As the Consortium Library gets ready to undertake its third LibQual survey, we thought it might be a good time to look at how student feedback directed changes that the library made using the results of the LibQual Survey conducted in 2011.

It was clear that more seating was important to you. Also, you wanted different kinds of seating. We added more seating in a variety of styles to give you a choice, and came up with better signage to reduce the confusion about where the quiet areas in the library were.

We not only added seating, we increased the number of electrical plugs in the building and added seating that included a charging bar for your electronics.

Our chairs get a lot of use. In addition to purchasing new seating, we reupholstered over three dozen chairs we already owned that had been almost loved to death.

Patrons indicated a need for longer hours. The library opened our Late Night Study Facility for the UAA & APU community. With your university ID card you have access to the building from 10PM to 1 AM Sunday through Thursday during the semester. We have expanded our weekend and evening hours.  We also standardized our hours for the summer and intersessions to cut down on confusion.

More study rooms.  Boy are these popular. In the last year we had over 12,000 study room bookings.  The library added another group study room to bring our total to 16,and four individual study rooms for those who need that extra bit of solitary space.  Not only did we add the rooms themselves, we purchased software to allow for self booking.

While you’re here studying, it’s important to you to have the tools you need to complete your work. We added a vending machine and filled it with stuff that you needed. We also added a third scanner on the second floor and a microfiche scanner in the copy room. Better living through technology.

Patron safety and well being are important to everyone.  We’ve added and Emergency Defibrillator, a Med Sled, and and Emergency Phone to the library.

We hope this post has shown you that we take your input very seriously. We want to continue to shape the UAA/APU Consortium library to work in the best possible way for our students, staff and faculty. We are looking forward to what LibQual 2014 has in store.