Libraries, Learning Space, and Slow Evolution

With remarkable consistency across time and cultures, students largely expect the library to be a place of silence. Meanwhile, pedagogy has rapidly evolved. Where we learn, how we interact, and the use of informal learning spaces across campus remain points of continuous deliberation. I wonder why library space has evolved so slowly by comparison, and why libraries continue to be treated as sacred spaces governed by a relatively fixed set of rules.

The estate footprint many libraries inhabit means they should be central to conversations about learning space, not a carved-out, discrete space.

That is not to dismiss their importance. Libraries are central to universities’ identities. Where libraries are genuinely loved by the university, cared for, invested in, maintained, and prioritised, they can become the heart of the campus.

But inhabiting a large central building does not automatically make something the heart of the campus, and often the footprint libraries occupy is protected more fiercely than the function itself.

Libraries underpin identity and belonging. They are important spaces for focus, ritual, familiarity, and psychological comfort. But they are not always easy places in which to build interaction, community, or social academic engagement.

I believe high-quality social study environments and collaborative learning spaces will eventually overtake quiet spaces that have not evolved, particularly where the prevailing model is only one of quiet reverence and behavioural conformity (which has its place as I reflect later in this blog). That model does not work for everyone, and there is no longer such a thing as one typical type of student who buildings can be designed around.

That library book circulation has remained static or declined is well understood in digital publishing, but less understood, perhaps, is how electronic resources are accessed and shared within library spaces, particularly from the perspective of estate development and space modelling.

Or put another way, it would be interesting to understand whether growing demand is for library-specific resources, or simply for space itself, which does not require traditional library space. Perhaps all those students are not there for the books.

Estates rationalisation

Libraries employ curators, librarians and archivists. By their nature they are keepers of things, stewards of stories, memory, and institutional history. They acquire, preserve, and conserve. Understandably, estate strategies, and indeed Estates Directors, focused on retraction, simplification, and rationalisation will not always sit comfortably alongside those instincts.

Given the financial position many universities find themselves in, it is reasonable, and inevitable, that institutions will look to their estates for rationalisation and optimisation, realigning space with actual demand and ensuring it exists where it delivers the greatest value.

Many universities have accumulated buildings and space over decades, sometimes centuries. The time has come to use what we already have better, rationalise where necessary, and repurpose underperforming space.

What I am struck by is how easily universities will consider repurposing teaching space yet often cloak libraries in institutional sacredness.

If libraries are to benefit from the same level of investment as teaching and research spaces, they should be open to the same scrutiny and expectations for evolution.

As competition for students intensifies and operating costs rise, improving campuses is increasingly compelling. It is not necessarily about more, or even new. The question is how to reshape and align what we already have, as expansion is no longer the marker of progress.

In my view of the future, libraries do not disappear but become more efficient and multifunctional. Less space is dedicated to books and shelving, and more is repurposed for broader forms of learning that sit comfortably alongside library activity.

Quiet study areas still exist, but radiating outward from them are more interactive spaces, collaborative learning areas, quiet group study environments, breakout and café spaces, academic and digital support, and embedded technology-enabled learning, all connected within the same ecosystem.

Less an argument for removal, but an expansion in the scope.

Neurodiversity and the Library as Scaffold

I recently learned something about libraries that changed my view of their importance whilst talking to a neurodiverse student about learning environments.

We started by discussing “body doubling”, a support strategy she described where another person is physically, and sometimes virtually, present whilst she completes tasks that are difficult to sustain or sequence. We then discussed why she found the library, despite being less comfortable and convenient than her residential accommodation, a better place to concentrate.

For her, the library acted as a scaffold for executive-function-intensive work. The predictability, social context, controlled sensory conditions, and visibility of peers, even strangers, provided behavioural cueing. The structured and traditional library environment reduced executive load and supported task initiation.

Even for those who do not struggle with task initiation, libraries are deeply supportive of parallel working, where multiple people independently undertake similar tasks within a shared environment without direct interaction.

Libraries are unambiguous in their expectations of predictability, quiet, focus, and low interruption. They work particularly well because they provide regulation through passive social presence and shared behavioural norms.

The very space that some people experience as restrictive, rigid, or outdated may be the precise condition that allows others to function and flourish.

Libraries, who knew?

Claudia Montgomery is Director of Estates, Environment and Facilities at City St George’s, University of London. She has built her career leading complex estates, facilities and capital programmes across both the higher education and healthcare sectors. Claudia is interested in using human-centred design and systems thinking to create environments that help people thrive, connecting physical space, experience and institutional ambition.