Comments from Students

An open-ended question invited graduate students to share grad-student-specific requests; 326 students did so and the types of responses they provided are described below.

• Space-related requests: 32%

  • “More individual working spaces with better privacy that grad students could book daily instead of hourly.”

  • “More spaces to study in groups.”

  • “Graduate student specific places in the Duderstadt. More access to hard-copy versions of graduate-level textbooks.”

  • “A family friendly area.”

  • “Some small rooms for group work only available to graduate students that we could reserve would be amazing! It's so hard to find spaces.”

• Service suggestions: 21%

  • “Drop in consultations.”

  • “Later hours.”

  • “Earlier hours.”

  • “Access to study space after hours.”

  • “Maintain a database of the semester's courses and provide textbooks accordingly up to capacity and then provide alternative resources.”

• Collection requests: 19%

  • “More textbooks!”

  • “More access to a wider range of journals.”

  • “Access to more data sets.”

  • “Special workshop for instructing how to efficiently use the library sources.”

• Workshop, course, or instruction requests: 13%

  • “Workshops on digitizing and access to digitizing technology.”

  • “Disciplinary-specific dissertation-writing workshops (I understand that this would ideally be offered at the department level, but many departments offer zero guidance on how to craft a dissertation).”

• Comments about wanting more information about library offerings: 9%

An open-ended question invited all students to share requests and suggestions related to library support for learners and coursework; 414 students did so and the types of responses they provided are described below.

• More education about library resources: 17%

  • “If there was a comprehensive list of the resources available to UM students that would be helpful for finding features that appear to be hidden.”

  • “Provide additional training / work with professors to encourage students on how to search for some of the items / assignments. I see a big discrepancy / lack of communication between teachers and librarians on how can we leverage the library to become better individuals and leverage it not only during our college time, but also our lives.”

  • “More clear information on how to use the physical collections (like the video game, microfilm, and film collections) on the website would be helpful.”

  • “Required freshman courses that introduced you to the library more.”

• More marketing/publicity about library offerings: 12%

  • “Advertise the M-get it program better, I was unaware of it until recently and it has been so useful for me.”

  • “I think that students should be more informed about the library and what it has to offer. I am lucky that my English professor scheduled a meeting with someone at the Library to inform us on how to take advantage of things and all the materials that were available to us. If all students attended a class (or if it was publicized) about the resources that UM Libraries have, they would appreciate our library a lot more!”

• Facilities & spaces comments: 10%

  • “The bathrooms at Hatcher are really unpleasant and make me not want to visit the library.”

  • “Please provide more outlets/bring back the 6-outlet adapters on the first floor of Shapiro. Thanks!”

  • “Maybe have a clear directory for people who are new to the library so it isn't as intimidating.”

  • “More open spaces. FAR TOO MANY EMPTY, UNUSED ROOMS ARE LOCKED.”

  • “More whiteboards everywhere, more individual study pods.”

  • “I would love to see more work tables and chairs, group study rooms, and individual booths for zoom calls/telehealth/etc.”

• Tech/Computer comments: 9%

  • “Make sure canvas links work with library.”

  • “Take care of student personal privacy; personal info and data as well as resources used in the past.”

  • “Searching the umich library website changed during my time here. I feel like now it requires sentences but I preferred it when I could just type in keywords.”

  • “A better online catalogue not filled with librarian jargon.”

• Study space comments: 9%

  • “More spaces to study with groups.”

  • “More study spaces.”

  • “More study spaces and more privacy.”

• Course reserves comment: 5%

  • “It would be better if the library can provide all textbooks that the course in UM requires.”

  • “Have more textbooks accessible for free. They should not cost $80 a piece, and some of them are rare so it’s hard to get a good deal.”

  • “Providing electronic sources to common media required by popular classes.”