A third space is a place that is not home, work, or school, yet a place where people can meet with other people, get information, give information, and build community.¹ A library, including one attached to an academic institution, for example, an academic law library is a third space or third place. The term, “third place” was coined by Ray Oldenburg in 1989 in his book entitled The Great Good Place.² Other third spaces are coffee houses, churches, gyms, parks, basically anywhere where people gather that is not where they live and not where they work.³ The home is considered the first place and work or school is considered the second place.⁴

In my work as a research librarian, I co-facilitate meetings of the Student Library Advisory Committee (SLAC). The goal of these meetings is to gather information on how students are using and experiencing library resources, services, and spaces so that those who work in the library can better meet the information needs of students who use the library. In a 2023 blog post, I discussed the origins of my work with SLAC and in a 2024 blog post I discussed how SLAC fosters community, has a purpose, and how SLAC committee meetings inhabit a dedicated space, either physical or virtual. In this blog post, I would like to expand on the concept of a dedicated space,⁵ and note how the academic law library provides a space for exchanging useful information outside the home and classroom context and how the different physical spaces of the academic law library are highlighted in SLAC meetings.

First Function as a Third Space: The Academic Law Library Provides a Space for the Exchange of Information in SLAC Meetings

These SLAC meetings that law students voluntarily attend and that are sponsored by the library reinforce the library’s character as a third space for community and learning since law students who attend these meetings are meeting not only with the librarians, but also with each other and an exchange of information is taking place; this exchange is a byproduct of social capital.⁶ At a SLAC meeting that I co-facilitated this fall, law students discussed their experiences using library resources and seeking assistance in finding information from librarians, which is valuable information for librarians who are looking to fine-tune how library resources and services are meeting the information needs of patrons. Also, librarians provided information about library resources and services which is valuable for students who spend time studying in the library. Generally, these meetings begin with greetings and an icebreaker. A recent icebreaker consisted of trivia questions and a trivia question about Google led to a discussion of how research guides or LibGuides were also good places to begin research and how search engines such as DuckDuckGo⁷ can be useful. In the course of our discussion of library resources used by law students, I mentioned that the law students could use a university-provided VPN when they are accessing library resources while off-campus (which saves them time from having to enter their login credentials each time they want to access an item from a database that the university subscribes to) and that both the main library and the law library maintain lists of databases on their websites. These discussions show an exchange of information between the librarians and students.

Second Function as a Third Space: SLAC Meetings Highlight the Different Physical Spaces of the Law Library that are Open to Students for Study

These SLAC meetings have consistently met in library study rooms and a classroom within the library that students may use for individual and group study when a class is not using the room. While many students study in the reading rooms in the open areas of the library, meeting in a classroom and study rooms highlights the library as a place of collaboration and individual work beyond the main reading rooms near the entrances and exits where students may spend time between classes or other destinations. In addition, these locations reinforce the library as a third space with dedicated meeting rooms for exchanging information outside the context of being evaluated for a grade.

Through sharing information in an informal atmosphere and meeting in spaces dedicated to the library, SLAC reinforces the academic law library as a third space. Much more can be said about all the ways an academic law library can serve as a third space, however, in the interest of time (and space!), I conclude this blog post with the hope that I have provided points for thinking about the academic law library as a third space.

1. Allegra D’ambruso, The Library as Third Space, Trust Me I’m a Librarian (May 18, 2016), https://libraryallegra.wordpress.com/2016/05/18/the-library-as-third-space/; Every Library, Why the Public Library is the Best Third Place (June 2, 2025), https://action.everylibrary.org/why_the_public_library_is_the_best_third_place; Emma Wood, The Rise of Third Place and Open Access Amidst the Pandemic, American Library Association Intersections (Sept. 30, 2020), https://www.ala.org/advocacy/diversity/odlos-blog/rise-third-place. [↩]
2. Emma Wood, The Rise of Third Place and Open Access Amidst the Pandemic, American Library Association Intersections (Sept. 30, 2020), https://www.ala.org/advocacy/diversity/odlos-blog/rise-third-place. [↩]
3. Every Library, Why the Public Library is the Best Third Place (June 2, 2025), https://action.everylibrary.org/why_the_public_library_is_the_best_third_place. [↩]
4. Id.[↩]
5. This blog post is part three in a series of earlier blog posts: Latia Ward, Guest Post: Making Space for a Student Library Advisory Committee, RIPS Law Librarian Blog (Nov. 13, 2023), https://ripslawlibrarian.wordpress.com/2023/11/13/guest-post-making-space-for-a-student-library-advisory-committee/ and Latia Ward, Guest Post: Making Space for a Student Library Advisory Committee Part 2, RIPS Law Librarian Blog (Dec. 5, 2024), https://ripslawlibrarian.wordpress.com/2024/12/05/making-space-for-a-student-library-advisory-committee-part-2/.[↩]
6. B. Austin Waters, Fostering Community: The Library as a Third Space and the Effect of Social Capital on the Flow of Information among Law Students, 42 Legal Reference Serv. Q. 120, 121 (2023). Waters mentions that people get social capital from being part of groups that give them information they need for their daily lives.[↩]
7. DuckDuckGo does not save users’ search history, which allows them to get out of the filter bubble and it pulls in search results from Bing and includes search results that many users have grown accustomed to seeing such as maps, images, and generative AI answers. DuckDuckGo, Protect your personal information on all your devices (no date), https://duckduckgo.com/app/devices.[↩]