The College of Architecture is pleased to announce the Hyde Lecture Series opens another exciting chapter for the design and planning disciplines. The 2018/2019 series, “Enacting Change”, invites speakers to campus who utilize planning and design as tools for building agency in local and international communities.
The college’s Hyde Lecture Series is a long-standing, endowed public program. Each year the college hosts compelling speakers in the fields of architecture, interior design, landscape architecture and planning that enrich the ongoing dialog around agendas which are paramount to the design disciplines and College of Architecture graduates.
The college is also pleased to share this year’s Hyde Lecture Series poster was designed by Atlas Lab Inc.
July 1 is the date when the newly elected board members begin their service and when we thank those whose terms ended on June 30. Lynne Dearborn from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign joined the ACSA Board of Directors as Second Vice-President, Anne Bordeleau from the University of Waterloo as At-Large Canadian Director, Brigid Callaghan from AIAS as Student Director, Victor Rubin from PolicyLink as Public Director, and June Williamson from the City College of New York as At-Large Director.
As the new board began its work in earnest, I would like to acknowledge the contributions of now former board members and thank them once more for their dedicated service: a big THANK YOU to Martin Bressani, Bruce Lindsey, Francis Lyn, Ikhlas Sabouni, Elizabeth Seidel, and Nancy Tribbensee; it was a real pleasure to work with them (and to get to know them). I also want to thank Francisco (Paco) Rodriguez for his inspired and inspiring leadership of the association over the past year. As I succeed him in the role of President, I look forward to having his sage advice as Past President. Last but not least, I also want to thank Mike Monti, our outstanding Executive Director, and the amazing ACSA staff, who actually turn the board’s decisions into reality for our membership.
This board year will be a busy one, with several ongoing tasks and some new ones. The first meeting of the new board took place on August 6 and 7 in the AIA Building in Washington, where ACSA has its offices on the third floor. We have started to work on the new strategic plan and have engaged Suzanna Kelley from McKinley Advisors to facilitate the process this year, working with the Board and the Planning Committee. We have been also working with McKinley Advisors to explore changes to our membership structure, which is an ongoing task.
Preparations for the 2019 NAAB Accreditation Review Forum (AR Forum) are another ongoing issue. Bruce Lindsey, Rebecca O’Neal Dagg, and Michaele Pride are the members we appointed last spring to the NAAB’s Steering Committee for the Accreditation Review Forum; they will work closely with the Executive Committee to craft the organization’s outlook on architectural education to 2025. The Board looks forward to having collective conversations with the membership about desired changes in the next iteration of the NAAB conditions and procedures for accreditation.
The board’s Annual Meeting Task Force presented an initial set of recommendations for implementing changes to our largest event that should better support the scholarly needs of members and that should further enhance ACSA’s ability to lead architectural education and research. As a first step, the Board approved the creation of the Annual Meeting Committee (AMC) that will oversee the preparations for the 2020 Annual Meeting. Additional changes to the conference structure and the review process will be discussed over the coming months as AMC begins its work under the leadership of Rashida Ng, First Vice-President/President-Elect, as a committee chair.
The Board also approved specific charges for the three program committees this year. The Research and Scholarship Committee, chaired by Hazem Rashed-Ali from the University of Texas in San Antonio, will be tasked with preparing a report that summarizes existing practices used by member schools to measure research output. The Education Committee, chaired by Francis Lyn from Florida Atlantic University, will examine the presence of pedagogy and the scholarship of teaching and learning in our existing programming, and then recommend specific strategies for expanding their presence in our publications and conferences. The Leadership Committee, chaired by Barbara Klinkhammer from Thomas Jefferson University, is charged with developing a set of recommendations regarding ACSA’s international engagement, i.e., how the association should engage sibling organizations around the world, whether it should expand its international membership, and whether it should play a greater role in facilitating international activities of our member schools, such as recruitment, study abroad programs, faculty and student exchanges, and research and scholarly partnerships.
With this agenda in mind, we will sign later this month a Memorandum of Understanding with the European Association for Architectural Education (EAAE), our sibling organization in Europe, which has 130 schools in Europe as its members. In collaboration with EAAE we intend to jointly organize the Teachers Conference, which, as its name implies, will focus on teaching, learning, and pedagogy. The inaugural event should take place next year in Antwerp, Belgium, at the end of June. The subsequent conferences would alternate between Europe and North America, with the hope of fostering greater exchange between our European colleagues and us.
