C&RL News July/August 2019 398

Libraries at small colleges, especially colleges with a nontraditional student 
population, face an uphill struggle to remain 
relevant in the life of the institution. Students 
at colleges like these tend to be adults who 
are already in the workforce and have many 
responsibilities and demands on their time 
outside of school. These students will usu-
ally either come to campus for their classes 
and leave or take online classes and rarely 
set foot on campus.

This is challenging for the small college 
library. Three of the major functions of any 
academic library are providing in-person 
assistance, study space, and access to physi-
cal materials. These functions will necessar-
ily decline as students spend less time on 
campus or migrate entirely online. This can 
have budgetary implications, especially con-
sidering that funding for libraries is trending 
downward across higher education. 

Small college libraries also face a space 
crunch. Community colleges and other 
small, nonresidential colleges may not 
have a separate building for the library, 
housing it instead alongside quite a few 
other resources and spaces. As the college 
grows and space becomes tight, a library 
that sometimes looks empty might be a 
tempting target for administrators trying to 
maximize the use of space on their cam-
puses. Even libraries at large universities 
are falling prey to this trend. Unfortunately, 
the robust online services that academic 
libraries develop, while vital and neces-
sary, don’t help the library justify the use 
of physical space.

Therefore, small academic libraries have 
to get creative.

The Hoffman Family Library at Goodwin 
College in East Hartford, Connecticut, has 
faced many of these issues. Goodwin Col-
lege is a small, private, nonprofit, career-
focused institution that caters primarily to 
students from disadvantaged backgrounds. 
The student body is 80% female and rough-
ly half are people of color. The average age 
of a Goodwin student is 29, most students 
are part-time, and nearly all do not live on 
campus. The college’s full-time equivalent 
varies from semester to semester but is usu-
ally in the neighborhood of 3,500.

The library is situated in the college’s 
main building, where it is split between 
parts of the first and second floors. There 
are roughly 8,000 print volumes in the 
collection, complemented by online hold-
ings comparable to those of other colleges 
of Goodwin’s size. The library’s physical 
space is devoted mainly to study, computer 
use, and the use of reserve materials.

Library staff have worked over the past 
year to make its space a destination for 
both academic and fun events. We’d been 
wanting to use our space more creatively 
for some time, especially after a remodel-

Susan Bigelow and Danielle Berube

Staying at the heart of the institution
The small college library as an event space

Susan Bigelow is assistant director of library services 
liaison: Health & Natural Sciences/Graduate Programs 
at Goodwin College’s Hoffman Family Library, email: 
sbigelow@goodwin.edu, and Danielle Berube is 
reference librarian I at New Britain Public Library, email: 
dberube@goodwin.edu

© 2019 Susan Bigelow and Danielle Berube

mailto:sbigelow%40goodwin.edu?subject=
mailto:dberube%40goodwin.edu?subject=


July/August 2019 399 C&RL News

ing of the first floor in 2016. During the 
fall 2018 semester, the library hosted two 
academic events in a newly developed event 
space and ran an escape room activity with 
classes and members of the college com-
munity.

Academic events
The most distinctive and memorable feature 
of the library is the two-story glass win-
dows overlooking the Connecticut River. 
The space by 
these win-
dows, which 
is often illu-
minated by a 
soft and in-
viting natural 
light, is oc-
cupied by a 
few shelves, 
comfortable 
seating, and 
tables and 
chairs for in-
dividual and 
group study. 
We decided 
to create our 
event space 
in this loca-
tion. The 
tables are quite easy to move to the side, 
allowing us to arrange the chairs and other 
seating in a horseshoe facing the windows.

The first event we held in this space was 
in October 2018 for Indigenous Peoples 
Day, which the college had recently insti-
tuted to replace Columbus Day. The event 
was set up by Assistant Director Susan 
Bigelow, who was also the cochair of the 
college’s Intercultural Inclusivity Commit-
tee, as a question-and-answer session with 
History Professor Brittney Yancy on the 
issues surrounding the day.

Several faculty members brought their 
classes to the event at the committee’s 
invitation, but other faculty and staff at-
tended, as well. There were approximately 

40 attendees, not counting students who 
observed from the library’s second-floor 
balcony. Our IT department brought mi-
crophones and speakers, but the excellent 
acoustics of the space made them all but 
unnecessary. The library received a great 
deal of very positive comments about the 
space and the potential to hold these kinds 
of events in the future.

