Negotiating the UL: in which Gesta fondly reminisces and describes a love affair with a library.

One of the few advantages of being paid part-time (though working full-time) is that I feel no obligation to be around on the days the university doesn’t pay me. To that end, aided and abetted, nay, encouraged even, by a Reivers who is on sabbatical, I escaped to my favourite library for three days, the UL in Cambridge. These three days were exciting, exhilarating and entirely necessary in all sorts of ways and enabled me to achieve far more in that time than I seem to get done in entire semesters here. So, a post in praise of the institution known as the UL with all its wonderful quirks.

Are students allergic to libraries?

A recent report on the BBC website reveals there has been a 22% long-term decline in visits by students to their university and college libraries. This equates to an annual fall of 3% apparently. Now as Reivers would confirm there are lies, damned lies and statistics, but does this study tell us anything?

What’s wrong with this library catalogue?

Human beings have an almost irresistable urge to categorise things, so correct me if I am wrong, but a library catalogue should be a means of determining what stock a given library has and its probable location by means of a unique classmark. In order for the library to function effectively, there should be a certain logic to the cataloguing – similar books should be located in proximity to each other. As any researcher will tell you, many an interesting tome has been discovered through the sheer joy of browsing the shelves of a well-stocked library when seeking a particular volume.