The international engagement will be front and center at the upcoming Administrators Conference in Quebec City at the end of October. The conference is co-chaired by Myriam Blais from Université Laval and Sharon Matthews from Wentworth Institute of Technology. We have prepared a thematically rich event, with most of the sessions devoted to the international agenda: study abroad in different regions of the world, international research partnerships, exchanges of students and faculty, international student recruitment, etc. We hope that you will join us there to share how your school is engaging the world.
If you want to “play with the rules” then plan to attend the Fall Conference in mid-October in Milwaukee. The team of co-chairs from the University of Wisconsin, Jasmine Benyamin, Nikole Bouchard, Whitney Moon, Kyle Reynolds, and Mo Zell, asked rhetorically in the call for papers whether architects could re-think both rules and play (and that was not the only question). As described on the ACSA’s website, the conference posits a series of questions in light of the exhibition “Serious Play: Design in Midcentury America” that opens in September at the Milwaukee Art Museum (MAM). This exhibition “will explore a variety of designers who embraced the spirit of whimsy, arguing that during a time of high anxiety in the United States, one solution was to design playfully.” So, come to Milwaukee to see the exhibition and hear the presentations and panels that address the conference questions.
After Milwaukee and Quebec City this coming October, we will be assembling in March in Pittsburgh for the 2019 Annual Meeting, which will be followed in early June by the Intersections Symposium at the 2019 AIA Conference on Architecture in Las Vegas and the inaugural 2019 ACSA/EAAE Teachers Conference in Antwerp, Belgium, which is still in the works. All three promise to be the most interesting gatherings that shouldn’t be missed.
As you can surmise from this brief outline, there is much to look forward to in the year ahead of us. I certainly do so, as I work alongside Mike Monti, our Executive Director, Paco as Past President, the two Presidents-Elects, Rashida and Lynne, and the entire board.
Jeffrey Colllins joins Kennesaw State University this fall 2018 as an Assistant Professor in a tenure track position. Jeffery is a Registered Architect and architectural educator. He obtained his bachelors and masters degrees in architecture from The Ohio State University and is currently pursuing a doctorate in architecture, with concentration in design computation, from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Since 2009, he has taught architecture studio and lecture courses at Georgia Tech, Southern Polytechnic State University, Auburn University, and Kennesaw State University. In 2018, AIA Atlanta and the Young Architects Forum named Jeffrey as their Emerging Voices honoree.
The Department of Architecture at Kennesaw State University also welcomes Dr. Selen Okcu (PhD 2011, Georgia Institute of Technology), who was appointed a fulltime Lecturer. As a former Research Scientist at NASA and a Design Educator, she has published widely on a variety of emerging architectural topics including culture, perception, and technology. She is the recipient of the King Medal from the Architectural Research Centers Consortium (ARCC) and the Newman Medal from the Acoustical Society of America (ASA).
Lucy Campbell and Barbara Opar, column editors Column by Maya Gervits, PhD, Director, Barbara & Leonard Littman Library, NJIT
In the rapidly changing information environment, the nature of the academic library and the role of librarians are both undergoing a fundamental shift away from merely curating scholarly materials toward the co-creation of these materials in active engagement and collaboration with researchers and other members of the academic community.This shift provides new opportunities for libraries to have increased visibility amongst scholars.
At the Littman Library at NJIT collaboration with the College of Architecture and Design (CoAD) faculty and students manifests itself in numerous ways. We strive to provide responsive services and to accommodate various learning opportunities. We act as guest lecturers for a variety of classes, conduct workshops, and compile citation analysis for the Promotion and Tenure Committee. Our “Music in the Library” program is incorporated into the college curriculum. The Library curates various exhibitions that present materials from its collection to support and encourage student and faculty creative work. The regular evening concert series provides a complementary mode to consider visual art and design works in historical cultural contexts. We provide guidance on copyright and host regular lunchtime Author Book Talks.
But we are always looking for additional ways to engage with our patrons. An important new role is Digital Scholarship. Contemporary research in many areas has expanded beyond what is considered traditional. Over the last decade, many academic libraries have established Digital Scholarship Labs or Centers. Equipped with advanced technological tools, these new facilities enable students and faculty to explore new methodologies, analyze complex data, and share the results of research in ways never before possible.
