So, EXETER UNI, how do you suggest my SHIELDING child

[Jux]

get into the Library to consult the texts they need in order to do their 2nd year work? When such texts are NOT available online?

Please?

Please explain how 2 hours a week of online f2f taught time is worth £9K? Especially without Library access.

My university library has been posting out books and scanning chapters and articles for students who are CEV, since September.

I just looked at the Exeter library website and it looks like they are offering similar: libguides.exeter.ac.uk/coronavirus

If you want to address Exeter University, it's probably best to contact them directly.

Send someone in to get the books for them?

I hadn't realised Exeter University Library monitors MN for feedback from student's parents?

It's the same for everyone, my dd hasn't had one f2f this year and is now 150 miles from the library she needs thanks to the no students to go back rule.

Library: posting

Taught time; speaking to tutors and lectures to see what can be offered, liaising with student reps if more needs to happen

Depending on the degree, she might have only been getting 2 hours f2f anyway!!!

Many universities are offering a scan service where chapters of books and articles are available to order, is something like this being made available? Have the university signed up to access the Hathi Trust or anything similar which allows a huge amount of material to be available online.
Most libraries are offering very minimal library access but should have put something in place to mitigate this.

It's a really tough one because if they open libraries, it's putting staff at risk plus transfer amongst students...but online provision can be slow. They're stuck with very strict copyright laws, which mean you can't just put 'everything' online, not to mention the time it would take to do so, and they've all got their hands tied with the library unions etc. Yes they could cancel everyone's fees, but then you've got univerisities collapsing, huge job losses, students losing their place half way through a cours etc. There's no easy answer but most are trying their best to offer some solutions. Your child's best bet is to contact their lecturer and ask for advice on access (or speak to their reader services in the libraries). They can often find material online/sign post to the correct service. Your child won't be the only one in the same situation.

I'm sure your adult child would be mortified about you posting this.

They need to contact the uni and get the postal service they already offer set up

@movingonup20

It's the same for everyone, my dd hasn't had one f2f this year and is now 150 miles from the library she needs thanks to the no students to go back rule.

My daughter got permission to travel based on the fact that she was unable to access the books she needed

Not really helpful for those shielding in the parental home, unfortunately, but where resources which the university decrees are essential for a course are only accessible in person on the university campus, then that would presumably allow return to university accommodation for the reason of not having the facilities required for study? Assuming, of course, that the library itself is open.

Official reps of the various universities do respond to posts on TSR, by the way, but the student themselves contacting the relevant person / people at the university would probably be the best way to get a genuine response.

My nephew is at Exeter and in exactly the same position. He called them and they've send texts out by post and also scanned things he needed. Has your daughter even asked them to do that?

Perhaps your adult child at university ought to be intelligent and mature enough to discuss this with her university and not need her parent to rant online about it?

University students can use the libraries of other universities too, including the open university. They just need to contact their university for a special login / card.

Maybe the student can sort this themselves? My child in their first year of a degree seems to manage it

Durham is doing a service that if your book isn't on line they will scan in the pages and email it. Has she asked?

They go to the Uni library? Why... most Unis have online subs to view. Then there is Google books...

Your child is at uni, not school. You do not need to be involved. Your child is more than capable of emailing/phoning and seeing what options are available to them, and setting them up.

I’m only a few years out of uni myself and I would have been mortified if my mum came on Mumsnet, ranting and raving. Embarrassing. Oh, and I also had trouble at uni myself. I sorted it. Your child needs to step up and do the same. They’ve been at uni a year, they know where everything is.

Also a student and have been on campus once this year, to return library books back In September from last March! (It would involve a 45 min tube journey across London)

Our lecturers are very careful to not suggest reading that isn't available online. However the core textbooks we are supposed to buy anyway. There is always more reading than we are supposed to manage.

Can your ‘child’ not sort this out with the university themselves?

Wow. I hope the pps who are in effect telling you to butt out of your DD's stuff, despite the fact she's shielding for unspecified reasons and to suck up your outrage at students having to pay huge fees - far higher than in most EU countries by the way for very little are more supportive of people in real life.

Students have been treated appallingly imo. I appreciate the unis are in a very difficult situation as they haven't been given financial assistance from the govt to help with the pandemic but students are basically subsidising the government's appalling response to the pandemic and will be among the worst affected groups financially for decades to come.

It's a difficult situation for most people at the moment. Criticising the parent of a shielding young adult for being overinvolved is hardly likely to be helpful.

Alternatively, can they join the local library? Ours can get hold of books for you from across the county. If it's a standard course textbook and there is a university city in the county, they will probably have it.

The student isn’t a child though. She/he’s a university student. It really is a matter for them to sort out, not a parent.

I would also advise going into a low paid job when she won’t be paying any fees back so the degree will be free. Common sense is needed and thinking outside the box.

Of course my child is sorting it out and I am certainly not doing it for them. Nor do I think the Unis check MN!

Rant. Rant rant rant. I was really really angry last night. My child who has wanted to study this subject since she was a really small child, 3 or 4, enraptured by it. And now, she's actually considering giving it up because she can't get what she needs. Yes, it would be very simple if the Library just posted out books, but in this particular aspect of her study, they can't.

Many of the texts are just too old; they are not allowed out of the Library at all. I'm not sure about photocopying them (a whole book?) but suspect that anything which uses the sort of strong bright light that most scanners use would not be allowed either.

Anyway. I got it off my chest and we are all calm as a swan here now. So thanks for reading my very UR op, and for responding to it helpfully

What are the other students doing on the course? Don’t think my DCs knew what a subject at university was at age 3!