Response to IS Suggestions Harvest on the new book borrowing service: March 2019

Issues raised

Information Services actions

Automated emails sent from the library

• “Give always one week from to bring the book back from when the recall e-mail is received”
• “I don't always get an email to say that a book I have reserved has been returned and is ready for me to collect”
• “Unless I did not see the email/notification, an email or notification letting someone know when they receive a fine would be useful, as when I received one for returning a recalled book back a day late by accident, I was completely unaware I had even received a fine.”
• “The monthly summary confuses customers by showing the due date at the end of the week. They often assume that they have to bring all their books back, even though they will infact automatically renew”

We will send you emails alerts when an item on loan to you is due back (as it has been requested), but we strongly recommend that you regularly login to your library account https://faqs.aber.ac.uk/1106 to check your due dates. You will also be able to see if items you have requested are available to collect.

In addition, we send out a monthly library account summary via email to all staff and students showing what books you have out on loan and due dates.

We will continue to review our automated communications with this feedback in mind to ensure they are effective.

Fines

• “If one book is late, fines rack up very quickly due to automatic renewals stopping on all books”
• “The new system is a good idea for Undergraduates but terrible for staff and research PG students”
• “I wasn't prepared for being required to bring all of my books back to the library physically in order to renew them (did I miss an email, possibly?). Many of them had been checked out under the old system, so it was a mix. As a PGR student, I had a lot of books at home and had only a day to bring them in to renew. It wasn't possible to bring all of them in one go. It would be helpful to have more advance notice so that I could bring them in batches prior to the fine kicking in. Thank you.”
• “What you state above as one of the benefits ("You only need to return books if they are needed by another user") is clearly untrue - every six month one has to bring the books back to the library to have them renewed. This is both impractical and inefficient. An incredible amount of the patrons' and your staff's time gets wasted this way.”
• “Abolish the non-sensical provision that books have to be returned every six months and can only be renewed if they are brought back to the library or a picture is sent. How much time gets wasted this way???”
• “Get rid of it. End limits, and end the bizarre having to log books to campus every six months foolishness.”
• “Extend the loan time from 6 months to 8-12 months to cover an academic year.  Increase the number of books for staff and postgrads”

Our fines system is intended to encourage users to return borrowed items by the date they are due back so they are available for the user who has requested them. This ensures equality of access for all users.

To avoid incurring fines you can check when your books are due to be returned by regularly checking your emails and by looking at your library account on Primo. If you know you are going to have problems returning a requested book or bringing books back to the library by their due dates, please contact us as soon as possible so that we can work with you to sort this out: https://www.aber.ac.uk/en/is/help/contactus/

We will continue to monitor regularly the efficacy and fairness of our fines policy.

Borrowing periods

• “The new system is a good idea for Undergraduates but terrible for staff and research PG students”
• “I wasn't prepared for being required to bring all of my books back to the library physically in order to renew them (did I miss an email, possibly?). Many of them had been checked out under the old system, so it was a mix. As a PGR student, I had a lot of books at home and had only a day to bring them in to renew. It wasn't possible to bring all of them in one go. It would be helpful to have more advance notice so that I could bring them in batches prior to the fine kicking in. Thank you.”
• “What you state above as one of the benefits ("You only need to return books if they are needed by another user") is clearly untrue - every six month one has to bring the books back to the library to have them renewed. This is both impractical and inefficient. An incredible amount of the patrons' and your staff's time gets wasted this way.”
• “Abolish the non-sensical provision that books have to be returned every six months and can only be renewed if they are brought back to the library or a picture is sent. How much time gets wasted this way???”
• “Get rid of it. End limits, and end the bizarre having to log books to campus every six months foolishness.”
• “Extend the loan time from 6 months to 8-12 months to cover an academic year.  Increase the number of books for staff and postgrads”

We understand that bringing in a book renewal time limit of 6 months is a change for staff and research postgrads who had been used to being able to have books on loan for 6 months and manually renewing them on an ongoing basis.

We want to make our book borrowing service equitable for the majority of our users. We also want to put checks in place to ensure that users do not lose books that have been on loan to them for a long period. It has been our experience that books on extended loans are more likely to go missing and thus incur costs of replacement for the user.

We will review this policy with your feedback in mind and will communicate any changes to all users.

• “Because all loans are now set by default to 1 week, students with SEN/ADL such as dyslexia have to come and ask at the desk for an extension and explain their situation every time - which I know some people are not comfortable doing - so they just hope their books aren't recalled before they are done and just deal with it if they are”

The library does liaise with Student Support Services to ensure that we are aware of specific requirements of students including a need to have books for a longer period.

If you know you are going to have problems returning a requested book or bringing books back to the library by their due dates, please contact us as soon as possible so that we can work with you to sort this out – this does not have to by face to face, it could be via online chat or by email if this ismover convenient: https://www.aber.ac.uk/en/is/help/contactus/

• “More digital copies of newer books. This would allow part time students to access the books.  More than one copy would be nice, for postgraduate students so that it doesn't clash with any undergraduate module's running”

Books are purchased for the library according to the reading list provided by each module coordinator in your department. For books set as essential readings, we purchase one copy per 10 students up to a maximum of 15 copies subject to available funds. Where electronic copies are available, one print copy will also be bought. Please be aware that not all books are available as ebooks, and even if they are, publisher licenses can restrict access based on things such as number of concurrent users, number of total allowed accesses within a 12 month period. Please also see our More Books service where students can make recommendations for purchase of books for the library: https://www.aber.ac.uk/en/is/library-services/morebooks/