How well does the library cater for you?

Vorsprung

Someone said on another earlier thread that there weren't enough books for whatever course they were doing. Now I know the library can't have every possible book for every course in endless supply, so here's the question.

On a scale from 1 to 5 (5 is best, 1 is worst), how well does the Library cater for your needs in terms of the main books you need (recommended reading)?

In my own case with Med, there's at least 240 in my year (one of the smallest pre-clinical years btw). I remember when we did an anatomy course a couple of years ago, there were actually 2 years in need of anatomy books because of the way the courses are structured, and there's only 17 copies of the recommended text! So I'm scoring the Library low enough for that!

Vote away!

rainbow kirby

I haven't used the library at all this year, pretty much everything I need can be found online, and I bought one book.

panda100

Also Jim remember that pph book(blue small sorta book) everyone needed and there was only two copies of it in the library.Two people rushed down at the end of the lecture to get it and had it out for two weeks-tres annoying!
I dont find earlsfortt terrace the best,they have lots of old books,first editions and such but no new ones.

Does anyone ever read the library comment folder?

Pythia

I've only ever studied in the library so I wouldn't know tbh.

orangerooster

panda100 wrote:

Does anyone ever read the library comment folder?

I did once mainly just total pisstake stuff like this:

Thursday 15 January 14:00. Its too warm please turn off the heating.
Thursday 15 January 14:20. Its too cold please turn the heating back on.

Followed by a load of smilies or a web-adress to some irrelevant ****e. The library is a joke, especially when it comes to something like history and English, huge classes plus only around 20 copies of the reccomended text is not going to cut it.

rain on

it can be tough to get stuff for my courses, but there are ways and means of dealing..

(i) reserves are your friend.
(ii) this i guess will only work for smaller classes, but sending an email around to the class saying 'hey, i really need X book, if anyone has it can i photocopy some bits out of it, ta'. this has saved the ass of everyone in my class at some stage. but then there are only 9 of us. but a good relationship with your classmates is your friend.
(iii) a good relationship with your lecturer/seminar leader is also your friend. i've been saved a few times by putting my nose round the office door and going 'i can't get this book can i borrow yours for the afternoon thanks very much'. of course some people are no help at all, but you have to try.

all in all the library has met my needs fairly well, though.

tintinr35

its so bad for history of art, our lecturer had to arrange for us to be let into the national gallery's library cause the ucd one is so under resourced for hoa

Dave!

I rarely use it (probably a bad sign... ), but when I do I rarely have trouble.

The_Minister

It does what it says on the tin. It is efficient and easy to find stuff. Just don't be a muppet and wait until two days before that essay is due in, to get the books and you should be fine

Waltons

Was only in once so far this semester, but I'll probably have to use it more since we've started with a new lecturer for psychology and it looks like we'll have to read the book
Was in a few times last semester, not a huge amount though. The courses I'm doing don't generally need a huge amount of reading and, like RK, a lot of the stuff's online. The Athens login to the journal databases is very handy too

Chinafoot

orangerooster wrote:

The library is a joke, especially when it comes to something like history and English, huge classes plus only around 20 copies of the reccomended text is not going to cut it.

Aye, and you'd be lucky to even get 20 texts. They never have any up to date stuff. especially for history. All the stuff they do have is well out outdated.

Sangre

How can a history book be out of date

humbert

Up to date stuff for history, classic:D

I know it makes sense but still sounds funny

arbeitsscheuer

No matter how long ago the event, there´s always new material being uncovered, new theories being published, new avenues being explored, and people coming at established "facts" from a different perspective...
Tis what makes it my fave subject. Not just the event itself, but the shagloads of arguments and debates after the fact.

On-topic: Library used to be good before 3,000 people in one subject were given the same date for essays and suchlike. Before it was difficult, now it´s all out warfare to grab a book that is in any way relevant to your essay.

Seraphina

i have to say, if i didn't have an archaeologist living next door, i would have failed a long time ago because i simply couldn't get my hands on the books.
its a ****ing nightmare, there may be less people in the class than others, but in general, there's usually 1 copy of the book we need in the library. maybe two or three if we're lucky. tis a joke really.
they have barely anything new, and when lecturers ask them to order stuff in, it takes months!!!

