Supporting research, teaching, and learning at Georgia Tech
brightspot collaborated with Georgia Tech to develop a compelling vision for the future, an emerging innovative new design that was informed by research, and an engaged staff who are championing new directions in service delivery that meet the unique needs of the campus, even as they change.
“Georgia Tech is thinking about what’s next for our library and brightspot helped us get there by researching faculty and students, creating a playbook of services and spaces, then working with our staff to realize our goals.”
– Georgia Tech Library Staff Member
Georgia Tech’s Library was planning a renovation of their two buildings and wanted to understand their users’ needs in the changing landscapes of research, teaching, and learning. This initiative was to (1) inform the design of the renewed facilities, (2) to create innovative new service and staffing models within the Library, and (3) to adapt as an organization.
For the facilities renewal, we conducted a campus-wide user research project engaging students, faculty, and staff in interviews, workshops, surveys, ethnographic shadowing observations, retreats, and town hall meetings. We also mined the Library’s robust data on usage, transactions, and satisfaction. brightspot trained library staff on tools and techniques for data gathering and collaboratively synthesized findings. We summarized the findings, created the future vision, and then developed a “playbook” of service and space concepts which was translated into the space program by the architects and formed the basis of staff taskforces for new / enhanced services.
The second phase of work was to convene, facilitate, and guide the work of staff taskforces. This covered new services to be offered, such as rethinking how consultations happen, as well as the overall ideas that cut across services, such as the vision, philosophy, service categories, service point strategy, and staffing roles. We then worked together to prototype and pilot future concepts in order to use the interim state as a way to test ideas and build momentum for the future. During this phase, we also advised Georgia Tech and their architect (BNIM Architects) on the translation of the vision, playbook, and service model into spaces.