Nevertheless, despite all the advancements, digital scholarship in art and design disciplines has yet to define the parameters of this field. How can digital methods and tools benefit research? How can a small branch library facilitate collaboration? At NJIT all colleges are engaged in digital initiatives and related activities. The College of Architecture and Design is well known as a pioneer and innovator in the application of digital and information technology to augment and benefit the design process. These students have access to different labs where they can work on digital prototyping, fabrication, animation, robotics, augmented, and virtual reality.
Over the years, the Littman Library – the only branch library on campus, located in the heart of the College of Architecture and Design main facility- has been involved in activities which have ranged from the digitization of its collections to more complex undertakings. Because of the growing interest by faculty and students and the increased number of projects they were producing, the Littman Library decided to dedicate a special space to digital scholarship. We repurposed the slide room and equipped it with two computers, flat-bed, slide, and book scanners, printer, and an Oculus Rift virtual reality set. We secured server space and downloaded software for data visualization, online publishing, textual and spatial analysis. We recently had the good fortune to receive a significant external endowment to further develop the Lab. But the initial phase has been completed with modest funding and limited staff time.
Recognizing the need to educate not only students but also ourselves we introduced the ”Skills Exchange” program which is a series of workshops focused on mastering various software. We compiled research guides “Software at the College of Architecture and Design” and “Resources in Digital Scholarship” and added a subscription to the commercially distributed library of online tutorials Pluralsight to allow for self-paced learning with high quality educational support materials.
Virtual Reality technology revolutionizes both how architecture is being designed and how it can be perceived. Using the Lab, students and faculty simulate realistic experiences of the built environment, explore their designs in Virtual Reality, reconstruct historical monuments, and work on projects that employ digital tools and methods.
Our Image Database supports technical building systems, history, and studio classes. Digitized maps formed the core of the Digital Archive of Newark Architecture (http://dana.njit.edu)- a project conceived to document the built environment of Newark that has grown into a gateway of information related to the physical life of Newark, its architecture, infrastructure, public art, and city planning.
______ Recent implementation of ArcGIS allows for data to be analyzed and visualized in a different way. An additional crowdsourcing function enables the public to submit materials over the web, and a mobile application with location awareness provides for a more engaging user experience. Other projects designed in collaboration with CoAD faculty and students are focused on the application of Virtual Reality to digital architectural history, and employ various publishing platforms, tools for visualization, and space analysis. The photogrammetry technique is being implemented to create a searchable version of the virtual collection of electrical measuring Instruments (housed in Van Houten Library). And the recent “History of the College of Architecture and Design” initiative aims to preserve the College’s past by digitizing old photographs, video and audio recordings, documents, and born digital materials.
To increase collaboration at NJIT, both faculty and staff from various university divisions have formed a special interest group concerned with digital scholarship. NJIT also joined the New Jersey Digital Humanities Consortium – a group of enthusiasts and professionals from various New Jersey institutions. This helps us coordinate our activities and share pertinent information. The members of this group strongly believe that we can utilize our intellectual and creative potentials more effectively by working collaboratively across disciplines; that the library not only supports various digital initiatives pursued and promoted by the CoAD faculty and administration, but can also act as an active partner.
The Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF) selected two case studies designed by Charlene LeBleu and students in the Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA) program at Auburn University for publication on the national Landscape Architecture Foundation Case Study Investigation website. LeBleu, FASLA and associate professor of landscape architecture in Auburn’s College of Architecture, Design and Construction, led both teams. One team examined Samford Park at Toomer’s Corner in Auburn, and the other researched Railroad Park in Birmingham. Both case studies are the first of their kind in Alabama to receive this national honor. Read more.
Former Auburn University College of Architecture, Design and Construction (CADC) Dean Dan Bennett and Architecture Prof. David Hinson will be serving on the City of Auburn, Alabama’s newly formed Downtown Design Review Committee. Read more here.
An Office of Sustainability and Campus Stormwater Committee request to design of a campus green infrastructure tour evolves into the development of a board game to re-imagine green infrastructure education created by MLA graduate students led by Charlene M. LeBleu, FASLA, Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture. Follow the link to read more.
L. Jane Frederick, FAIA, from AIA South Carolina, and Auburn APLA Alumna (BArch ’82), was elected 2019 First Vice President/2020 President-elect for the American Institute of Architects at the National Conference held this June 2018.
