Extend library opening times or find alternative 24 hour study space after the 10th of June
Anonymous submitted on
Saturday 3rd June 2023
Complete
Hi there,
Until the 10th of June, Hartley Library is due to be open 24 hours, as is typical of the exam season.
From the 10th of June onwards, it has been stated that the library will only be open from 8am until midnight, something typical of holidays.
Whoever has determined these times has evidently not taken into account that for medicine students, our exams will not finish until the 10th of July, leaving us our entire pre-exam revision period.
The 8am - midnight is also not particularly considerate due to our placement hours either. A considerable proportion of medical students use the library outside of 08:00-24:00, particularly in the early morning before placement. It is unfair to impose restrictions on the times we can enter the library during the final month of revision before our exams particularly when other buildings are shut and other courses have not been subjected to the same issue.
Please would you be able to help sort this so that we have a 24 hour study space, as is provided for other courses, to revise for our exams, fitting with our mandatory placement schedule, which does not permit us to use the conventional "9-5" hours of working. Even another building aside from Hartley would also be greatly appreciated. We pay the same tuition fees as other courses and feel we should get the same access to facilities during our exam period as other courses.
Thanks and I hope you can help us out soon.
Responses
Here, you can view the complete set of official responses from the sabbatical officers regarding this submission.
Students' Union replied on
Wednesday 14th Jun 2023 8:54am
Hello,
Thank you so much for taking the time to submit this You Make Change. Here is the statement from the Library when I raised your points to them:
Thank you for the feedback about the Library’s 24/7 opening period ending on Friday 9th June.
Opening hours at Southampton are aligned with several other Russell Group Universities who have Medical Schools and who end their 24/7 opening in mid-June (e.g. Brighton; Bristol and Nottingham). Indeed, the hours we offer outside of our 24/7 periods – 8am-midnight, seven days a week - have been extended in the last few years and are more generous than some other institutions. With ever more pressure on library budgets we do have to target our spending on opening our buildings at peak periods across the year. We will share your feedback with the Faculty of Medicine so that they are aware of this request too but I’m afraid it’s unlikely that we will be able to provide any extension to 24/7 facilities for this current year. However, we are now planning our opening hours for the next academic year and we will ensure that your feedback is taken into consideration in discussions with our Estates colleagues for summer 2024.
Good luck with the exams and best regards
David Wright
Associate Director: User Experience | University of Southampton Library
If you would like to chat more about this response, you can email me at vpeducation@susu.org!
Emily
Actions
Forwarded to Vice President Education and Democracy
Thursday 8th Jun 2023 12:31pm
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