Pre-booking Library desks- what do you think?
We want your feedback- did it make your Library experience better or worse?
11 Comments on "Pre-booking Library desks- what do you think?"
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26/01/2011 at 5:53 pm Permalink
Is it fair that people can go away for an hour or two whilst other’s hike up and down the the library searching for a spare desk? No. Good idea in theory and i’m glad you’re trying to find new ways to help with revision time but I fear this would be the case with prebooked tables. They would book a space and disappear but it would be ‘rightfully’ theirs and library staff couldn’t remove them because they’ve booked it.
I went to the union (meeting room2) this revision period and it was just right. Quiet, a space for my laptop, not too busy and this seems odd but it wasn’t smelly or too hot! (all important factors lets be honest) I also went to murray which was pretty empty. How about finding similar spaces? Spare lecture halls etc Well that was the thing I found really useful this year.
26/01/2011 at 6:51 pm Permalink
I have to say I did not book a Library desk however I think that it makes sense to offer that service as having a two hour limit ensures that people can get a desk if they need one. However I question who would enforce asking someone to leave their desk when two hours were up. I also do not think increasing the number of bookable desks is ideal, the number they had was enough!
26/01/2011 at 8:27 pm Permalink
Had no idea you could pre book I thought it was the standard get up and stupid o clock am and hope for the best!
There are people that book consecutive study rooms as it is meaning they’re in there from nine until as late as they like. The answer is more desks and better use of space. They don’t need a fantastic new room or anything like that just better use of space throughout campus!
27/01/2011 at 9:29 am Permalink
I spent the entire revision period in the murrey building, and found there was plenty of space. When the Tesseract room was too busy (which wasnt too often) i managed to an empty lecture theatre, as due to there not being many lectures during exams, all the lecture theatres not being used for exams are empty.
It may not be a bad shout just to signpost the empty lecture theatres, so that students can use them to revise in. It’d create an incredible amount of revision spaces.
27/01/2011 at 11:31 am Permalink
I dislike this idea!
27/01/2011 at 11:40 am Permalink
I wasn’t even aware one could pre-book a desk at the library! In any case, I don’t think it’s a good idea. There is plenty of space available, whether you use the library, the Murray Building, lecture theatres around campus, or the CLS rooms in Building 85. It’s just a case of being clever about the space that is available and not simply relying on the library; far too often students complain about the lack of space but that’s because they only want to work in the library. If you want to maximise the space available, put up a notice with empty lecture theatres and CLS rooms, and also limit the number of hours you can book the group study rooms in the library to one or two hours maximum during exam period.
27/01/2011 at 12:40 pm Permalink
I disagree with them.
I haul myself out of bed early in the morning to get a seat in the library, so that I can work for the day, as do many others. It’s not on for people to be able to rock up at lunchtime and turf other people out, who have made an effort to get there in time to get a seat of their own.
27/01/2011 at 3:53 pm Permalink
I also wasn’t aware you could book space in the library – was this advertised anywhere? In theory I think it could be a good idea but not sure how it would work and be enforced in practice. Will library be walking around with watches ready to turf people out after 2 hours? I can’t see that somehow. And I understand that a limit of 2 hours is to try to ensure as many people as possible can get a desk at some point, but personally I doubt much revision can be done in just 2 hours – you’d be getting stuck into it, then have to pack up your stuff and find somewhere else to go. I agree with some of the other comments – make use of other spaces. When I went to campus on a weekend to study, I couldn’t find anywhere to sit in the library and the other places in other buildings I knew of were closed, which is daft when it’s revision time and space in the library is scarce. More effort should be made to make other spaces available, and make students aware of them, on weekdays and weekends.
28/01/2011 at 10:42 am Permalink
I think this is a really bad idea. The amount of people who put their stuff on desks and disappear for hours on end is already too high! Also it is really annoying is when you get to the library early and people have started saving seats for friends who don’t turn up until lunch time! Surely booking desks is only going to make this worse? It’s not fair because then others have to spend ages looking for a desk and by walking around your disturbing others. It would be more helpful to allow access to other places during the revision period. I ended up in the Murry building quite often which was ideal. Can’t we have more places like that open?
01/02/2011 at 1:55 pm Permalink
I don’t think it’s a great idea. I’m critical for the same reason a lot of other people are, I don’t think it’s fair that people should be able to book a desk and then leave for an hour or so, whilst others are in search of a table.
It’s a good idea in principle, but I just don’t think it’s effective purely because of the huge amounts of people that use the library. It would be more effective to offer alternative revision spaces for people, like a lot of people have said the Murray building is good.