Comment: More books and other resources need to be available. The library ought to be providing more e-journals and even e-books that we can use from home.

As I’m sure you know, we have limited budgets for buying books and journals. Working within the limits of that budget, we make great efforts to spend our funds well and get the books, journals, and other information sources necessary to support learning, teaching, and research at Wayne. To do this we have assigned subject liaison librarians to specific subject areas and charged them with identifying and purchasing materials for those areas.

We are very aware that e-journals are preferred by students and faculty alike and that there is a growing demand for e-books. Whenever possible, we purchase online journals and magazines rather than print. We are also building e-book collections in a number of different areas. In fact in 2005-2006 (the most recent year for which data is available), the WSU Libraries once again lead the 113 members of the Association of Research Libraries in the percentage of its collection budget used for digital materials.

We also want you to know that Wayne students and faculty are not limited to the books and journals in our collections. Through special interlibrary loan arrangements with libraries, we have the ability to borrow books and obtain articles from libraries all over the United States and the world. To set up your interlibrary loan account and make requests, go to
https://wayne.illiad.oclc.org/illiad/wild.html.

If you would like to contact the liaison librarian in your area of study, please use the list available at
http://www.lib.wayne.edu/geninfo/staff/facultyliaison.php.

You can also suggest books for our collections. You may do so by clicking on the “Suggest a Title” link in our catalog. It will lead you to this online form:
http://elibrary.wayne.edu/acquire.

Comment: The libraries should be quiet zones! Students are trying to do research while others are goofing around and making noise. The computer areas in the library are areas you should particular be enforcing the rules about quiet.

The University Libraries offer a wide range of study environments from the traditionally hushed to the more casual and noisy. Students should make their own appraisals of the study spaces offered by the libraries and on floors within the libraries and decide for themselves what suits them.

Every study environment from the most casual to the most traditional does have rules of behavior. When students in an area fail to abide by these rules, we encourage you to report such behavior to library staff.

We would also like to emphasize that our policies on behavior in the libraries are regularly reviewed. Our intent is to offer the sorts of study areas that appeal to the full range of our patrons. When we need to change the rules to assure that a study space remains appealing, we will do so.

The Undergraduate Library offers the widest range of study environments. The third floor is designated a quiet study area. Signs placed at the entrance to the floor inform our patrons that there must be no talking, no use of cell phone, and no use of headphones and direct students who wish to engage in group study to use the collaborative study rooms. Though covered beverages are allowed on the third floor, no food is allowed. Anyone found in violation of these rules is required to leave the floor for the day.

The second floor of the Undergraduate Library offers a more casual study environment. Patrons using that floor are often involved in group study and talking at a reasonable volume is allowed. Students may be using their cell phones or headphones. They may also have food and drink so long as the food is not consumed at the computer workstations and the beverages are covered. While the second floor offers a more casual environment, it is not a public park or a rumpus room. Patrons are asked to observe a level of decorum suitable to any public building. If patrons are unwilling to show reasonable restraint, they will be required to leave the floor for the day.

The first floor of the Undergraduate Library does not offer a quiet environment. The comings and goings through the lobby, events in the atrium and Bernath Auditorium, and the snack shop and vending machine will always generate noise. The DeRoy Extended Study Center just off the lobby is, however, glassed off from the public areas and is intended for quiet study.

The open design of the Undergraduate Library allows sound to travel easily from floor to floor and from area to area. The University Libraries have been and will continue to make changes to dampen sound and prevent noise from traveling. The Undergraduate Library quiet areas are, however, usually a bit noisier than other quiet study areas within the Libraries.

If you would like a quieter environment, we invite you to use the study space provided by the Purdy/Kresge and Science and Engineering Libraries. Over the summer of 2007, the first floor of the Kresge Library was transformed into quiet study space for students. The serials stacks from that floor were shifted to the second floor, it was recarpeted, and tables and comfortable chairs were moved into place. The Purdy/Kresge Library also has another, though smaller, quiet study area on the second floor of Purdy. Both the Purdy/Kresge Library and the Science and Engineering Library also offer concentrations of computers near their reference desks as well as study tables placed in the stack areas on their upper floor.

The Wayne State University Libraries welcome your suggestions, ideas and comments about ways we can improve our services. We encourage you to send them to us through the Libraries Digital Suggestion Box at [insert url].

When you send suggestions through the Digital Suggestion Box, you may request a direct response by providing name and email address.

Your comments and our responses to those comments may also be posted in this blog. To protect your confidentiality, we will not include your name and address when posting comments here.