Red Alert

i find in the electronic engineering side of things it's ok for basic theoretical books because very little of that stuff has changed since the 1920's-1950's and there's less than 35 in my class. However, on the other hand there's very little stuff about new technologies so if you need to read up on mobile systems like GSM, CSMA etc you'll be in big big trouble.

Hermione*

It's really bad for history;a class of 300 approx and they have < 20 copies of the core text; when you have standardised deadlines it's a nightmare!! There's a new edition of a core text on one of my readiong lists out, and the library haven't even ordered it ...no chance they'll have it by the exams.

The library would be so much better if you could bring coffee in, you can bring virtually anything else in!

The_Minister

Hermione* wrote:

It's really bad for history;a class of 300 approx and they have < 20 copies of the core text; when you have standardised deadlines it's a nightmare!! There's a new edition of a core text on one of my readiong lists out, and the library haven't even ordered it ...no chance they'll have it by the exams.

The library would be so much better if you could bring coffee in, you can bring virtually anything else in!

Just buy a copy between all your friends.

snickerpuss

I think its grand for history of art, i've never had any trouble getting books and we have a whole reading room stocked with art books so i can't complain.
Ditto irish.
So i'm happy.

Jonny Arson

The library ain't good at all. By that I mean mostly the sheer lack of books.... it's appaling. It's simply not acceptable that maybe 3 core textbooks have to be shared between 200 students. Screw the fancy lighting, fountains or personal gyms.... they won't help us in the slightest bit in getting our degrees. The authorities need to get their priorities right.... and that priority should be us students.

Hermione*

Firespinner wrote:

Just buy a copy between all your friends.

The course is 20th Century Ireland; there's at least six core texts and I've bought at least four of them. There's so many other books we need where the library has eight or ten copies in the short loan, and three hundred people looking for them. Even with the short loan, it's a nightmare at essay time!

There's no problem with politics, but then the politics dept don't make the entire class take the same course! :rolleyes:

elmyra

I actually hate the library. Doing English and History-so the books I need are always out, and even when they say they're in when you go the shelves or the returns area- nada. Nothing. Today I went in before leaving for the weekend to get books for an essays that's not due for almost 3 weeks (man so dedicated, I know what the chances are of getting one next week more like!), out of a reading list of ten books I got- 1. 6 were out, 3 said they were in but were nowhere to be found, and 1 I found after climbing onto one of those damn steppy thingys to a top shelf- I am 5ft 3, the library is not my friend.

Syth

I'm a computer science student, it serves my needs exactly. It does nothing for me, and I don't need it to do anything. I'm never disappointed. The books on computer science are so very very out of date. And we rarely need books anyway, lots of our course material is online. I haven't even been inside the library this year. I'm ethically opposed to the card scanning.

arbeitsscheuer

elmyra wrote:

Doing English and History-Today I went in before leaving for the weekend to get books for an essays that's not due for almost 3 weeks (man so dedicated, I know what the chances are of getting one next week more like!), out of a reading list of ten books I got- 1. 6 were out, 3 said they were in but were nowhere to be found, and 1 I found after climbing onto one of those damn steppy thingys to a top shelf- I am 5ft 3, the library is not my friend.

Aw... I have pets bigger than you!

Btw, steph aka peachypants did English and History in 1st yr, she's final yr now, PM her and ask if she has any of her old texts knockin about. Just a thought like.

randombassist

I actually find it an excellent resource. If you have a bit of foresight when the essay topics are first given you can get all the books you need. But even when you go down the day before for an English/ History essay there will still be a book on your topic in the short loan collection. Some people seem to think that you can only use the 3 the lecturer mentioned, so they all go and there are still another 30 books on the topic on the shelf that nobody wants to take!

And if you're looking for something when it's not an essay time, then you have an amazing choice. For example the other day I wanted to look up a very specific part of Irish History, and they had 3 books dedicated to it! It's a bit unreasonable to expect them to have enough books for 500 students on a standardised essay deadline day, so I'm going to give them good marks.

