Annual Report 2022–23

The people we serve are at the heart of everything we do and we strive to continually improve.

The report emphasises the extraordinary levels of customer feedback and User Experience the libraries engage in to continually improve services.

Increasing Customer Service Excellence: 12 compliance plus ratings (up from 10).

Campus learning hubs

Our libraries are key resources for student education:

• 75,395 physical items borrowed
• 2,009,230 people visited the library (up 37%)
• Over 4,000 new titles purchased – 2,250 (55%) from suggestions made by staff and students
• 114,895 hours spent in bookable study spaces – equivalent to 13 years 42 days and six hours worth of studying in one year.

Library satisfaction soars

Our service is defined by our user’s needs. Our biennial library survey plays a critical role in how we develop and improve support and services for students and staff:

• 89% agreed that the library is helping them to succeed in their course or research
• 1,718 students and staff took part (up 97% from 872 previously).

Overall satisfaction has increased since 2021 (88%) with significantly more satisfaction around:

• Opening times
• Availability of digitised material
• Finding the Brotherton Research Centre and awareness of the Galleries
• Overall positive social experience
• Study space meeting user needs.

Improving inclusivity and access (Strategic priority 20)

Our vision is to widen access to our buildings, facilities and resources to support the needs of diverse users. We provide warm, welcoming spaces and have responded to the cost of living crisis:

• The Laidlaw Library is now open 24 hours, with 563 is the most students burning the midnight oil in one night
• No more Document Supply charges resulting in a 142% increase in supplied items
• Fees for late return of books was cancelled
• The refurbed Brotherton Research Centre provides a quiet comfortable space to think.