3.2 SMART Library

SMART Library – An Indoor Living Lab

Imagine a student walking into the library, the library app is triggered and opens on the cellphone, informs the student that the preferred temperature of 20 degrees and an empty seat are available in zone 8. The student walks to zone 8, feels a little tired and therefore turns up the light to 450 lux, so that adrenaline starts kicking in. It’s winter and depressingly dark outside so the student turns the colour to 4500 on the Kelvin scale, which simulates daylight and will stimulate wellness. Noise from the event in the large atrium can barely be heard due to the white noise that breaks the sound, with the calming effect of running water, from the speakers. The student downloads the latest movement data collected from the library and creates a heat map showing the preferred seating possibilities, needed for the project assignment.

This vision is being implemented incrementally at DTU Library in 2016. The Library is changing 620 lamps into LED lamps and at the same time incorporating a variety of sensors that collect all sorts of living data such as movement, temperature, CO2, light strength and colour, acoustics, with the possibility of adding other sensors. The data collection is coordinated with researchers and university campus administrators, thereby serving a purpose from Day One. Researches can collect large amounts of data both for their own research and for student projects. Campus administrators can adjust light and heat according to use and hereby lower the building expenditure. In designated learning zones students can interact with the sensors and start to innovate on real life solutions, possibly in collaboration with a company.

In accordance with DTU’s strategy on creating student experimental facilities, we have formulated the following vision for the SMART Library: ‘The library space will be an indoor living lab, where students, researchers and entrepreneurs can develop, test and demonstrate SMART technologies, analyze the collected data and conduct research- and student projects, while optimizing the indoor climate, lighting and acoustics and therefore boosting the chances of learning.’

All in all, we believe that this transformation will improve learning at the University and the Library’s strategic impact internally and externally. Library impact on student grades and retention will be much easier to analyse and visualise now that data are already collected. It will be possible to assess our own services in an organised way to improve our efficiency. Collaboration with researchers, teachers, students, external organisations, campus service and other administrative departments already enhance our possibilities of working together on many other projects. Last but not least, this movement into data management and analytics will strengthen our competences, and embrace the present and future needs of our users.

Lars Binau has an MBA in Strategy, Organisation and Leadership from Copenhagen Business School, and an associate degree in accounting from Quincy College, Massachusetts, USA. He is currently participating in LIBER’s ‘Emerging Leaders’ international development programme for the leaders of tomorrow’s libraries. For the last ten years, he has been head of various departments within the Technical Information Centre of Denmark, and is presently in charge of library facilities and stacks. He is specially dedicated to transforming the physical locations into a state of the art learning environment that enforces and reframes innovation at the Technical University of Denmark. Within the vision for this ongoing project, the strategic aim is to transform the library to a smart library that measures and envisions library impact on its stakeholders.