It's Your Library – Survey Results
Wednesday 16 May 2012
1, 340 people responded!
Thank you to all 1,340 people who gave their time to fill in our survey. We value and listen to your opinions.
Section 1: Which user category describes you? 
The survey ran for just under 4 weeks and the majority of respondents, 61.1%, were Undergraduate students. There was fairly even coverage across all Schools but International Relations, History and English had the highest amount of representation.
Longer opening hours are the best!
We wanted to know what you liked the most about the changes we have made to the Library and 32.8% of people chose the longer opening hours.
Section 3: What do you like best about the 'new' Main Library?
The second favourite was also the longer opening hours (19.3%)! But this was closely followed by the Library café (17.9%). The third favourite was the self-return system (15.7%) but the different study areas (15.6%), the longer opening hours (15.6%) and the Library café (15.3%) were also popular. We also asked “When do you tend to use the Library most?” and most answered Afternoon (37.9%) or Evening (5.00 – 10.00) (26.6%) but a significant number responded that they worked in the Morning (20.5%) or Late evening (14.9%).
Section 4: When do you tend to use the Library most?
We listened to the many requests for longer opening hours and have worked hard in order to provide this service.
Level 2 is most popular
All three levels of the Library are popular which shows the diversity of working/studying preferences. However, in answer to the question: “Which Level do you prefer to work on?” Level 2 (entrance level) was most popular, chosen by 37.9%.
Section 5: Which Level do you prefer to work on? 
When we asked you to say which area of Level 2 you liked to work on most, 19.9%, responded “Larger study area on North East side (to the right of the entrance)”.
We recognise that study spaces are at a premium and during the summer we will be introducing an additional 265 spaces on Levels 3 & 4 to the 150 study spaces we currently provide on Level 2. To our question about the impact of these additional spaces a clear majority of 71.8% thought this would give “just the right balance” of general and silent study spaces.
Quiet study and mobile phones…controversial?
Although, as noted above, the majority considered that the introduction of additional study space on the upper levels would create a good balance, some people have suggested that there should be more quiet study zones. To better gauge opinion we asked if we should designate the South West study area on Level 2 as a Quiet Study zone, and a slight majority, 56%, thought it best to “leave things as they are - the space works well as it is”.
We also recognise that people have strong views about using mobile phones in the Library and most, 33%, thought we should “leave things as they are” regarding our mobile phone use policy. However a significant amount of respondents, 31.9%, thought we should allow phone calls to be made in the Stairwell and on Level 2.
Section 8: We currently allow mobile phones to be used for calls on Level 2, but not on the upper floors, or in the Stairwell. Phones can be used on all floors for text/e-mail and must always be set to Silent. Do you think we should: 
Using the stairwell for conversations was also supported by 55.3%.
Section 9: We currently discourage groups of users from having conversations in the Stairwell. Should we ...
As these figure show, opinion is split regarding these issues, so we will consider the comments and suggestions sections of the survey and monitor this type of use closely.
Keep snacking
We asked whether we should allow hot and cold drinks everywhere, but restrict ALL food to the cafe only or leave things as they are (hot food in the cafe only; cold snacks on Level 2 only; hot and cold drinks on all Levels)? The majority, 80.6%, answered to leave the food policy as it was.
Comments and suggestions
We are very grateful for your comments and suggestions and have received over 1,300 free text answers to the questions “What do we need to improve?” and “Do you have any other general comments or suggestions?”. We will publicise more information once we have read through and considered all of these comments.
Prize draw winner
Thank you again to everyone who filled in the survey. Respondents to the survey also had the opportunity to be entered into a prize draw to win £100 of Amazon vouchers and Jenni Muttonen, an International Relations student, is the lucky winner!