Student Life: No Space in the Uni Library? Get Rid of the Books

Today’s students spend little time lugging books around because they receive most of their prescribed readings and academic resources in digitised PDF formats. At the same time centrally-located university libraries have become overcrowded work spaces due to rising student intakes. It may sound like heresy but the solution to that space crunch is to get rid of the books, or at least the less-used titles, to free up room to work.

Lack of Capacity

In the last decade student numbers at University College London (left) have doubled from 16,504 in the academic year 2006-07 to a crammed 32,209. The university is working to increase its capacity through new building projects but for the time being those works have actually reduced the accessible areas of the campus. The main library has changed little to accommodate the extra students and is largely restricted to a 191-year-old building because of the shortage of space in central Bloomsbury.

One result is that students have to “bag” a library space and keep hold of it when they go out for a break, which explains the number of valuable Macbooks left unattended on tables. One student even left their belongings behind while venturing to Gatwick and back.

UCL has tried to make access easier with a new scheme “#Sharethespace” which allows students to take over any space that has been marked by a card signifying that it has not been used for 30 minutes, even if it has been reserved with belongings.

Who Controls Library Space?

The scheme does not deal with the underlying cause of the overcrowding. The university should have anticipated the growing importance of digital work space, which was apparent a decade ago, and provided more spaces before increasing its intake so dramatically.

Simon Hall is the head of user services at Imperial College London and spoke to Felix Magazine about that college’s problems with students reserving badly-needed spaces at its South Kensington campus. “This is a major issue which we try to tackle to allow fair access to study space,” he said. “We run awareness campaigns on our website and social media channels.”

Imperial runs a different policy for dealing with the “property grab” of belongings left on a desk. “We clear desks which have been left unattended for some time, freeing up the desk for other users. We bag up belongings so that they can be collected later. This is not an ideal way of managing the study space as people are often upset at losing their space but it is unavoidable at the moment as so many people are trying to keep hold of desks.”

We asked for his view of the UCL system of students moving left items. “I would be concerned about any system that didn’t involve library staff clearing a desk as it would have the potential for creating disputes between library users.”

The Role of a Library

The main argument here is that students with laptops are free to roam as digital nomads or at least as caffeinated Costa customers. UCL is notionally built around its library with the famous classical portico leading through a now disused door to this sacred academic space. Students paying fees upwards of £9,000 per year deserve this sense of place near their departments instead of wondering how long they can get away with sitting in a small cafe with an empty cappucino cup.

Recent projects have tried to add study space but a UCL-designated floor at the University of London’s Senate House library and a graduate-only “research grid” provide just 218 new seats compared to the 590 in the main library.

While exam season is understandably crowded the problems lasts throughout the academic year. There is of course the argument that students should work from home but the danger of reading online is that it introduces the distractions of Netflix and Facebook, so the peer pressure of a library setting becomes doubly valuable.

Storage

So what about the idea of freeing up space by removing books? There is no need to cry havoc at the thought of burning books as UCL already operates a storage space outside London in Wickford, Essex. That is to allow shelf space on the campus for newer publications but with quick deliveries from this archive more books could easily be relocated to create study space in central London.

The tattered “date of return” leaves in these books (left) show the loan system has been digitised for some time, making it simple to accurately trace even the dustiest volumes.

As for Imperial College, Hall said the university is prioritising study space over shelving. “There is certainly a recognition that the Central Library can be very busy, particularly at this time of year, and finding a study space can be challenging. In recent years we have reduced the amount of shelving given over to physical books and journals as more material has moved online. This has allowed us to increase the amount of study space. Long-term this trend is likely to continue.”

by Stewart Vickers @VickHellfire

 

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