yoUR Library Campaign Report

The yoUR Library campaign was designed to gather feedback on what our university community, and especially our students, wanted to see in our library space; particularly in the micro materials area which will be moved to free up new study space in the library. This project ran from mid November, 2014 until the end of December 2014.

In order to solicit feedback from our community on campus the group developed a Facebook page and Twitter hashtag (#yoURLibrary).  These tools were also used to help inform students about the campaign. URSU group members not only helped with developing plans and ideas, but also found our white board artist Jingyu, who created artwork on whiteboards across campus (Lab Cafeteria, Kin hallway, main floor labls in the Library) as well as on flip charts and small portable whiteboards for display in the Library which encouraged students to actively participate by writing down their ideas for the new library space on these boards. The ideas written down on the whiteboards were recorded each day.

The group set up an official launch for the campaign in late November, 2014 outside of the Library where we encouraged students to write down their ideas on the white board spaces provided. Popcorn was served as an incentive to stop and participate. These ideas were recorded and photographed.

In addition to advertizing via social media and whiteboard artwork, the group also created a T.V monitor slide for the T.V’s in the Library and around campus. A short article was also written for the Carillon to help raise awareness of the campaign. A popular UofR Facebook page (over 10,000 members) called “UR Confessions” also posted a message about the campaign on our behalf and we received a large amount of feedback from students.

At the end of the winter 2014 semester all the results were collated and compiled into a bar chart. The top three requests from the campaign were longer library hours (it was indicated that longer hours during exam periods would be of use as well as longer hours during the regular semester), coffee shop, and more electrical outlets. Other popular requests were for additional bookable study space, more tables, more comfortable seating, and more computers (laptops, desktops).

We received over 700 responses during the campaign. Any questions that could be answered were done so via our social media.

The Library is currently analysing the comments in order to determine how best to respond.