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This paper examines student perceptions of new individual study desks (ISDs) and how they improved the students' learning experience.

The study describes the process for developing new ISDs. When about half of the old ISDs were replaced with new ISDs, two parallel surveys were used to understand why students used the ISDs, what their experiences were and any suggested improvements.

Results indicate that the new ISDs were used by students for significantly longer periods of time. They enjoyed the ambiance and amenities of the new desks, including a whiteboard used by over 90% of students. Many students using new ISDs expressed a desire for more new ISDs, so it would not be as hard to find an available one; students using old ISDs called for improvements that would make the old ISDs more like the new ISDs.

This study has two practical implications. It emphasizes the importance of both engaging student patrons throughout the design process and conducting follow-up assessments to determine if changes make things better.

The value of this study is in understanding the optimal steps for developing new study spaces for students. These steps include integrating student input during development and design, prototyping a change and following up to determine the degree to which a change worked on the changes made.

The purpose of this paper is to show that the idea and implementation of information commons' is becoming more prevalent in the academic library community. Many of these have been implemented in what were once General Reference areas of libraries. This paper discusses the process and experience of the Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University, including concept development, acceptance and implementation. In addition, the first 18 months of operation and our visions for the future of our implementation are contained herein. One of the major themes of the paper is that change in an information commons is inevitable.

The paper is a case study of the information commons implementation done at Brigham Young University.

The paper shows the implementation of the information commons at Brigham Young University has been very successful and it will continue to adapt as higher education practice at the University continues to change.

This paper shows that the jury is still out as concerns “best practices” in information commons' design, Brigham Young University's experience constitutes a case study, which may very well emerge as an example of “best practice.”

Shows that the experience at Brigham Young University will help other academic institutions as they contemplate implementing an information commons or changing a current implementation.