts, and so on all over the floor simply because there’s no space. I’m most definitely on the office side.
Thanks for the input, Karen. When it comes to Office vs. Cubicle, I’m with you. Cubicles are hell and perhaps the worst office device ever created (IMHO). But in this post, I am putting cubicles and offices in the same category as “private” spaces. Perhaps I should have used the word “owned” spaces instead: spaces dedicated to a single employee.
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