Edward Boyle Library improvements
The Library has been working hard over the summer to try to respond to some of the most urgent needs of students and staff, after the suspension of the Library Redevelopment Project earlier this year.
To improve the service when the library isn't staffed, a number of changes to self-service facilities have been made:
- A new state-of-the-art automated book return machine will immediately remove books from customers' records and sort them to be re-shelved on the correct floor (the book sorter has a viewing window, so come and see it in action!)
- Reservations may now be collected from an expanded High Demand Collection area at any time when the building is open.
- In response to NSS and library survey feedback, study areas and collections have been remodelled to greatly expand the Group Study Area and create more discreet and controllable silent study areas.
- Water fountains have been installed, as have additional power sockets for laptops.
- As a trial this year we have introduced a food and drink area on level 8, along with hot drinks vending, to address the needs of students working late into the night when other catering facilities on campus are not available.
This work meets some urgent short term requirements; the main needs still to be addressed by the Redevelopment Project include the heating, lighting and ventilation problems experienced by users of the building, the shortage of large flexible teaching rooms and study space, the poor digital infrastructure in the building, and the integration of the Skills@Library, VLE and Portal Teams into a new "Skills Zone".