Profs Christian Dagg, David Hinson, and David Hill are part of a team working to revitalize a Historic Opelika, Alabama Neighborhood. For more, read about it here.
Profs Christian Dagg, David Hinson, and David Hill are part of a team working to revitalize a Historic Opelika Neighborhood. Watch here.
Auburn University’s Rural Studio (http://www.ruralstudio.org/) has received a lot of attention in the news the past couple months. See the following:
The Rural Studio was featrured on Alabama Newscenter online. Read about it here.
Auburn University’s Rural Studio students are changing lives; watch the PBS NewsHour special here.
Fourth year interior design student Maggie McCoy was awarded the 2018 Angelo Donghia Foundation Senior Student Scholarship Award. McCoy is one of only 12 candidates to receive this national prestigious award.
Annually, the Angelo Donghia Foundation invites two students from each interior design program with Council for Interior Design Accreditation (CIDA) to submit scholarship applications. This year, the foundation received 69 student projects for consideration.
In the last 15 years, the College of Architecture’s Interior Design Program has had nine recipients of this highly competitive national award, 10 total. The merit-based scholarship, which has a value of up to $30,000, is determined by a jury comprised of interior design professionals, interior design educators and interior design editors.
“When our students receive the very competitive Donghia Scholarship award, it is a testament to their rigorous pursuit of design excellence in space and place making for people,” said Lindsey Bahe, associate professor and director of the interior design program. “Having students at UNL receive this honor consistently over the last 15 years, serves as an indicator of our program’s successful teaching and learning mission. When our students are selected, they are amongst peers from other nationally recognized programs which adds credence to our belief that we deliver one of the best interior design education experiences in the country.”
“I am extremely grateful, humbled and honored to be one of the 12 recipients receiving the award this year, and am truly blessed that all my hard work is being recognized,” said Maggie McCoy. “This award is a huge stress relief for me. This award will go a long ways towards supporting me financially while studying abroad.”
McCoy’s winning submission was titled “Nebraska Art Therapy Collective” a project from the IDES351 design studio taught by Lecturer Erin Miller and mentored by Bahe.
The project proposes the creation of a built environment designed to retain the creative class in rural American communities by providing a place for healing, learning and self-discovery through expressive arts therapy. The concept aims to not only foster people of the creative class, but also to provide ample job opportunities that are otherwise unavailable in the rural market.
McCoy is from Omaha, Nebraska, and is entering her senior year in the Interior Design Program at UNL’s College of Architecture.
The Angelo Donghia Foundation, created under the will of the Angelo Donghia, is a private, nonprofit organization that supports two distinct fields: The advancement of education in the field of interior design and initiatives researching AIDS.
Since its launch, including the amounts to be distributed to the scholarship winners, the foundation has awarded in excess of $15,000,000 to the above causes.
Glaring sun, hot sizzling summer heat, those conditions just seem to be an inevitable part of attending the Lied Center for Performing Arts’ Jazz in June summer concert series at the University of Nebraska, right? Well maybe not for much longer, looking to the horizon, there might be a silver lining to that scenario for summer 2019 concert goers. This past semester Jazz in June festival organizers, the Lied Center for Performing Arts and UNL architecture students have been working collaboratively on an installation and shade structure for the annual June concert series.
Their idea for the installation? Create a “Kite Cloud” or canopy. Once installed the structure will span 55’ x 25’ with the bottom of the cloud floating about 15’ above the ground providing shade for the stage and the VIP audience area. The structure once assembled will consist of an estimated 2,000 box kites articulated together to form the “cloud” shade cover. The idea for the shade structure has been a longtime coming according to Education and Community Engagement Director for the Lied Center for Performing Arts Erin Poor and Jazz in June Coordinator Spencer Munson. As Poor explains it, this project evolved more out of necessity than anything else.
“After working several Jazz in June events you realize, wow, it’s freakishly hot on Tuesday nights in Nebraska, and we really need to do something for these performers,” said Poor. “Spencer and I had been talking about the concept of a shade structure for some time, and we kept saying ‘wouldn’t it be nice if…’” Well, last year, Terence Blanchard, a renowned jazz magician was scheduled to perform and they knew it was going to be extremely hot, so they rented and put up a bunch of event tents. Functionally it worked but the tents weren’t very festive nor aesthetically pleasing. After that moment Poor said they decided to get serious about the issue and do something.
