Standing Work Desks in the Library

pbieber | 11 months ago | in Student Challenge: Idea Contest

We all often sit too much... during lectures and during studying... It'd be nice to have small standing desks in the library where we can stand and work on our computer. Possibly with an external monitor on the top so that the keyboard/trackpad can be low while the screen is on eye level...

Claudia Lienhard 11 months ago

Hi pbieber, thank you very much for this interesting idea! To get a comprehensive understanding of your idea, I have some questions:
- Which locations of ETH Library do you visit most (see also: http://www.library.ethz.ch/en/Kontakt/Standor...ffnungszeiten)?
- Should such desks be provided at all of our locations or is there a particular location that is most suitable?
- You mentioned that these working desks should be equipped with external monitors/keyboards. So in this case, you would want to work with your own laptop but at the same time having external hardware available for greater comfort, right?

pbieber 10 months ago

Hi! I mostly visit the computer science library and Irchel Main library. Both of these location would be excellent for standing desks because most students are working on their laptops (probably true in the other libraries too). I think the computer science library would be a good spot for just 2-4 standing desks at the back wall. But I think all libraries would profit from just a few standing desks (smaller footprint too).

The external equipment I would suggest would be a thin external monitor with all of the current adapters (VGA, USB-C, HDMI, Display Port, etc.) so that the students can go to the desk, connect their laptop and then continue using their laptop's keyboard and trackpad (since students are used to their keyboards [english vs. german vs. swiss], it wouldn't make sense to provide external keyboards in my opinion). Ideally the external monitor would then be on eye height (adjustable) and the laptop keyboard would then be further down so that it makes ergonomic sense -> 90 degree elbows...

Since some people would also like to stand while reading physical books or papers, it'd be nice if the screen was very thin and at the back of the standing table so that there is still enough area to place a book & paper in front of the screen. These are all the thoughts I had for now :)