The Library As “Third Place” in Academe: Fulfilling a Need for Community in the Digital Age

Abstract

Today’s highly technological society is causing people to lose their personal connections and sense of community. In his book The Great Good Place, sociologist Ray Ohlenburg identifies the need people have for a “third place” after home and work that provides for community interaction and socialization with others. In the academic community on college and university campuses, students, faculty and administrators are looking for a place on campus that provides a learning environment allowing a community of scholars to interact with one another. We contend that the library with its new mission as a center of learning and collaboration can truly become the heart of the campus or the third place within the university community. We will explore academic library services at two mid-sized publicly supported universities in Indiana, one a residential campus and one a commuter campus, to show how these two libraries are giving their own unique vision to a revised mission for libraries in the 21st century as a “third place” for students and scholars to meet, collaborate and socialize.