Ethnographic Study: Smoky Hill Library
The public location that I chose to do the ethnography study is the Smoky Hill Library which locates at 5430 S Biscay Cir, Centennial, CO 80015. It is in a quiet and beautiful neighborhood with a big parking lot. I often went there to study when I was preparing GRE. I like it more than other libraries because of the coziness of the environment and the welcoming staff. It has many visitors from all ages from very little kids to old people, but not too many to the point that would make people feel uncomfortable or not having enough sources to share. It is a two story building, the first floor has book area that people can borrow and return books, event rooms and a cafe; the second floor has book, computer, reading and study areas, and two balconies just like the layout picture shows below.
In this study, I am just going to focus on the second floor. As you can see the layout above, even though I divides the whole floor into these different areas, there are not always specific barriers between these areas. They are divided by the most important function or characteristic.
The Balconies locate at two ends of the second floor with big chairs. They have shade but no glass windows that wind can blow through. Both Balconies have glass doors at the entrance that block sound.
Rest room locates behind a wall of the study area. it needs to be assessed by the aisle in the middle of the floor.
Study area with desks locate all around the floor. Small desks for one person use are placed all beside walls. large desks for 4 person use are placed close to the balcony. They all have power sockets and desk lamps.
Reading area is the spot placed with cozy sofas and lamps without desks. It is located at the left side of the floor right next to the balcony. It has no barrier between study area with desks around it, just an open space.
There are computers located at the center of the floor where people can assess to internet and print files. It is also an open space with only a fireplace between the reading area. People walk through there a lot because it connects to the stair to the first floor.
There are two study rooms with desks, chairs and boards in them. People would need schedule ahead to book the room. Usually full.
Bookshelves are surrounded by study area with desks. People walk through there to find books or just sit on the floor there to read. It is an open space too.
For this study, I went there on Friday and stayed from 9:30 am to 6:30 pm.
In the morning, there were very few people visiting. the library was quiet, barely had visitors except the reading area. Most visitors would bring a cup of coffee and sit in the reading area to read books. And they usually stayed for above an hour. The design of the reading area worked well here. Cozy sofa and the comfortable environment make it the perfect place to relax and read a book. Since very few visitors in the morning, bare distraction help readers to focus well on reading.
In the afternoon, the library were getting busy. A lot of teenage students came to study. The study room got filled. All small desks for one person use were taken really quickly. Some students used the large desks to do group works. There were also after school tutoring used the large desks. Some parents also brought their children with them to the Library to borrow books. Noticeably, there were more and more people walking around and getting noisy. The basically open design of the whole floor worked quite well when there were not that many people because it made people feel welcomed, relaxed, free and have a lot of personal spaces to focus on their own things. However, when the busy time came, the open space design showed its shortcomings. Because of not enough study rooms, those group works and tutoring talks happened in the study area. Even though people were trying to keep their voice low, other people around the area could still hear them talking. A lot of kids who came with their parents were just too little to understand they should keep quiet in the library. They always tried to make some big sound to get their parents’ attention. Even though their parents tried to stop them, they wouldn’t stop until they left the library. Here I noticed an interesting reaction to this phenomenon, people who wanted to read or study alone were putting their earphones on. This didn’t happen earlier when there were few people around. That means people did feel the environment were too noisy for them to focus on their study or reading.
I think one solution to this problem could be the balcony. The floor has two roomy balconies at both end of the floor and right next to the study area. However, they were not in use for most of the time. People usually went there to answer phone calls because they have glass doors that can block the sound. Barely any people stayed there to study or read books for long. That was because there has no glass window to block the strong wind blowing outside, and the outside temperature was not that comfortable for people to stay long. However, if the balconies could be installed with glass windows that could be opened or closed, they would be an extension of the inside area. With the sound blocking feature, they would be a good place for group works and tutoring without bothering others who need the quiet environment to study or read.
The solution to the kid noise would be setting up another independent room that blocks sound for short time babysitting, so when the parents go to find and borrow books, they don’t need to bring their kids with them. When they finish their business, they could pick up their kids when leaving the library.
When it was getting dark, the library was about to close. The problem was still the noise. But there were few people during this time, the noise was form the staffs of the library. About an hour before the close time, the staffs started walking around to turn off desk lamps and other devices that no one was using, talking to each other and getting all other things ready for closing. Again, Because this whole space was basically an open space, every movement and sound seemed so noticeable. It distracted people a lot and thus most of them would choose to leave when they noticed that. My suggestion to solve this problem is to install some sensors to the devices that needed to be turn off when no one using, so that they could turn off automatically after a while when they sense no one is using. In that way, the staffs wouldn’t need to go over to each devices to turn them off long before closing, and the visitors wouldn’t be affected by the distractions caused by that anymore.
