At last week's ACRL meeting in Davenport the keynote Speaker, Dr. Roberto A. Ibarra spoke about the general trend of libraries becoming some of the most multicultural spots on college campuses.
A brief Discussion of "Context"
Low Context: North-Western European. Specifically the Germanic university model that is currently the "norm" in North American universities. Low Context is described as relying heavily on writing and reading. Hence a relatively "low" amount of contact/interaction. Space is private.
High Context: Pretty much the rest of the world. Things that are important in hight context include; reading, writing, architecture, tone, social interaction, gestures. Generally, space is communal (no closed doors).
Ibarra's discussion focused on how libraries do a lot to enable multicultural learning. One of my favorite quotes from Ibarra was that "putting posters up doesn't do anything for multiculturalism." That might not be the quote exactly, but it is pretty close. Ibarra's main point was that libraries are creating open spaces for people to come together and work in a more comfortable and "high context" environment. i.e. collaboration is the name of the new library game.
Okay, that's fine. HOWEVER, what happens in those collaborative spaces? Everyone gets together and sits at a table and looks at a computer screen to start working.....where we go head over-heals back into the world of über low context. Ibarra makes a good point about libraries, but falls short because he does not address the fact that what has become the way to do research in the library (i.e. databases and OPACs via a computer) is still excruciatingly difficult to use.
Click Here for a PDF of Dr. Ibarra's paper, A Place to Belong: The Library as
Prototype for Context Diversity
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