I just got off the phone with UBC’s Provost and Vice-President Academic, as well as UBC’s Deputy University Librarian, who invited me to chat about the proposed changes to the planned Research Commons space on floors 4 and 5 in Koerner. (it was originally to have been in person on Wednesday, but the Provost got busy, and then I had to go out of town, so phone it was.) Thanks to them for the conversation.

I still don’t buy it.

Yes, I get that putting the dedicated grad student writing space on the second floor of Koerner (hopefully, depending on what the architects say) means that that space is only a staircase/elevator away from the 4/5 spaces. And yes, I get that putting the new VPRI space on the second floor would mean that there’d be a lot of admin people traipsing around the building (although I suggested that having to escort, e.g., the federal Minister of Science and his entourage from the VPRI on the second floor to the President’s Office on the seventh floor might provide a good opportunity for those folks to see how a library in a major research university works). And yes, I know that there have been changes underway at Koerner for a number of years now, with books moving out and library meeting space being reduced since  2013 or so, and that having libraries incorporate a range of services – including Research Commonses – is the revolution of the future. And yes, I understand that the provincial government won’t give money for new admin buildings, and that asking the provincial government to change a policy isn’t a simple matter.

But, as I pointed out to them, UBC talks about synergies all the time, and you’re still losing synergies by not having all the grad student space on two floors. And the revolution in libraries isn’t about turning them into administration buildings; it’s about turning them into places where communities can collaborate to create great new things, and that can’t happen when a huge chunk of the space is cut off from those communities and reserved for administrators. And I couldn’t get a promise that there wouldn’t be any more incursions into Koerner Library space.

(I was very calm and didn’t scream into the phone that lockers won’t solve all grad students’ problems. We’re not in high school anymore.)

(Nor did I say “well, gee, you didn’t do your research” when they didn’t know how long I’d been involved with the Research Commons for.)

I said at the end that we’d have to agree to disagree that this was the best plan, but I appreciated their time and would be interested to see what would happen going forward.

No, I don’t feel like I pushed as hard as I could. I’m tired and have a headache, and I hate the phone (always have). But I tried.

I hope it made a little dent in their resolve.