Library Surveys

This spring’s surveys in some ways told us nothing new – mostly satisfied with resources, staffing and services. There are always those who complain about it being too loud or too quiet, or never any new books, even though they walk by a New Books display every time they come into the library. But this year, about half noted that the New Books display was found helpful. I think it is becoming slightly more noticed. But you do wonder if some even realize the new books that you do buy. We send the faculty a list of new books every month. Maybe we should send this to students as well. Another thought I have is posting it on the library’s webpage each month – anything to raise awareness.

It turns out that the Textbook display is a big hit, even though we weren’t able to get all of them. Hopefully we will be able to add to it, this fall. This is very helpful to those who haven’t gotten theirs in yet or don’t have the money to buy them. Money is always tight, no matter what decade you live in I have discovered.

Surprising was how many actual do pay attention to our Special Books display on a 4-tier cart; and to the bulletin board. The fact that anybody notices them is thrilling for me.

We had 2-3 students this year that were challenging in following the no-talking rules this year. Correspondingly we had 2-3 surveys that complained about the no-talking rules. (Hmmmm!) I have noticed this is almost always freshmen. We will see if they return this fall and if they continue the same point of view. But someone else will take their place.

We have a huge disparity of those not using the services of requesting books from other libraries in our consortium. It looks like that will be our focus this next year. Besides the regular one-shot orientation, we are going to try “embedded instruction” to also help students to connect the need to knowing how to use the library in a timely manner with actually using it to their best advantage in fulfilling their assignments.