Usage of LIS facilities 1 During this academic year how often have you used the following? Over 45% of postgraduate students use the library building at least once a week. This percentage is higher for traditional learners only. Quite a large number of students feel that use of other libraries is not applicable to them and almost 20% aren’t aware of this service. As researchers often need quite specific materials that may only be available at some specialist research libraries, awareness of the national library agreements will be increased through improved web pages and regular publicity. There is a lack of awareness of the interlibrary loan service. 30% think that interlibrary loans are not applicable to them but the survey shows that the most important issue for postgraduates is increasing our journal stock. Students need to be made aware that interlibrary loans can fill some of the gaps in journal supply as it would be impractical to purchase all journals requested.

Usage of LIS facilities 2 During this academic year how often have you used the following? Nearly 90% of postgraduates are using their Aston email at least once a week. This has increased significantly since the last survey. The numbers of students using Library web pages and VLE web pages at least once a week is encouraging. For the ‘at least once a week’ category, the use of Library web pages has gone up from about 20-60% since the last survey. However, the use of VLEs is also fairly high - the previous survey didn’t ask about use of VLEs as they weren’t in use at that time. These findings support the view that we need to feed into the VLE development to ensure LIS resources maintain a high presence and are found by those using VLEs as their main access route to resources. In relation to postgraduates, this may at present be more significant for business students as they are using the VLE more than LES, LHS and EAS students.

Usage of LIS facilities 3 During this academic year how often have you used the following? A significant number of students are using subject databases provided by LIS at least once a week. However, about 20% of students are still not aware that they can access databases via the proxy or dial-in server so we need to improve awareness of these facilities. The statistics relating to ebooks show that although these are being used about 25% of students aren’t aware of any. This may vary by school but there are some ebooks which cover all areas such as Oxford Reference Online.

Usage of LIS facilities 4 During this academic year how often have you used the following? The frequent use of self-issue is very low with some students still not aware of the service. However, just under 80% of students have used it at some time. The library has recently bought a new self-issue machine which should be more reliable and more straightforward to use. It is surprising that some students think the web catalogue is not applicable to them. The renew column shows the percentage of students who are using the library web catalogue to renew or reserve books. Again, there are students who think this isn’t applicable to them and a small number who aren’t aware of this service.

Usage of LIS facilities 5 During this academic year how often have you used the following? The Subject Enquiries desk isn’t used by our postgraduate students as much as undergraduates. Our impression is that postgraduates contact the Information Specialists individually. Approximately 60% of students have used the online information skills tutorial at some point but about 20% think it’s not applicable to them and about 20% aren’t aware of this service. The library is investigating how the online information skills tutorial can be taken forward. Use the back button to return to contents page