Swinging Library Doors

The swinging doors.....or the doors of death as they have been called!

there are two facebook groups calling for the removal of the doors, one with over 1000 Reading Students in. This is something the student population feel very strongly about. Dave stated in a recent spotlight:

Ryan Bird, VP Education, has been working hard with the library this year to identifyissues which students feel could improve their experience of the service, this includes opening hours, PC access, social space and the doors of death at the bottom of the stairs.

After Ryan’s hard work and persistence, he was pleased to report to a recent Sabb meeting that the doors are under full review, its ‘high on the agenda’ and during the summer, as the refurbishment takes place, they will hopefully be removed."

The refurb in the summer will completely change the way students interact with faclilites on the groundfloor of the Library...and this will hopefully be without the doors of death!

ryan
r.j.e.bird@reading.ac.uk

Student Representation, Libraries, National Student Survey and Clearing......

Since returning from training ive been busy working on student representation within the university. Traditionally this has been excellent in some faculties and poor in others. One of my aims this year is to build on the Course Rep system and develop representation at a faculty level which will be more coherent and productive. We seem to be good at the department level (staff-student liaison committees) and at higher university level committees (attended by RUSU sabbatical officers) but not at the bits inbetween (Faculty level). So by creating a clear set of guidelines for departments, schools and faculties along with recruitment of more reps (you guys!) that are trained we will see a massive improvement in student representation.

***Course Rep Sales Pitch***

Representation is vital in the communication network of the university; it gives students the chance to feed back on a range of issues. In recent years there has been an increased drive for students to have a larger role in the way their institution is run; through the course rep scheme you can be part of this representation – Please come and see me for more details.

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Also this week the results of the National Student Survey have been announced. 87% of Reading students said they were happy with their course, Dave and I discussed the figures this afternoon and an area for improvement appears to be assessment and feedback, we will be talking to the university to see how this could be improved, including working towards anonymous marking, more contact time on your courses and better representation (mentioned above).

Other work this week includes working on the years campaigns - more to follow soon,Ii have also visited Bulmurshe Library on the university satellite campus to look at the issues they are facing and discussing the exciting changes to the ground floor in Whiteknights library this year.

Several times this week I have visited the clearing office , with top up fees coming in, recruitment and marketing is high on the university agenda. The clearing team have been working hard all week and with an allocation of extra student numbers it has certainly been a challenge. It has been great to see more students on campus, so if your thinking of coming to Reading pop into the union and see us!

Anyway im off to cook dinner!

Ryan
r.j.e.bird@reading.ac.uk