Our dynamic modern library
“As library staff, it’s really important that we understand what students, researchers and other staff need from the library. That has changed enormously from Ogilvie MacKenna’s time. What we’ve recognised is that there isn’t just one single way in which students like to study, and so we’ve tried to provide that variety of spaces, that choice.”
Susan Ashworth (MA 1986) was appointed University Librarian in 2015, and believes the library of today would be unrecognizable to Ogilvie MacKenna. Building on his work and that of her other predecessors, Henry Heaney, Andrew Wale, Chris Bailey and Helen Durndell, she has helped to create a model example of a 21st-century building that responds to the needs of its users. Since her appointment, her title has also moved with the times and she is now Executive Director of Information Services.
Susan and her staff have introduced initiatives such as increased opening hours, with 24-hour opening being piloted, a laptop loan service and a pioneering scheme to provide support for researchers. This scheme is particularly important in an era where open access to publications and research data is becoming increasingly vital. “Other universities have started developing in the same sphere,” Susan says, “but we started quite early in Glasgow.”
Previously, children were not admitted to the library, but a new family study lounge opened in 2017 in response to the changing demographic of the student population. “This has been well received,” says Susan. “We’ve really handed the building over to the students and said, ‘it’s your building, your space’. What we’re thinking all the time is how can we make the experience better for students?”
The library’s unashamedly brutalist exterior was enhanced in 2013 by the addition of shiny aluminium cladding, and the interior has gone through many upgrades, too, on its way to today’s sleek modern spaces where students can choose between silent or noisy study, eat and drink if they choose, and work all the way through to 2am. But Susan knows that to be successful the library must always move with the times. She considers the building to be “in constant beta. It’s never finished.” Unfinished, perhaps, but still treasured: “I do think this is a very special library,” she says, “and I don’t think that’s because of the building; I think it’s because of the people.”
This article was first published in December 2018.