“It’s not just that the audience and the performers are uncomfortable, there’s more to it than that. If the heat becomes too hot, instruments can become out of tune. Plus, when you have hot, unbearable weather, musicians don’t want to play as long and the crowds don’t feel like sticking around. It affects the overall event experience,” Poor said. “With Spencer elevating the artistry and level of performers who come to the festival, we wanted to bring a new element that would complimented this new style and help the festival grow and develop,” Poor said. “We want an event that not only has innovative music but also innovative art and architecture.”
So Poor contacted Architecture Professor Jeffrey L. Day, who she had worked with before on an exhibit for the Sheldon Art Museum, and approached him about a student design challenge involving a shade structure for Jazz in June 2019. Day thought it would be a great design-build project for his design-research studio, Fabrication And Construction Team (FACT). That following spring semester, Day invited Poor to present her design challenge to the studio the first day of class. She was careful to point out this project needed to be more than just a shade structure. “It needed to compliment the Sheldon Art Museum’s sculpture garden and not be obstructive or out of place but rather an added poetic element.”
The “Kite Cloud” design wasn’t their first concept. The master of architecture students worked on several designs including a collage of triangles before the collaboration decided on the “cloud”. After the “Kite Cloud” concept was chosen, the studio spent the rest of the semester working on schematic designs, drawings, renderings and models. However, the studio didn’t just need the Jazz in June organizers’ blessing, the team would have to go through a litany of approvals before all was said and done.
Day explains, the FACT studio also presented the project to the Sheldon Art Museum and the UNL Aesthetic Review Committee for which they received unanimous approval. Now that they have those approvals out of the way, the team has been working with UNL Facilities on the technical details such as logistics and installation challenges.
Figuring how to secure the suspended “Kite Cloud” above a crowd has its own inherent challenges which the team is working through. To stabilize and support the articulated kite structure, they will be utilizing a system of stainless steel airplane cables, aluminum poles and recessed concrete anchors.
To hoist the structure into place, designers are considering a system of poles and pulleys for ease of installation. The shade structure will be installed and taken down for each concert. However before installation can begin, they will need to develop a large model mock-up and conduct performance testing.
“Once everything is resolved there will be a few days of off-site fabrication, installation of the anchors and poles, and then installation of the actual kites should only take a few hours,” said Day.
In addition to resolution of technical details for the installation, securing funding for the structure is still underway. Anyone interested in donating funds to this project should contact Spencer Munson at spencermunson@gmail.com or by contacting the University of Nebraska Foundation for additional gifts. They will also be collecting donations at each concert at their information table.
The “Kite Cloud” is intended to last for two concert seasons. Eventually, the Jazz in June collaborators would like to see this art/shade installation become a biennial contest open to the public.
This project was one of two design-build projects taken on by the FACT studio this past spring. The other project was a collaboration with the Sandhills Institute that would transform an old, main street grocery store in Rushville, Nebraska, into an art gallery / culture center. Personally, Day prefers to select non-profit, creative partners like the Lied Center for Performing Arts and the Sandhills Institute for design-build projects because as Day puts it “they understand the creative process.”
“I’ve been approached by organizations who just wanted the free labor,” said Day. However, any partner the college selects has to be willing to contribute and be patient. “They need to understand that the creative process and that working with students sometimes takes time, money and mentoring. It’s a big commitment on both sides.”
Day explains a common misconception is that academic design-build is just a service project. “Community service is often just a one-way relationship. The design-build projects I’m involved with are true long-term engagement opportunities that benefit all parties.”
“For my studios, design-build is not about teaching students how to construct everything hands-on, but it’s about teaching them how to have a conversation with contractors, fabricators, or vendors so they can accomplish creative projects, especially when they are working on non-conventional projects or projects that require material use that doesn’t fit standard practice,” said Day.
Students who have taken design-build studios say the experience gives them a more holistic view of the architectural process. “Projects like these allow for a wider breadth of knowledge,” said Diane Nguyen master of architecture student. “The design of the canopy came with many different design problems that I had never really had to face before. From design to assembly, we had to be detailed within our thinking, and I believe that prepares us for our future careers as well.”
Design-build projects also help students expand their design and problem-solving skills farther than the confines of the studio.
“Sometimes, with theoretical projects, things are overlooked and projects in a sense are unrealistic,” said Davielle Phillips master of architecture student. “With design-build, you learn to be practical while pushing the boundary of what is expected. Jeff has definitely pushed us in this regard.”
