Student led change

Building on strength

We thrive on feedback and love to hear from our clients about what is going well and where we can do better.  The National Student Survey was no exception and we are really grateful to all our students for helping shape the developing library service.  We’ve retained our prestigious Customer Service Excellence Standard recognition and maintained our position ahead of the national competition, empowering staff to “go the extra mile” and embedding improvements to the student experience across the board.

 

Creating a warmer welcome in person and online

We were pleased to learn how much you enjoyed the study spaces across campus, including the Library, and have continued to work hard to develop and promote a diverse range of study spaces arranged from the calm isolation of the individual study pods through the Individual Silent Study zone to the areas that support group study.  We were particularly pleased you found there was always somewhere that catered to your precise needs at any given time.  You also told us that you appreciated the range of foods that helped you stay well while studying for long hours.

We completely refurbished the foyer and the adjoining toilets to create a lighter, brighter, more welcoming entrance to the Library.  New entry doors have an intelligent management system that works with a new energy-efficient heater to banish the winter winds and keep the entrance area and Atrium comfortably warm while continuing to support our ambition to act responsibly and sustainably and to become carbon neutral.

You told us that the Library was much larger than any you were used to, so we made getting to know the Library easier with a welcome video, an overview of library services for new students, a redesigned virtual tour and a separate self-guided audio tour. 

 

Reimagining library spaces

We reimagined, refurbished and repositioned the Book Nook, taking a once drafty space beneath the stairs and turning it into a warm, naturally lit, relaxing sofa corner nestled next to the Library Café and the attractive Outside In World collection of children's books in translation.  The leather chairs from the Book Nook found their way up to the first floor, where they replaced ageing furniture to add a touch of luxury and a new conversational cluster.

You told us the existing water fountains were ageing and hard to find.  Staying hydrated is important for your study and wellbeing, so we prioritised replacing them with modern water bottle refill stations in easy-to-find locations, including next to the Library café.

Finding space to spread out and study used to be hard at peak times, so we condensed our collections to create space for naturally lit study spaces and added sound-baffling study pods so you can study with friends without outside distractions.  We also made all the teaching rooms in the library available to you day and night, whenever they are not being actively used for teaching.

 

Space for all

Being inclusive is at the heart of everything that we do and so we were delighted to be among the first buildings on campus to receive individual study pods where you can shut out the world and settle to study your way, which even come with focused, moveable, adjustable intensity lighting, so if you find the Library overstimulating, you can retreat into one of these pods and study without distractions.  Together with the Individual Silent Study Zone on the second floor and the complimentary reusable earplugs we offer our clients, these ensure everyone can escape the energizing buzz of the Library.

It was also really good to hear that so many of you found library services responsive and helpful and that so many of you found our print and electronic Library resources allowed you to excel in whatever assignments you chose to undertake and that this helped you feel supported in your studies and felt it helped prepare you for your future professional careers. 

Every year, our students have told us that our resources were one of the things they liked most about their courses.  Learning from the experiences of providing meaningful changes to clients during lockdown, when all our clients were working remotely, we streamlined access to our eresources and worked with suppliers to bring more eresources than ever before delivered straight to your desktop in a digital-first approach intended to offer optimal support for blended learning for clients on campus and beyond and ultimately help us create more study spaces in the Library. 

We are taking on board all the feedback about the limitations of our collections and facilities. We are always looking for ways we can enhance the study space where so many of you spend so much of your time, increasing the number of power sockets and putting both electronic and print versions of key reading materials within your reach.  

 

Supporting you wherever you study

We have worked hard to make our resources as accessible and easy to use as we can and to help you get the most from the resources we offer at a time of rapid change, and so we are really pleased that our efforts to support you in person and online were appreciated, helped you succeed, and enabled you to work independently.  We were also happy that you found it easy to get help with referencing guidance and support, which we know can otherwise be a real source of struggle for so many.  We were reassured to learn that those of you with additional needs, such as dyslexia, also felt well-supported by the Library and benefited from the software and equipment we offer to support you.  

We turned our Subject pages into tailored learning paths taking you from first steps to final projects with library teaching, support, and the best resources for your subject, restructured our website to make finding the services you most need simple and intuitive, and worked with Information Services to develop reliable a single sign-on system so you can now log in once and access everything you need without difficulty. 

We appreciate that purchasing textbooks represents an unwelcome additional cost to hardworking students.  This is why we buy an ebook version of every book that is listed as essential reading on a reading list, wherever one is available, as well as print copies for anyone who finds screen reading challenging, so there is almost always an electronic version available whenever you need it.  

Website improvements, powerful search tools and single sign-on access to eresources from anywhere using the VPN make finding what you want faster and more reliable.  Our friendly and expert staff are also on hand in person and online to help you get started and improve your search, digital, media and information literacy, and referencing.  With that said, we appreciate that accessing some eresources has remained challenging, and we are continuing to work towards simpler ways to make these eresources more intuitive easily accessible.  We recently upgraded the Discovery Service to a more intuitive interface and have changed how we access resources so you can access almost everything we offer seamlessly from a single standard login.  We are working continually to make the best use of limited space and hope soon to expand the Library into a new student hub to expand the study space available to you.

 

Saving your time

We recognise the pressures of being a student and so continue to offer the Click & Collect service we first introduced during lockdown so you never have to search the shelves for books.  We also offer introduced an add-on for the library catalogue that offers 3D floor plans showing where to find books on a subject or with a particular classmark number

We redesigned our referencing advice pages to be more streamlined and comprehensive and wrote a simple overview guide for the APA 7th edition referencing style.  We restructured our website to be simpler and more intuitive and studded it with video shorts showing how everything works.

 

Convenience on demand

You told us that you did not all enjoy reading exclusively from a screen, and not all books are available electronically, so we introduced automated book loan renewals and postal loans for everyone staying in the UK.  Now everyone can read our print books, no matter where in the UK they are staying.  We still strive to offer ebooks for all your required reading and everything recommended for distance learning courses so that you can read or listen to your core materials at home or on the go.

 

Art and recreation

We are proud to buy and display our students’ competition-winning art to stimulate and inspire future generations, as well as curating regularly changing displays by and for staff and students', showcasing their talents, hobbies, interests and projects.  There is nothing like the feeling when we see the burgeoning confidence of students seeing their work exhibited in public for the first time. 

 

 

 

 

Tell us what you think

We are tremendously grateful to our graduating students for telling us what they loved and where we should focus on making change to support our future students.  You don’t have to wait until you are moving on from university to make changes, however!  

Let us know what you think, tell us what’s great and what’s not when you see us popping up around campus, jot your ideas and suggestions down on a postcard and pop it in the red retro postbox on the ground floor of the library, share your ideas and suggestions with us though online chat or email, or just wander over and tell us in person.  We’d love to hear what’s working well for you and where we can help you better.  

You can post ideas anonymously into our retro red suggestions post box on the ground floor near the IT Desk - just grab a feedback postcard from the supply on top of the post box.  You can also leave us a review on Google, chat with us in person or using our online chat service, through social media, or simply drop us a good old fashioned email!  

We look forward to hearing from you soon!