The use of MacPháidín Library study rooms use has been increasing for the 2024-2025 school year, reaching 500 usages for eight of the rooms.
“The rooms are heavily booked, and it is the most popular thing among students because as we say that becomes your own little real state for the space of 2 hours,” Uma Hiremath, the assistant director for public services, said.
She said that even if the rooms were all booked, the library has other spaces for students to use, like tables, computers, and chairs. She also said that having 11 independent study rooms was a luxury.
“Recently my colleagues and me went to visit The Library at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. It is eight levels high, and they don’t have a single study room. So I think we are pretty well off here,” said Hiremath.
She said the rooms were a great addition since they offered so many sizes, as well as the basic white board, chairs and tables. For this reason, they could be used for different purposes including teamwork or remote interviews.
Hiremath said there were also other rooms inside the library for specific purposes. She mentioned the Zoom room, the media room, the makerspace room, and the very popular podcast room. She said the podcast room was starting to become more popular with students, and even faculty members who started requiring the use of it for their classes.
Hiremath said she thought it was always fun to see people pick their favorite spots.
“We gave a bunch of FYE tours. In fact, just since we started this term we have had over 200 FYE students go through the library and we always tell them ‘Hey, you have 4 years in this great college, so try and pick your favorite spot because your beloved brain will kick in when you sit in that spot, and you will start writing your paper and doing your research,” she said.
Not only has the library’s use increased in the booking of study rooms, but in other areas as well. They have about 500 to 550 visitors a day on Monday to Tuesday. Additionally, September had an increase of 12.7% relative to last year.
Regarding librarian’s aid, they reached their record, with a 30% increase. “We are delighted that the message has gotten out that the art of research is not just limited to the life of a student, but it is a lifelong tool,” Hiremath said.
She said that it was great that faculty has been requesting bibliographic information more, since they are able to go to classes and teach the basics of research.
Hiremath said they could always get more librarians to accommodate for the increasing use.
“We are trying very hard to figure out how to move ahead when graduate studies is expanded, because the resources we have are not yet suitable for graduate-level research. They require far more funds to expand graduate-level research,” said Hiremath.
Hiremath said she enjoyed the increase in visitors, and that they constantly tried to host events. She said she wanted the library to be a comfortable place for all.
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