According to Wikipedia, the term “third space” refers to “social surroundings that are separate from the two usual social environments of home and the workplace.” Overall, the goal of third spaces is to promote social interaction and communal growth. Examples of third spaces include parks, gyms, cafes, and libraries.
Libraries, in particular, are spaces that I and many others cherish greatly with importance.
Just as a third space does, the library serves as a crucial space in people’s lives. It’s a place where they can work on just about anything without getting distracted at home, or wind down and relax when they’re tired from the workload of school (sorry, CI).
Personally, the library I frequent the most is the one nearest CI: the Oxnard College library. As an Oxnard College student (thank you, Dual Enrollment), I have been able to take advantage of the resources provided by the community college, including its library.
The Oxnard College library is more or less your common library: a space filled with a galore of books and quiet spaces to completely focus on your tasks at hand. It serves a lot of purposes for me. For instance, when I need some quiet, a private space to record presentations, or a place to join a Zoom meeting, I am able to book a study room. In these study rooms, I’m able to speak my heart out as loud as I want! Even if quiet isn’t what I’m looking for, the library easily serves its purpose as a third space by giving people the chance to grow closer to others outside of the home and workplace.
The Islands, of course, has their very own library. Ms. Kimberly Tahsuda Nelson, CI’s 7th-year teacher-librarian, says that the library is a “safe, comfortable, clean environment for any student on campus to be able to use.”
CI’s library definitely isn’t what you’d expect from the typical library: It’s full of chatter and an array of games and laughter, with hearty groups of students sprawled all throughout the relatively small room. Despite its apparent lack of peace and quiet, CI’s library fulfills its purpose as a third space. Students are able to interact with others, subsequently fostering a sense of community in a space that isn’t directly their classrooms nor their homes. And many Raiders take advantage of all that; during extended hours (nutrition, lunch, before and after school) especially, the liveliness of the library increases tenfold.
With all of these factors coupled together, the funding issues that are affecting the library’s hours have been nothing short of disappointing. Traditionally, the library has been open from 7:45 AM to 3:35 PM; after changes to funding sources, however, library staff have had to prioritize “which times before school, lunch, and after school they want the library to be open.”
Third spaces and their importance to students as a whole aren’t appreciated much apparently, and that becomes especially clear when those at higher positions attempt to thwart the service provided by the library.
Whether this is due to lack of insight or plain indifference to the livelihood of students is up in the air. What’s clear, though, is the importance of libraries and its services to the students of CI. One anonymous Raider who responded to the library’s Visit Survey sums it up best:
“It makes me feel like there is somewhere I can always go to.”