Day along with Associate Professor Jason Griffiths and Architecture Program administrators are currently working to expand the design-build studio offerings so that they are available for students to take every year.
Column by Rebecca Barham, Art, Dance & Theatre Reference Librarian, University of North Texas Libraries and Dr. Susan Smith, Director of Library Services, Trinity River Campus, Tarrant County College Design
Do you use design thinking methodologies in class? If so, then you are aware of the potential for innovative problem solving that design thinking offers. For those who have not heard of design thinking, a short introduction is in order. Design thinking is a series of overlapping processes involving inspiration, ideation and implementation that has been used to create successful businesses and desirable products. During the inspiration process, the design challenge or problem is identified. In the ideation phase, design thinking tools are used to generate ideas to solve the problem. Then during the implementation process, the generated ideas are made into a series of rapid prototypes and feedback gathered on each prototype.
These same processes of design thinking can be utilized in the strategy and management of academic libraries to provide solutions to some of the challenges we face. Some common challenges include: how to engage with patrons in new ways, how to get students involved in the design of the library space, patron-centered collection development, and doing more with limited budgets. In this column, we will highlight design thinking tools that can be applied to help solve these challenges.
Engaging patrons in new ways.
Empower patrons to be co-creators of the library by forming library advisory boards. Consider forming boards focused around specific patron or stakeholder groups, such as graduate or undergraduate students, or faculty. Advisory board members provide valuable input on library services, products, spaces, and marketing to their peers. They also serve to represent the library to peers.
Getting students involved in the design of the library space.
Ask students to share images and descriptions of their ideal study or library spaces via an image/text survey. Survey respondents can upload images to any survey tool that has an option for questions that include file uploads and text entry. Another way that patrons can be involved in the design of library space is to create models, renderings or videos of spaces and furniture that they can participate in or vote on. Cardboard models of furniture, counters, and wall dividers can be created and moved around to better visualize the space. Design contests with valuable prizes are also useful incentives.
Design thinking tools for collection development.
Patron Driven Acquisitions (PDA) are a great way to get patrons involved in collection development. In PDA, records of books that are not owned by the library are loaded in the catalog and patrons unknowingly initialize the purchase of a book when a set use criteria is met. Patrons can also participate in collection development by requesting or voting for a book, journal or database via a recommendation box, library website link, or a list of newly published books. Librarians can obtain lists of new books in specific call number ranges from email alerts set in web-based book acquisition systems.
Design thinking tools and limited budgets.
Since design thinking is centered on the needs of the patron, it can help to insure that money is used to buy resources that are needed and will be used. In addition, iterative rapid prototypes and feedback on the prototypes during the implementation process helps to reveal usefulness and costly problems before money is spent.
A couple of weeks ago, the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture hosted a memorable International Architecture Education Summit in Madrid, bringing together esteemed and distinguished colleagues from North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and the Caribbean.
The importance of international engagement has been a point of emphasis for the ACSA board of directors in recent years. In the last month, we met with representatives from UIA (International Union of Architects), EAAE (European Association of Architectural Education), and the Architectural Society of China to identify possible avenues of collaboration and delineate a feasible path that will generate further value to our member schools. We will continue to explore ways to expand ACSA’s international footprint and relevance, including at the upcoming Administrators Conference in Quebec City, October 25–27.
The next few years pose a plethora of significant challenges to the architecture discipline, including the rising cost of higher education, diminishing state budgets, an uneven international playing field for graduates, issues of diversity and mobility, and important discussions leading up to the 2019 NAAB Accreditation Review Forum. As an academic community, we must continue to stimulate and support a dynamic and prolific dialogue about the current state as well as the future possibilities of architectural pedagogy.
As I finish my term as president of ACSA, I would like to thank my fellow board members; Mike Monti, Eric Ellis, and the staff in Washington; our two journal editors and their boards; the co-chairs, volunteers, and all the participants in the many conferences and meetings we have held this year in Marfa, Albuquerque, Denver, and Madrid.
Finally, our work would not have been possible without the constant support of my predecessors, Bruce Lindsey and Marilys Nepomechie, as well as a group of past presidents who remain committed to the continued success of the association and its mission. I look forward to reciprocating as we welcome incoming president Branko Kolarevic in July.
