Alexandria Campus Library

Focus Group Report

 

 

On Friday, April 8, 2005 the Alexandria Campus Library conducted a focus-group survey of library patrons.  Seven students who are regular library users were invited to participate.  Four students were able to attend a pizza lunch and focus-group session with two librarians on Friday afternoon.  Participants represented diversity in age, gender, ethnicity, and nationality.   The comments and critiques elicited from the participants largely confirmed the library staff’s anecdotal impressions of student views.  Interactions with students at service points and the comment book provided a basis for the conversation.

 

Although the focus group was conceived as a more free-flowing conversation between and among librarians and students, a few talking points were decided upon in advance to move conversation along.  These included

 

  • What were your first impressions of the library?
  • What do you like about the library?
  • What do you dislike about the library?
  • What one would you change about the library?

 

 

First impressions of the library

 

  • “If it had been bad I would have remembered.”
  • “The book displays are incredible: they grab my interest.”
  • “I often check books out from the new book truck.”
  • “The themed displays really show off the diversity of the collection.”
  • “I like how the book displays at the reference desk are always topical – I was especially drawn to the Kinsey Report being displayed when the movie was out.”
  • “I appreciate that the library doesn’t shy away from potentially controversial or edgy topics.”

 

 

What about the library do you like or appreciate?

 

  • “The library staff is the best thing the library has going.  The staff work together well as a whole, they get along well and are a cohesive team.  I’ve never had a bad experience with the library staff.”
  • “I am impressed by the reference collection.  It’s awesome.  It’s robust and current.”
  • “The library has a great breadth of periodicals.”
  • “I’m glad that a wide spectrum of political beliefs is represented.”
  • “It’s fun to wander in the stacks.  I always find something interesting or something I want to check out.”
  • “The art history collection is really great.  You have beautiful books.”
  • “I’m so impressed by the library.”
  • “I love the Book Sale.”  (All four students said they’d purchased books in the sale.)
  • “The Library is more helpful than some other offices on campus.”
  • Serials Solutions List of online periodicals is “awesome, takes you directly to the databases.”
  • Research exercises for specific courses
  • Plants
  • Large hanging signs
  • Windows and views of the outdoors

 

How would you rate the appearance of the library?

 

  • “I’m a visual person, I like the displays, books selected for the reference desk,”
  • “That’s the sign of a good librarian, putting things out that attract attention and challenge me.” 
  • “I always notice the when there are flowers in the library – the amaryllis is particularly attractive.”

 

What about the library do you dislike or would change?

 

  • Cell phones:  “Cell phone use by other students is intrusive and rude.”
  • Having to swipe the copy card for each copy:  “1-swipe per copy is absurd.  You can fly to the moon but not overcome one swipe per copy?!”
  • Paper flyers stuck on walls and poles. 
  • Crumbs on keyboards, grease on mice or keyboards. 
  • “It’s NOISY in the library.”
  • “There’s no quiet study space”

 

 

How might the Library staff respond to some of these challenges?

 

  • Tell the person to turn cell phones off.
  • Students should be more considerate about policing each other and asking that cell phone conversations stop.
  • “Throw cell phones out.”
  • “Ban cell phones.”
  • “Fine cell phone users.”
  • “I don’t want more policing, I don’t want to foist that off on the library staff.”
  • When it comes to signs, less is more.  Big overhead signs are good.  Small signs taped up on the wall are not.
  • Why not encourage teaching faculty to put an item in their syllabus directing students to the library for research, and noting the library is a study space where phones should be turned off and students should act decorously.

 

 

What could the library do that we don’t (or could do better)?

 

  • Have walk-in introductory sessions to the library for anyone who wants to take one (i.e.  not tied to classes).  These could serve is introductions to the community or to high school students as well as credit students.
  • Campus filtering in VCCSLinc catalog
  • Write a short statement about the library and its appropriate use to go on all faculty syllabi (including cell phone policy).
  • One-credit library research class on one day.
  • Have library classes exit to the testing hallway rather than back through library to reduce noise.
  • Post Library of Congress subject categories list in the reference area.
  • Update science book collection, especially new books that “explain complex scientific concepts to the layperson.”
  • Put a second “no cell phones” sign on the pole inside the front door.
  • Create maps of our space and collections.
  • Add lists of subjects of books in each row on the end panels of the book stacks.
  • More aggressively promote priority use of CyberSpace computers for student work.
  • Promote course-specific research exercises with teaching faculty.

