Current mood:	productive
Entry tags:	libraries

CSU Channel Islands
Heavens, I haven't updated for 5 weeks! That's because my life has been going through major techtonic shifts, and info. science blogging fell to very far back burner. So did my reporting for LISNews.org, but I think I'm building up momentum again to resume these tasks.

In any case, I just got home from a very interesting job interview at CSU Channel Islands. This is the newest and perhaps most hip of the California State U's (opened in 2002). It's library is very different from other academic libraries I've encountered: more informal (even allows eating/drinking!), more thoroughly engaged with every aspect of the school's academic and campus life development. My overall impression is that the librarians at CSU CI are friends of the school: they work closely with faculty; they know almost all the (small) student body personally; they're the university's go-to people for just about any question or problem that doesn't seem to fit anywhere else.

They are, in fact, a marvelous example library outreach in the tradition we read so much about in library school. The library at CSU CI is not principally a building; it's a community that runs throughout the university, like the mortar that holds the bricks together. It's a fascinating model for what an academic library can be.