Blush_01

I'm sorry, but English students have no reason to whinge, most of the time. As an English student, you can get most of the novels you need as primary texts second hand for less than the price of a day's overdue short loan. It's only with secondary reading and reference books for essays that there's a problem. They're the books you're not going to buy. Besides, English books can always be sold on again. Novels don't really go out of date, and places like Chapters will take them when you're finished. Also, if you're planning on staying in English you'll probably need all the books you're required to get as reference books as you go along anyway, so they're an investment.

The library is frustrating, but there's a real satisfaction to be gained from besting it and finding the books you want or need.

arbeitsscheuer

Blush_01 wrote:

I'm sorry, but English students have no reason to whinge, most of the time. As an English student, you can get most of the novels you need as primary texts second hand for less than the price of a day's overdue short loan. It's only with secondary reading and reference books for essays that there's a problem. They're the books you're not going to buy. Besides, English books can always be sold on again. Novels don't really go out of date, and places like Chapters will take them when you're finished. Also, if you're planning on staying in English you'll probably need all the books you're required to get as reference books as you go along anyway, so they're an investment.

The library is frustrating, but there's a real satisfaction to be gained from besting it and finding the books you want or need.

Boo sucks to you - Stop using common sense to thwart our enjoyable b*tching session!

Nobody's actually supposed to address our problems, we just love wallowing in the injustice of it all.

Perception > Reality

elmyra

Blush_01 wrote:

I'm sorry, but English students have no reason to whinge, most of the time. As an English student, you can get most of the novels you need as primary texts second hand for less than the price of a day's overdue short loan. It's only with secondary reading and reference books for essays that there's a problem. They're the books you're not going to buy. Besides, English books can always be sold on again. Novels don't really go out of date, and places like Chapters will take them when you're finished. Also, if you're planning on staying in English you'll probably need all the books you're required to get as reference books as you go along anyway, so they're an investment.

The library is frustrating, but there's a real satisfaction to be gained from besting it and finding the books you want or need.

Well, speaking purely for myself, I do buy all of my primary texts and don't have a problem with that at all, it's secondary reading I have the problem with and I don't really think it's true to say that secondary reading is worth buying for the most part because so far, almost two years into the course, I've very rarely if at all used the same reference book twice and they do tend to be very specific to the course you're doing at the time. I agree that it would be entirely unfeasible for the library to have 500+ copies of one text, and the blame lies partially with the departments for having standardised essay titles and deadlines, but while I think 500 copies is asking a bit much, I still think 1 and 2 copies of some of the things on my reading list is unacceptable.

I love the satisfaction of besting the library as you say, but it very rarely happens.

elmyra

SebtheBum wrote:

Aw... I have pets bigger than you!

Btw, steph aka peachypants did English and History in 1st yr, she's final yr now, PM her and ask if she has any of her old texts knockin about. Just a thought like.

Yep, that's me, no height to speak of.

Aw, thanks for the thought, I'd ask but I'd hate to bother somebody I don't really know and if she's anything like me she bought the core texts and did her best with the library for the rest, and the core texts changed this year. Grrr!!!

arbeitsscheuer

elmyra wrote:

Aw, thanks for the thought, I'd ask but I'd hate to bother somebody I don't really know and if she's anything like me she bought the core texts and did her best with the library for the rest, and the core texts changed this year. Grrr!!!

Really?
B*stards.

Mind you, at least that's just 1st year.

In final year History we've been used as the guinea pigs for a raft of new courses, texts, essay-submission procedures etc etc...

elmyra

SebtheBum wrote:

Really?
B*stards.

Mind you, at least that's just 1st year.

In final year History we've been used as the guinea pigs for a raft of new courses, texts, essay-submission procedures etc etc...

*shudder*. Department refused to mark one of my essays at Christmas cos it was handed in after last day of term...totally accept that it was my fault, but not even a time penalty, just total refusal to mark it!! New regs are s**t.