SU to survey students on their study experience at the TFDL

By Sean Sullivan, August 7, 2014 —

As part of the Students’ Union’s annual survey, vice-president academic Hana Kadri wants student feedback on potential changes to the Taylor Family Digital Library (TFDL).

The SU wants to speed up repairs in the library — such as broken power outlets — and improve the library’s study space.

Kadri says that many repairs are not dealt with quickly in the TFDL because students don’t immediately report the problem to staff. There’s a backlog of repairs around the university, so the sooner a problem is reported, the sooner it is fixed.

“They can wait anywhere between two to three months for something like that to be fixed,” Kadri said.

Kadri wants to start a messaging campaign at the library telling students how to report problems. The campaign Kadri envisions includes a Twitter account that students can quickly tweet to if they come across a problem in the library.

“[We want to] make it as easy as possible for students, instead of having them open up their laptop and send an email to someone,” Kadri said.

Kadri said the library is also looking into replacing the current tables and chairs and adding more tables.

“The feedback I’ve gotten and some of the conversations I’ve heard in the TFDL are that the furniture itself is not very comfortable. It’s not conducive to a studying environment. It’s more like lounge-type furniture,” Kadri said.

Kadri said the university is looking into the library’s budget to see what can be done. Following the SU’s annual survey and feedback from students, they may look into a Quality Money grant to buy new furniture for the library or ask the university to increase the library’s budget.

The SU is planning to release its annual survey in the fall semester so there is more time to begin addressing students’ concerns in the winter.

By releasing the survey earlier in the year, the SU hopes more students will respond.

“That way students are fresher and they’re more likely, we’re hoping, to complete a survey,” Kadri said.

The SU intends to create a plan in the winter semester before moving into the 2015–16 school year.

In the meantime, Kadri said the library is looking for student feedback.

“If students have any recommendations or if they feel like there’s a certain part of the library that isn’t working, let them know,” Kadri said. “Or let us know so that we can approach them and let them know that this is what students are saying and this is what students want.”