From Computer Labs to Coffee Shops

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From Computer Labs to Coffee Shops - About Time!

11/5/2003

By Terry Calhoun

Right at this point in time it might be difficult to see why someone studying mortuary science or dental hygiene needs to work with a laptop computer or a PDA. But if you take a serious look 5 years down the road it's hard to imagine a future where they *won't* need those skills. Having "labs" perpetuates the notion that having a computer is somehow extraordinary, which it should not be.

Specialized labs are a different situation, especially where for curricular purposes students need to be working with specialized, expensive, or hard to install software. Just like expensive textbooks, students aren't going to shell out huge bucks for a piece of software they're likely to use for only one class. You will find even the more affluent students who own PDAs and laptops both in those computer labs. These types of labs should be funded by pertinent student fees.

Included in specialized labs would be the kinds of resources like high-speed or top-notch color printers, scanning devices, and the like. These "technology centers" are general in the sense of academic relationships but specific in providing resources that students might want but for which they don't want to invest for the hardware and supplies. Those types of "computer labs" should be profit centers.

An entirely different situation is the need for socializing space. Big media centers and student unions, the kind of *huge* computer areas that seat 200-300 students, serve some of that student need to see and be seen. And now, maybe the generalized computer lab on at least some affluent classes is morphing into coffee cafes? That's why what appears to be a growing trend for coffee shops in libraries piqued my interest. A quick search finds dozens of news releases and articles about coffee "pubs" and coffee "bars" in such places as North Carolina State University, the University of Colorado Law School, and the Leddy Library at the University of Windsor in Ontario. After all, in many of our libraries, all we're missing is the coffee.

This may strike some as more coddling of students, or more pandering to their "wants" instead of the "needs," but I think that the knowledge age worker of the future is going to work in an environment that is far more reminiscent of a coffee shop than it is of a 70s-era computer lab.

About the author: Terry Calhoun is Director of Communications and Publications for the Society for College and University Planning (SCUP). You can contact him through CT's IT Trends forum by clicking here. View more articles by Terry Calhoun.

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Terry Calhoun, "From Computer Labs to Coffee Shops - About Time!," Campus Technology, 11/5/2003, http://www.campustechnology.com/article.aspx?aid=39584

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