library buildings and interior (re)designs in universities of catalonia

Library buildings and interior (re)designs in universities of

Catalonia

IFLA Library Buildings and Equipment

Section

(midterm meeting)Barcelona, February 27th, 2015

Pompeu Fabra University

Agenda

• The Catalan higher education system

• The university library system

• Library buildings

• Room for users

• Discussion

Higher Education system

3

12 public and private universities

Over 237,000 students (undergraduate

degrees and masters)

Over 15,000 doctoral students

More than 450 different undergraduate

degrees and 450 masters

Campus of International Excellence

1% of world scientific production (Nature)

Two of the top five best executive

education schools around the world

European standards: all programs

adapted to the Bologna process (ECTS).

Catalonia has a significant number of

educational centres per population

A sign of Catalonia’s excellence in Higher

Education is the number of students from

abroad Catalonia

1. About Catalonia: Our position in the world’s higher

education and research rankings

1 university is

ranked world’s 60th in

research productivity

4 universities in the top

world’s top 100

universities under 50

2 universities in the

world’s top 200

CRG is ranked 9th in

the world’s top 100 biomedic research centres

ICIQ 1st research

centre in chemistry

sciences by Max Planck

Institute

ICFO 1st research

centre in physics

sciences by Max Planck

Institute

ARWU i QS (2014)Time Higher Education (2014)URAP (2014)

Scimago Report (SIR 2013) Scimago Report (SIR 2013) Scimago Report (SIR 2013)

Barcelona is ranked the 6th European city and the 19th world city for

higher education students in the QS Best cities (2015 edition)

The university library system

• 1974-82: from dictatorship to democracy

• 1983: new law for universities (LRU)

• 1985-95: university libraries reorganization– All the university libraries = The Library of the University

– Technical services, organization chart

– Library automation & services modernization

• 1990-05: new library buildings

• 2000-15: CRAI, library as resource center for learning and research– room for users

CBUC (CSUC)

• CBUC (Consortium of Academic Libraries of Catalonia 1996-2013; CSUC Consortium of Academic Services of Catalonia 2014- )

– Union catalogue– Consortial borrowing– Collaborative print repository: GEPA– Digital library (licensing)– Research repositories: doctoral thesis (TDX), articles &

papers (Recercat)– Image repository (MDC)– Portals: journals (RACO), research profiles (PRC)– Shared ILS (Millennium) and library software (SFX,

MetaLib...)

Library buildings

• New (almost)

• Modern

• Big (6-8.000 m2)

• Campus libraries

Autonomous University of Barcelona. Biblioteca de Comunicació i Hemeroteca General

Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC). Rector G. Ferraté

Library

Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC). Rector G. Ferraté Library

Pompeu Fabra University- Ciutadella campus- Poblenou campus- Mar campus

University of Girona. Barri vell library

Girona University. Montilibi library

Lleida University, Biblioteca de Cappont

Room for users

• In 2000s:

– not easy to get money to expand libraries, they began to be saturated

– the digitization of journals was an unstoppable movement that would reduce the need for physical items available to users

• CRAI main feature is to integrate in the library audiovisual, technology and librarian services and resources, which requires changing the interior design of libraries

• Libraries were designed to use books, nowadays they are designed so that people can interact among them with all the resources

• This new orientation of libraries could not be translated into new buildings, as they had been recently built

• To do so, there was no other alternative but to transform the existing spaces

Pompeu Fabra University. Old França Library

Before: room for books

During: load of materials

Pompeu Fabra University Library/CRAI

Room for users


Autonomous University of Barcelona. Library of Science and Technology



Autonomous University of Barcelona. Library of Science and Technology

After: room for users


Rovira i Virgili University: Library of the Faculty of Medicine and Health

Before: room for books (depository)

Rovira i Virgili University: Library of the Faculty of Medicine and Health


Lleida University, Cappont Library



During: renovation works