THE FUTURE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Abstract

The library is an integral part of the university and helps to fulfill the culture, mission and goals of the institution. The universities are developing rapidly with increasing enrollment of students and teaching staff; hence, university libraries should develop as a consequence of the changes. Besides the user population, other crucial factors that should be taken into account are the growth of the collection, the characteristic of use, the application of information technology and the influence of future facilities. The objectives of this study are to comprehend of facility planning of successful university libraries, evaluate of the satisfaction level of National University of Singapore Central Library service system and identify crucial factors for future university library design. This paper focus on comprehending functions and desirable qualities of university library while evaluating space planning requirements for university libraries. The study further assesses the library service system provided to meet the demands of library users. Through this, various criteria for university library design will be identified, contributing to future library design. The research methodology adopted for this paper is case study, survey and site observation. The case study is to evaluate Nottingham University Library, a successful library designed by Faulkner-Brown .The National University of Singapore Central Library is studied through site observation and survey analysis of the satisfaction level of the Central Library service system. There are three key findings for this study. First of all, the desirable qualities of successful university libraries are functionality, accessibility, variety, comfort, security, economy and information technology. Secondly, the overall satisfaction level of university library service system is able to be predicted by the facilities and services provided through data analysis using SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Science). Lastly, the crucial factors needed to be deep considered for the design of future university libraries are defined as accessibility, book loan system, space of quiet area, space of reading area and library environment.