The library is very much involved in the arrival of freshers on Arrivals Day on Saturday. Its a very smooth orchestrated affair which has been used for quite a few years. The students and their parents are shown through the first room where they receive their tutorial pack and accommodation information. They then proceed to the library where we ensure that their cards are added to the Voyager Library Management System, followed by the IT Resource Centre where we make sure they received their email from the University Computing Service (UCS), telling them about their computer information, email and passwords, etc. We also give them a USB with instructions for logging onto the network in their rooms and sell wired cables to those students who don't have one. After this they are collected by current students and taken to the Porters Lodge to collect their room key and showed to their rooms. Usually the Assistant Librarian and Library Assistant deal with adding cards in the library whilst the IT Manager and myself deal with the IT information. This year was a little different as the UCS had sent out usernames and passwords before the students arrived. Previously we had been responsible for helping students download their computer passwords from the web. We did have a couple of issues however with the new system as some emails had been sent to school addresses which had been closed down after the students received their results. Unfortunately this meant some students couldn't log on until the Monday. I suggested that a few temporary accounts could be set up so the students could log on until Monday when UCS could resend their details. This seemed to appease the situation. This was fed back to UCS by the IT Manager, so hopefully they won't use school email accounts next year.
18 months ago, I suggested that we should move time of Freshers Fair to allow graduate attendance. They are often in the departments until 4.30-5pm. Freshers Fair is now 3-6pm to allow graduates to come and feel part of the student body. This year though some clubs and societies left early, even though it went on for another hour. This meant that only a few stalls remained for graduates to look at and some thought the fair was closing up. I fed this back so it can be included in next years planning.
The student inductions themselves start on the Thursday before Arrivals day for the early arrivals and international students and continue during the first week of term. They consist of a library tour and small online session on electronic resources which are voluntary. This relates to my own teaching philosophy, that students learn at their own pace, when they want to or more likely when they need to and that essay deadline is looming! Therefore, when I started at the library 5 years ago, we decided to do away with the compulsory induction. I expected some discussion with Directors of Study explaining my reasoning but it didn't come. Surprisingly there was a lot of support for this new idea. People felt that the students had so much to cram into the first 3 days of term, that it gave them the opportunity to have some time to reflect on the fact that they had arrived in Cambridge and what lay before them. I personally don't feel its a productive use of time for myself or the other library staff giving tours or indeed the students listening if they don't want to be there.
In spite of the inductions being voluntary the attendance numbers have risen over the last 4 years which is very encouraging and shows that students do still want to attend. Statistics kept of the tour attendances show an increase with a stabilization this year. This academic year (2014-15), saw 154 book and 115 attend. In the previous academic year, 2013-14, 143 students booked and 116 attended, this was an increase of 45 students on the previous year (2012-13, 99 booked and 71 attended). Figures for earlier years are as follows: 2011-12 show 71 booked and 60 attended and for 2010-11, 71 booked and only 49 attended.
This steady rise of attendance could be because they think it is compulsory or it could be due to the shorter terms and supervisions in Cambridge, which means they need to get going on work straight away and have supervision essays each week. Therefore it is imperative they get to know how the library works very quickly. Coming from much larger libraries such as UCL, University of Westminster and University of Chester, I got the impression that the students there had a longer lead into the term and weren't necessarily interested in the library until weeks 3 or 4. In our college library it is the end of induction week (week 1) and week 2 where the students utilize the library as they've just been given their first supervision essay.
For the first time this year I collated statistics on the level of students attending. This is mainly because college is looking at the graduate experience as well as the undergraduate experience. The library itself, for example mainly provides books to part 1 of the Tripos, with some provision of key books for part 2. Books for graduates aren't really catered for, except for those on clinical medicine courses and Mphils in economics.
The attendance broke down into 120 undergraduates booking with 85 attending, 30 graduates booking with 26 attending and 4 PhD students booking and attending. Its too early to really draw any conclusions as we have no previous data, but we can clearly see that a greater proportion of PhD and graduate students book and attend than undergraduates where the non attendance rate is much higher. This is probably because graduates and PhD student perceptions of libraries and what they can offer is much higher. Although we also know that first year undergraduate students have a lot freshers events on offer, have lots of meetings to fit in at their departments and forget to cancel appointments or even forget about their bookings altogether. It will be interesting to see what the figures are next year.
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