to think undergraduates shouldn't be routinely given reader cards for the British Library?

[OTheHugeManatee]

Yes, I know that it's one of the UK's only copyright libraries. Yes, I know it's a public resource. Yes I know, accessibility, widening availability, yadda yadda. Yes, I'm probably being a mardy old trout.

But since they changed the rules to allow undergraduates to get BL reader cards, it's become overrun with entitled adolescents. Half the time you can't even get a seat.

I'm a mature student, doing postgrad study part-time at some distance from my institution, and I don't have a university library to work in. I have very small windows of time between work and other commitments when I can do library research for essays. The BL is pretty much the only resource within reasonable travelling distance from me where I can access the books I need and work quietly for a few hours. So when I turn up at the BL and find it swarming with people who could be somewhere else, and that it's impossible to get a seat, it pisses me off.

It's one thing if they are doing a special research project on material which is only available at the BL. But for ordinary undergrad stuff, why? Universities have their own libraries FFS. Can't these whippersnappers go and chew gum and flirt in those?

YAB totally U

YABVU

I know.

But I still think the young shavers should bog off to their university libraries, where they can have sex in the stacks without disturbing me.

YANBU - do they do this now? Blimey....in my day nothing short of an esoteric PhD topic and three signatures (or a friend on the inside) would get you a card...

Mardy Old Trout. But I do feel your pain.

YANBU they hardly need it. They've got their own uni libraries

YANBU if they are only using it to chat/because they fancy it. I think they should have to justify why their own university libraries aren't good enough.

It seems very unfair that some of them use books there just because they think it's a cool/pretty place to work, when the same books are lying unused in their own libraries.

I'm really curious as to why anyone would think YABU?

Work in a university library? Are you taking the piss??

My university library is so loud the STAFF's conversations interrupt me working there! In the vacations!

If you want some peace and quiet to shag in the stacks work then the BL is your friend, UG or no...

There was this barely adolescent girl having a go at one of the bag search men outside a reading room the other day, along the lines of:

Him: 'You can't take that bag in.'
Her: 'I queued for 40 minutes at the cloakroom and finally gave up. I've left some stuff in the reading room. Can't I just go in quickly?'
Him: 'You can't take that bag in.'
Her: 'I'm not queuing again. I'm not! I'm not!'
Him: 'You need to put your stuff in the cloakroom, that's what it's for.'
Her: (increasingly histrionic) 'I'm not waiting another 40 minutes to get my stuff! Can't I just leave my bag with you at the desk?'
Him: 'That's what the cloakroom is for.'

At which point I left, so I never got to see if she pulled a full Violet Elizabeth Bott or not.

Also, seriously, not all university libraries are that well-stocked, particularly crappy newer universities in the GLA, because they assume students will go to the BL.

And I can't believe anyone would be ticked off by young people actually wanting to go and do work in one of the world's most famous libraries!

Ditto revolting - ours was ridiculous. And the choice of books was truly shite.

If they could be somewhere else, with the books they need, they would be there, surely?

We were advised to join the BL when writing our undergraduate dissertations. There was no need for it prior to that so I assume the same goes for the layabouts students you're talking about?

And they don't remember the olden days of the round reading room at the BM...

[old gimmer]

Revolting I wouldn't mind so much if they were actually working.

God, YANBU, why would they (mostly) need to?

Oh I remember the round reading room...and waiting a lifetime for your books only to get them and find they weren't what you wanted ;)

YABU, I'm a mature student and jealous of you getting to use it.

Our university library is having half the books (not an exaggeration: half the books) removed to make room for counselling rooms and more computers for people to come in and play Facebook on.

The student union supports this.

At some point the students may notice that the books they need are not available to them, but by then it will be too late.

I despair.

Students????? In a Library????? surely not?????? Why are they not in the union bar where they should be?

I had to apply specially back in the day because none of the stuff I needed was in our library

and I wanted tospend the summer pootling around pretending to be thinking great thoughts and possibly shag someone who wore a scarf and rode a bicycle

When I was at Cambridge, undergraduates weren't allowed to use the University Library- although I think there was an exemption if you were writing a dissertation in your 3rd year. TBF, the subject libraries and college libraries were pretty good at Cambridge so most unergrads wouldn't have needed the UL anyway.

YANBU in principle, I think.

Oh dear. It sounds as though I might actually have been being a bit U.

I was very spoiled with our excellent university library back in the Stone Age day and hadn't realised they were so busy flogging library books off in universities up and down the country to make space for meditation rooms or Cafe Neros or whatever. That's so

Fayrazzled, are you sure? We were packed off there in our first week to make sure we had our tickets, and used it throughout.

I don't think IABU though to be that an amazing research institution like the BL is being swamped by all these students who aren't being properly served by their own university libraries. Am I?