Best regards, Francisco Javier Rodríguez Suárez, AIA, DPACSA
Column by Viveca Pattison Robichaud, Special Collections Librarian, Architecture Library, University of Notre Dame
Architecture libraries and their librarians provide a wealth of services and expertise, but have you ever wondered what some of their strategies are to disseminate this information? Since no one library or librarian is the same, outreach approaches are similarly diverse. One strategy, employed in the Architecture Library at the University of Notre Dame, is to promote collections and services through the use of social media. Many architecture libraries have a Facebook page, Instagram and/or Twitter accounts, with many more blogging, creating online exhibits, and interacting online with patrons in a myriad of ways. Starting in the 2011-2012 academic year, under my direction, the Architecture Library sought to develop a coherent social media strategy. The first step in this process was to determine who exactly our audience would be. Once I understood who I wanted to reach, I could start developing a systematic approach to effectively promote the library and its collections.
New Book Acquisition, October 3, 2014.
At some point, before I joined the Architecture Library, a Facebook account was created, however, it was no longer being used and did not have many connections. My first step was to create a fresh new Architecture Library page and start posting. While our page started to slowly gain followers, the numbers were not where I wanted them to be. What was helpful, though, was seeing that most of our followers were not our regular faculty and student patrons, but instead consisted of alums and people interested in the School of Architecture who were not on campus regularly. It was important for me to realize that our students and faculty were already engaging with our collection physically, so they did not need to spend time engaging with us virtually.
Post tied in with Alumni weekend, celebrating the School of Architecture’s first graduate, October 10, 2014.
In the summer of 2014, after a few years of Facebook activity, the Architecture Library joined Instagram and Twitter. Based on the literature related to successful social media strategies and according to the School of Architecture’s Director of Communications, it was clear to me that regularly posting helps grow a following. That being said, posting too frequently could also have a negative impact and overwhelm users, causing them to ignore or unfollow accounts. Since our library collection and staff is relatively small, with all of the social media posting falling into my workload, I decided to set myself a moderate task of posting once a week. Since I spend Fridays at our circulation desk, I have worked a social media post into my Friday routine.
Oldest book in the collection post, November 7, 2014.
Architecture is a very visual discipline, so Instagram is my primary mode of social media interaction, which I then disseminate to Facebook and Twitter, in order to engage with the most followers. After posting a few different kinds of posts, I decided focus on highlighting and promoting what is truly unique about our library: our rare book collection. Our Ryan Rare Book Room, which contains a significant number of rare and unique texts from 1485 through the 20th century, is open to students, faculty, and the general public. That being said, any patron, regardless of affiliation, would need to make an appointment and request specific titles, so the collection is not browseable like the rest of the library’s holdings. Highlighting these books, therefore, appeals to both our campus patrons and our off-campus admirers. Those on site who are interested in engaging with us on social media are not getting redundant information, but rather, are being introduced to titles housed in the library that they would not find on their own. Alums, colleagues, and other followers are also treated to snippets of our collection, which, should they find themselves on campus, would be outside of their normal access.
Barbaro Vitruvius, January 9, 2015.
Under the #rarebookfriday I post weekly pictures of titles from our collection. The first few posts wrote themselves, showcasing our most beloved books. In subsequent weeks and over the years, I have tried to tie in posts about what is happening on campus, like reunions, perspective students visiting campus, classes using the collection, other moments in the academic year, and, of course, football rivalries. This platform is also a great way to publicize new titles added to the collection. Increasingly, social media is also a venue for our library to interact publicly with the School of Architecture’s profiles, as we both can share, like, tag, and retweet each other’s posts. I try to have fun with these posts and it certainly seems to be gaining traction, especially on Instagram, with each post accumulating more likes than the last.
Follow us: @ArchLibND (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter)
Students with faculty member Duncan Stroik, September 22, 2017.
Irish apple from AI Downing, to tie in with fall break, October 14, 2016.
Prospective students seeing a selection of books from the Ryan Rate Book Room, April 22, 2016.
Bucrania from Vignola to tie in with a football game against Texas, September 4, 2015.
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These same processes of design thinking can be utilized in the strategy and management of academic libraries to provide solutions to some of the challenges we face. Some common challenges include: how to engage with patrons in new ways, how to get students involved in the design of the library space, patron-centered collection development, and doing more with limited budgets. In this column, we will highlight design thinking tools that can be applied to help solve these challenges.
