[13593] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
Re: multimedia computing facilities for students
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jack Kessler)
Mon Oct 30 20:03:08 2000
Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2000 09:59:16 -0700
From: Jack Kessler <kessler@WELL.COM>
In-reply-to: <Pine.GSO.3.96.1001025084928.316B-100000@steel2.ucs.indiana.edu>
To: PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU
Reply-to: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU>
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> My question to the list is: are you aware of any other
> universities (US, UK, Europe) which are currently undertaking
> similar efforts to accomodate multimedia and group work
> in considerable numbers ? Within or outside the library.
Why are you looking only at "libraries" -- and "university
libraries" at that -- for ideas for this?
A new paradigm may be needed, for something as radical as
"efforts to accommodate multimedia and group work in considerable
numbers". And with all the work being done in these directions by
so many people nowadays, "libraries" and "universities" may not
be the leading and certainly are not the only examples... that
very interesting - sounding lab at Indiana notwithstanding...
I had a look around Yahoo!'s corporate offices some time back,
and Oracle's "campus": it was absolutely fascinating how
revolutionary, and how alien, all of it was to me -- open plan
offices, partitioned meeting rooms, "play" areas, white boards,
inhouse cafe's, easy access to outside "rest and relaxation",
high - pressure "think" rooms, "group" - ware and "group" -
orientations and "team" - work everywhere.
As you said, Hans, in your original posting,
> Paradoxically, the introduction of digital learning
> environments seems to increase the need for physical
> encounters, since it also often introduces more active
> learning styles.
-- emphatically so, I think, and the trend is increasing -- the
emphasis inside hitech firms themselves very much now is on "face
- to - face" encounters and group work, "teams", and physical and
very non - digital "networking".
But this is not at all paradoxical. If you follow the latest
"location theory" urbanism work -- being done by Manuel Castells
and AnnaLee Saxenian and Saskia Sassen et al. -- there is an
increasing tendency to split "services" between those which can
be done remotely via digital communication, and those which
permit and even _require_ increasing "face to face" contact.
Sassen calls these latter "producer services", and in fact
attributes the rapid growth of "global cities" such as London,
New York, Tokyo largely to their development. It is this
globalized "producer service" economy for which university
libraries, and universities generally, are preparing their
students nowadays -- so, think _more_ "urban concentration" and
"teamwork" and "groupware" and "face to face contact", as a
direct result of digitization, not less.
Add to this, then, Thom's point about new video games in which,
> You stand up using these things and also dance around space.
> The entire body is about to become the mouse so you need to
> make room not just folks folks sitting at tables discussing
> but moving and milling around discussing.
-- entirely valid too, I think -- video games very often lead the
digital industries -- we are "homo ludens", after all, which is a
Dutch concept (Huizinga)... -- and you have a recipe for an
entirely different allocation and arrangement of library and
general university learning space, coming up, than anything
currently provided in any library / university "computer lab"
which _I_ have seen recently -- all those tiny, cramped,
separated, little acoustic cubicles...
So if I were in your position I would go out to visit private
industry -- the more imaginative among them -- to find models, or
at least ideas, for how the "new" space allocation and
arrangement paradigm is going to work in a multimedia world.
Yahoo! and Oracle are convenient to me near San Francisco, but
there also are open - plan offices and digital groupthink - style
Internet startups to be seen in Manhattan, and in London, and in
Paris, and in many places now.
I am sure that there must be some in Amsterdam and elsewhere in
the Netherlands: What do the offices of your leading local ISPs /
WSPs / Web designers and consultants look like? Have a look at
the offices of World Online,
W3: http://www.worldonline.com/corporate/index_ns.html
postal: Westerlaan 2, 3016 CK Rotterdam
or at any / all of those of Netherlands firms such as Canvas
Multi-Media, or Elsas Producties, or Endless Customized
Multimedia Solutions (ECMS), or Pointer Interactieve Media, or
Tria M Europe BV. If you have a good videogame producer nearby,
go have a look at _their_ offices, and talk to their people. Any
good local cybercafe's at Tilburg with good multimedia setups and
events? -- these might be interesting to see and to think about.
Best hint / most useful of all to you, I think: look for the punk
hairdo / nosering / "attitude" Internet startup people, any of
them which are not actually going bankrupt -- the way _they_ are
laying out and operating _their_ "offices" will offer you more in
the way of useful ideas for designing your new "multimedia
computing facility" -- to fit the new paradigm, and not fall out
of date within a year -- than any existing "library" or
"university" might.
Just an iconoclastic thought... "think different"...
Jack Kessler, kessler@well.sf.ca.us
