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?

i'm probably a bit out of date on this one, and it was 64% of funding rather than all of it, having looked at the link i posted. will have a look at what the latest is.

this is more up to date:
www.shl.lon.ac.uk/news/refocus.shtml

LadyGlencora I feel your DH's pain. Though I live in London, I have to grab library time when I can, without much flexibility. I don't go to the BL unless I can't get the material anywhere else. Not being able to get a seat when I need it makes a massive difference to the quality of my work.

I love the idea that you could just do your research on eBay.

the most useful internet site I found when at uni was amazon - I used to put in keywords of the topics I was researching, go through the list of books that came up, see from their synopsis if they'd be useful, then go and find them in the library, go through their bibliographies and find more useful texts from there.

amazon is a pretty amazing database of books imo even stuff thats way out of print and which they've never sold is listed, with isbn etc.

Hmm. My feelings are mixed. I think the BL should be reserved for everyone who needs to be there, and the definition of need should be specific to things not accessible elsewhere. Though how you would police that I don't know.

So for example, if a sci/med/socsci researcher at whatever level, could access the same materials electronically, why should they be there? I suspect many - undergrad, postgrad and particularly staff - go there because it's away from their students or colleagues quiet. So I can't see why undergrads should be banned overall.

I completely understand, however, why some people do have to be there for older/specialist/archived materials, but I bet in most non-humanities related fields almost everything is available via a combination of online subscription, online one-off payment, inter-library loan or local library too...

If 'being there' is an excuse for not really being able to face up to using available online sources, then YABU, I'm afraid.

Unrulysun, exactly. Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaeualis vol. 5, good condition, on a Buy It Now, just what I was looking for. Now, what about those back issues of Analecta Bollandiana?

Actually, if the libraries keep selling stuff off it might come to that...

Wilf, I basically agree with you (and am one of the lucky humanities students who can justify being there), but would just say that online sources are harder to use for some people with certain SN, than are books. So that might be a justification?

Scratch that, just remembered our library isn't allowed to sell books off because it's too embarrassing for them to be found with the University Library stamp in them. So embarrassing, in fact, that when a colleague of mine tried to hold a book sale of some older book and multiple copies from the subject area library (see! We do let some stuff go!) he was told to bring them to the main library so they could incinerate them instead.

To quote David Mitchell, correct me if I'm wrong, but that is the act of a wicked man.

They burnt the books?

What lovely publicity that would make.

OhBuggerandArse - but books from abroad don't fall under legal deposit requirements do they? Only things published in UK. Some publishers from outside UK do deposit but don't have to so that's probably why coverage is patchy in the various copyright libraries.

Cambridge University Library - was always open to undergraduates to use (ie enter building, request books, etc) but not to borrow til their final year. These rules changed this year so now all UGs can borrow. Important to know, as nutsandtangerines said, that every college has library often with multiple copies of popular texts, every department/faculty... so lots of choice for students outside of UL. There are over 100 libraries in the Cambridge system.

Oh I love this thread. Thanks everyone.

I fondly recall many happy hours drinking coffee working in the University Library coffeeshop

JulesJules, did you sit in the main bit of the tea shop breathing fresh air, or in the strange perspex smoke-tank that turned the smokers into greenish kippers?

(A uniquely reasonable approach to the smoking / non smoking in public indoor spaces problem - get over the "having a no smoking section in a restaurant is like having a no pissing section in a swimming pool" thing - but the smokers were kippered)

Ooh we didn't have a perspex smoke-tank

Didn't know libraries had got this bad - must be very busy though with all the students in London. OP YANBU, but clearly times are bad for undergrads too if the college libraries are deteriorating.

Not all out of print books can be found on Amazon, and some academic ones are very expensive (£80+) if rare - not within a student budget!

OTheHugeManatee - you're behind the curve.

Things have improved, massively, with extra seats and extra lockers after near-insurrection two years ago.

I saw academics narked - which was funny strange.

And, yes, I'm pretty laid-back but I've reported someone for writing in a book. With pen.

Generally, though, as others have said, it's shocking what is happening to libraries.

And the news about the Senate House is grim.

And did you get the hand-out saying the BL's funding is being cut by @ 50%?

purcellfan - wasn't suggesting buying the books from amazon, just idly burbling on about how I used the internet to start off my research.

YA-so definitely-NBU. I get so fed up with people rocking up with all their stuff already (i.e. not actually using the library resources and just using it as a work-space). But what really gets me is the rush when the BL opens to score one of the comfy seats outside the reading rooms - spending the morning posing with their powerbooks. Such silly posturing 'ooh look at me working in the BL'...

Ah, misread RobynLou, sorry. Internet is great though, we're so lucky to be the right generation to use it.

So Senate House cut, BL cut, smaller libraries cut?! And er, University fees going up too. It's not good is it .

This reminds me of our old librarian. She had white hair and a Heidi like hair-do. She shouted at me because I whispered sorry to someone I had bumped into. I dread to think how she would react to people texting.

A gentleman once asked me to leave the Mitchell Library because teenage undergraduates should not be allowed in. I was a 27 year old graduate at the time :).

Amazon was just being launched when I was an undergraduate but whoever suggested the keyword search to narrow down which books to look for was a good suggestion.

Anyhow, enough of yer tales of endless books in Cambridge libraries and those of you near enough to work in the BL as opposed to those of us plebs who just pop in from time to time cos NOT ALL OF US LIVE IN LONDON.

We are basically fucked, unless the new funding regime means universities are forced to buy more books: we have none, our students have none, journals (including electronic subscriptions) being slashed and burned. I think my university is probably the pre-92 university on the bottom of the list for library spending IIRC.

Oh I'm not bitter. Nope. Not one tiny bit.

Haha. I just clocked the top thread in 'Discussions of the day' and thought it must be this one. It isn't.

Wilf I swear our outgoing principal really didn't understand there was a need for books. Landscaping, yes...

YANBU. Is there nowhere you can go these days to study comfortably and in peace?