 

How could the library improve its space?

           

  • Enclosed quiet study room.
  • Enclosed group study rooms that could be reserved (increasingly  classrooms are unavailable for groups as they are locked to protect equipment).
  • Don’t compartmentalize the space.
  • A clean and pleasant library encourages students to keep it that way.

           

 

What do I want the library to be?

 

  • “Sanctuary” for quiet space; “privatization of personal space.”
  • “Libraries should be one of the places in our culture preserved for quiet.”

 

 

You have that? (some things our regular library users didn’t know about the library)

 

  • “You offer one-credit courses on research?  Where are they listed in the schedule of classes?”
  • “You have older editions of magazines?
  • “The Alexandria Campus Library has it’s own webpage?”
  • “There is a webpage for New Books?”
  • There is a list of Best Websites (Best of the Web)?  I just use Librarian Index to the Internet!”

 

 

What did we learn?

 

The focus group taught us that our regular library users are actively engaged in thinking about the library’s collection and services.  On the whole, regular users were extremely positive and enthusiastic about the service they’ve received in the library and the resources they were able to find and use. 

 

Criticisms were often related to issues arising from the physical layout of the library (crowded conditions, no provision for group study, space-sharing with the Counseling office).  Additional critical comments were directed at the behavior of other library patrons (inconsiderate cell phone use and noise).  Some criticisms were directed at technology (such as the one-swipe per copy).

 

We learned that our patrons use the library for a variety of purposes, including study, pleasure reading, research, internet use, email, and word processing.  However, the activity that users seemed to privilege the most was study.  While some users are sympathetic to the multiple-use character of the library space (combining individual and group study space, research, computer use, research assistance, leisure reading, etc) others thought that the library should do more to enforce a quiet atmosphere that favored individual study.  Opinion also varied on the degree to which library staff should actively become involved in policing and discipline, some users expecting a high degree of active policing by the staff, and others wanting the staff to maintain a friendly and helpful demeanor and avoid rigorous policing. 

 

The most positive comments and reactions consistently had to do with the staff and the teamwork that was visible to and valued by users.  The most negative comments had to do with noise and disruption, from cell phones, group study, the counseling waiting area, and people socializing in the library. 

 

Users take a very personal view of the library.  One of the interesting things the focus group addressed was the desirability of certain seating areas in the library (best seating is in the windows, worst seating is in the carrels behind the stairs). 

 

The focus group confirmed feelings among the staff that there is a widespread dissatisfaction among library users with noise and disruption in the library.  It also underscored the need for a strategic approach to accommodating multiple library uses. 

 

 

Actions 

 

As a result of the focus group, several changes have been implemented in the library.

  • Library of Congress subject guides have been posted in the reference collection.
  • New, current science books, aimed at the informed lay reader, have been ordered.
  • Plans are underway for 15-minute walk-in Introductory sessions for Fall ’05.
  • New shelving has been added to the library to accommodate much-needed growth and expansion of the collection.
  • Taller shelving has been relocated to the Group Study area to provide additional sound-dampening and further define the space as a special use area.
  • Plants have been relocated, and identification tags are being placed on individual plants.

 

 

Goals for the future

 

  • Provide an enclosed quiet study space where users can be assured of a quiet location for individual study.
  • Further enhance Group Study and Cyberspace with more effective walls to further contain noise and enhance visibility.
  • Continue to strategically build the collection, especially focusing on areas of weakness.
  • Continue team-building and customer-service emphasis among the staff.  This is re-investing in the library’s greatest asset.
  • Investigate transforming LBR110 into a one-day immersion course with independent study that could be marketed to students across the academic disciplines.
  • Compose a brief statement about the library, its services and collections, and appropriate library behavior to send to the teaching faculty and encourage inclusion in their syllabi.
  • Re-negotiate the cleaning contract to secure more frequent cleaning of the public library spaces to ensure that the library presents a clean, neat and pleasant environment.
  • Continue to conduct focus groups with other populations such as a random sample of Alexandria campus students (not necessarily library users) and faculty.

 

Most interesting observation

 

Modern society suffers from a “privatization of personal space”.  People just don’t care if they are bothering their neighbor or acting inappropriately.  If we could create a campus culture that made disruptive talking, inappropriate cell-phone use, and inconsiderate use of space socially unacceptable, things would be a lot easier for students as well as faculty and staff.

 

Prepared by Matt Todd and Sylvia Rortvedt, May 2005