You said, we did

It has now been a year since the first Covid-19 lockdown in the UK meant that we had to temporarily close our libraries. Since then the pandemic has continued to have a massive impact on all areas of life in the UK and around the world, and we understand that this has been a particularly difficult time for many of our users. UCL Library Services will continue to support you and invest in new resources and services to minimise the impact that restrictions have on your studies and research. Your feedback is vital to helping us do this.

In February we received the following feedback.

You said you had difficulty booking spaces

The Student Centre, Bidborough House, 1-19 Torrington Place and Ramsay Hall have remained open for students who are eligible to work on campus. These spaces have been popular with students. Although the Student Centre has been fully booked at certain points on some days, spaces have always been available in other locations such as Ramsay Hall.

Ramsay Hall contains individual study rooms, which are perfect if you need to talk out loud during your session, for example in online seminars, meetings or online group study. The accessible spaces are also ideal for students who can’t study in open plan areas. Following feedback, we have made the first floor of Ramsay Hall available for postgraduate research students only.

Across all sites we have introduced flexible booking times, so that you can now choose the start and end times. This frees up spaces for other users.

You said that spaces were booked, but people were not turning up

We’ve introduced a new Check in system for all Library sites requiring users to check-in when they arrive to use their booked study space. If there is not a check-in after 30 minutes, the study space will be released for use by other students or staff. This has meant that more students have been able to book a study space on the day.

You said you needed more support to locate sources online

We have invested in the UCL digital library and it is one of the best in the world. To help you find books, journals, articles, databases and other specialist resources for your subject area, we have created over 45 subject guides.

We also offer training and support to help you make the most of our libraries and resources through Library Skills.

You said you would like to be able to speak to Library staff remotely

If you have any questions about Library Services, you can contact us through Library Chat, 12:00 – 19:00, Monday – Friday. Support is available in every discipline and multiple staff are available to answer queries on all aspects of Library Services, including E-resources, LibrarySkills@UCL and Click and Collect.

You can also access a knowledgebase for library queries 24 hours a day.

We also welcome feedback through our new online feedback form. You can give feedback anonymously, but if you provide your name and email address, we can reply directly to you.

You said you wanted to join the Library from home

We understand that many of our users want to minimise the need to travel to central London, which is why we have created a new online application form allowing UCL alumni and other members to join the Library from home. To apply for membership you will need to complete the online registration form and attach any required documents.

Please go to our Membership Services webpage for more information and to see what services you may be eligible to use.