Along with other heads of department, each autumn our Head of Library Services is required to write an Annual Monitoring Report, critically reflecting on events and activities during the previous academic year. The reports are signed-off by students at a special event organised by the Centre for Enhancement in Learning & Teaching (CELT), are scrutinised by the Teaching Excellence Committee, and thereafter pass through the University's formal committee structure.
One of the other ways we inform and enhance library provision is by analysing and evaluating relevant feedback, including data from the National Student Survey and the BGU Student Satisfaction Survey, as well as informal feedback gathered during library training sessions.
Each year we publish a formal response to the two student surveys mentioned above, the most recent of which can be found below.
Each year, in the run-up to the launch of the National Student Survey and BGU Student Satisfaction Survey the University runs a You Said, We Did campaign to share news about things done in the previous year specifically in response to feedback. The example on the right relates to the 2023/2024 campaign.
The Library is given a budget each year by the University. The following describes how it is divided up. It does not include staffing.
About a third of our budget is spent on print books and e-books.
About a fifth of our budget is spent on journals and another fifth on databases. The cost of these can vary enormously - from just a few pounds to many thousands of pounds each.
About a tenth of our budget is spent on technical support contracts: boring but necessary, these ensure there’s always someone on hand to quickly sort out technical problems if they occur (big things like our library computer system and little things like our till).
The remainder of our budget is spent on things publicity and promotion (promoting our services to the BGU community – particularly printing and design costs), document supply (mainly for inter-library loans; we subsidise the cost of this service), and stationery, furniture and equipment (from pens to barcode scanners to book trolleys to spine labels!).