The second event took place in late No-
vember 2018. A group of Vietnam veterans 

w a s  s c h e d -
uled to speak 
with a class 
a b o u t  t h e i r 
experiences, 
and the pro-
fessor decided 
that the library 
event space 
would be a 
great venue. 
The professor 
was Brittney 
Yancy fro m 
t h e  I n d i g e -
nous Peoples 
D a y  e v e n t , 
and her ex-
perience had 
been so posi-
tive that she 

wanted to return.
This was the first time the event space 

had been requested by someone outside 
the library, and we had less than a week’s 
notice to make it happen. However, since 
we’d already set the space up once, it was 
easy to replicate. It took library staff and 
student workers only about 20 minutes to 
clear the space and set up the chairs. This 
event was attended by Yancy’s class and 
additional students, faculty, and staff. Par-
ticipants and attendees were both pleased 
with the venue.

For each event, we took pictures to be 
added to the college’s weekly newsletter to 
faculty and staff. These pictures were also 
shared on the college’s Facebook page.

Professor Brittney Yancy (left) and Assistant Library Director Susan 
Bigelow (right) present at the Indigenous Peoples Day event, 
October 11, 2018. Photo credit Susan Hansen.



C&RL News July/August 2019 400

Escape room
After attending a library conference in 
2016 where a public library hosted an 
escape room, two library staff members 
decided to design one to be held in the 
library. An escape room is a reality enter-
tainment game, where teams must work 
together to solve a series of puzzles, rid-
dles, and other challenges to complete a 
specific goal within a set amount of time.

After careful planning, a team led by Ref-
erence Librarian Danielle Berube designed 
an escape 
room event 
f o r  a f t e r 
h o u r s  o n 
a  F r i d a y 
i n  A u g u s t 
2 0 1 8 .  U n -
fortunately, 
due to both 
the time slot 
and the time 
of year, no 
one signed 
up for the 
event. The 
team didn’t 
w a n t  t o 
wa s t e  t h e 
months we 
had spent creating various puzzles and clues 
to be placed around the library, however, 
so we decided to take the concept and re-
purpose it as an introduction to the library. 
This would be aimed at courses for incoming 
students.

The purpose of our escape room is to 
prevent the “Mad Librarian,” played by Library 
Director Susan Hansen, from stealing a rare 
book from the library’s collection. Participants 
could defeat her by unlocking a padlock with 
a four-digit key code on her office door and 
retrieving the book before time runs out. We 
designed four portable stations throughout 
the library, with a variety of puzzles ranging 
in difficulty at each one. After completing 
each station, a student received one of the 
numbers needed to unlock the door.

We incorporated several key library re-
sources into the activities, such as the library’s 
catalog and discovery tool and clues hidden 
in a box of bones used by our anatomy and 
physiology students. We wanted students to 
be able to become familiar with the library 
and all of its resources while having a fun 
and engaging experience.

So far, the five foundational English classes 
to complete the activity seemed to enjoy 
themselves. We asked the students to fill out 
a Google Form for feedback. The results were 

p o s i t i v e : 
75 percent 
s a i d  t h e y 
would con-
sider com-
ing back to 
c o m p l e t e 
another es-
cape room 
outside of 
class.

We plan 
to create an-
other library 
orientation 
e s c a p e 
room next 
summer and 
also to cre-

ate a more elaborate escape room to be 
completed outside of library hours.1

Conclusion
Both the academic events and the escape 
room allowed students, faculty, and admin-
istration to see the library space in a new 
light. We hope that these events and others 
like them in the future will be a long-lasting 
and important contribution to the life of the 
college and a reminder to everyone about 
the value not just of library services but of 
library space.

Note
1. There is more information on the es-

cape room on our website: https://goodwin.
libguides.com/Madlibrarianescaperoom. 

A group successfully completes the escape room activity. Director 
Susan Hansen as the “Mad Librarian” is in the background shaking 
her fist. Photo credit: Danielle Berube.

https://goodwin.libguides.com/Madlibrarianescaperoom
https://goodwin.libguides.com/Madlibrarianescaperoom