Hopeless new arrangements at the National Library

Boulevardier

I am gobsmacked at recent changes made to the delivery of materials to readers at the National Library of Ireland main reading room in Kildare St, as described here:

http://www.nli.ie/en/access-to-reading-rooms.aspx

Yes, there are improvements to advance ordering, but many people need to order whan they arrive at the library. If anyone tries to do so after 4pm, as many people have to do, they wil not obtain it until after 6.30pm. This is a potential disaster for the many readers who are coming from doing day jobs, and who are also now required to finish their work at 7.45pm.

Many readers need to order materials flexibly. If I am reading a text after 6.30PM and I see a reference to another text,which I may need to see there and then, I can no longer do so. If these rules had been in place a year ago, it would have taken me weeks or months longer to finish my book.

This state of affairs is not acceptable. I urge all NLI users to contact the library as soon as possible to heve this policy modified or reversed.

Morlar

Which book did you write there if you don't mind me asking ?

Boulevardier

This will make me identifiable, but anyway, I wrote a book on Irish views of the Dreyfus affair.

However, that is not the point. What do you think of these unsatisfactory new arrangements?

CaptainRock

Boulevardier wrote: »

I am gobsmacked at recent changes made to the delivery of materials to readers at the National Library of Ireland main reading room in Kildare St, as described here:

http://www.nli.ie/en/access-to-reading-rooms.aspx

Yes, there are improvements to advance ordering, but many people need to order whan they arrive at the library. If anyone tries to do so after 4pm, as many people have to do, they wil not obtain it until after 6.30pm. This is a potential disaster for the many readers who are coming from doing day jobs, and who are also now required to finish their work at 7.45pm.

Many readers need to order materials flexibly. If I am reading a text after 6.30PM and I see a reference to another text,which I may need to see there and then, I can no longer do so. If these rules had been in place a year ago, it would have taken me weeks or months longer to finish my book.

This state of affairs is not acceptable. I urge all NLI users to contact the library as soon as possible to heve this policy modified or reversed.

One can email orders in advance, so that it can be ready for when they arrive. Sure it is not perfect, but bear in mind that the library seems to be short staffed and I would assume that one can thank the Croke Park agreement for such changes to have taken place. It is not ideal and will add to a sense of frustration for many readers, myself included, but bear in mind that the service I received while studying in the library was nothing short of exceptional and you seem to be neglecting to state that. If you visit the British Library you will see that a similar system is in place there and you can only order ten items per day. It is not perfect, but I would think that the recruitment embargo in the public sector, coupled with declining staff numbers, who have others work to do apart from delivering material to readers has led to this state of affairs. Calling them hopeless may be a bit too strong a word to use as well. Somewhat frustrating, but the benefit is that you can order material for when you know you will be in the library and it will be there for you once you arrive.

Boulevardier

By "hopeless" I mean "not good enough."

It might just be bearable if they bring in additional delivery times at around 5.30 and 7pm, but as it is, it just won't do.

We can't all send in advance orders while we are doing our day jobs.

CaptainRock

Boulevardier wrote: »

By "hopeless" I mean "not good enough."

It might just be bearable if they bring in additional delivery times at around 5.30 and 7pm, but as it is, it just won't do.

We can't all send in advance orders while we are doing our day jobs.

An email takes three minutes to send FFS. Take three minutes from your lunch break to do it. Come on. Have you actually contacted the library yourself to ask them for an explanation to these new arrangements or are you just going to whinge on this forum?

convert

These 'arrangements' have been in place in the manuscripts reading room for months, and while it does take a little getting used to, being able to pre-order for the following morning is great, and once you become accustomed to the system it is quite easy to ensure that you've ordered sufficient material to keep you going until the 'ordering' session.

And seriously, regarding not being able to send an email while at work: you can pre-order the previous evening when you're in the library, or even send an email when you get home from work if you happen not be using the library.

Boulevardier

Interesting that no one has posted in to agree wth me. Then again, boards.ie posters are probably not the kind of people who will be most put out. Good job I am not a bus driver. The NLI are obviously not busting a gut to reach out to the working class.

Captain Rock, I have indeed contacted the NLI, but so far I have heard nothing back.

CaptainRock

Boulevardier wrote: »

Interesting that no one has posted in to agree wth me. Then again, boards.ie posters are probably not the kind of people who will be most put out. Good job I am not a bus driver. The NLI are obviously not busting a gut to reach out to the working class.

Captain Rock, I have indeed contacted the NLI, but so far I have heard nothing back.

Good lad, not busting a good to reach out to the working classes. Did you not read convert's post, you can order the night before, so a bus driver or other members of the working classes as you term it that wants to use the library can email their material. It costs a €1 to go into an internet cafe to send emails if people don't have access to the internet at home and whether you like it or not, electronic communication is the way forward.

I have been a very frequent user of the library over the past number of years and while not overly happy with these arrangements, I have talked to some of the staff that work there because I got to know them over the years and they told me that it is because of staff shortages and I appreciate that such changes are necessary.

Boulevardier

OK, so you think it is OK to have a gap of 4pm to 6.30pm in book delivery. I don't.

I think we users need to at least demand additional delivery times, such as at around 5.30 and 7pm.

I am a librarian myself, and I work one evening a week in my own library.
I would be interested to know if the senior staff in the NLI have considered staying in one evening a week each in order to help provide additional delivery times. Probably not.

CaptainRock

Boulevardier wrote: »

OK, so you think it is OK to have a gap of 4pm to 6.30pm in book delivery. I don't.

I think we users need to at least demand additional delivery times, such as at around 5.30 and 7pm.

I am a librarian myself, and I work one evening a week in my own library.
I would be interested to know if the senior staff in the NLI have considered staying in one evening a week each in order to help provide additional delivery times. Probably not.

I never said that it is ok to have such a gap. I do agree that it is quite a large gap, but I am sure that those piloting this scheme are taking such issues into account. And it is a pilot, I am sure that you read that.

Again if you bothered talking to the staff that deal with readers, you would have learned that they all work one evening a week. So you are making judgements without having all the information.

Boulevardier

Captain, I hope you are right about taking those things "into account." Lets wait and see how much they manage to do so.

As for senior staff in the NLI, yes, of course I know that there is a duty librarian in the evenings, but that is not what I had in mind. He/she does not take part in book delivery. I am suggesting that senior staff, including the director, come in and start doing this.

Still nothing back from the email I sent NLI about this on Thursday.

ilovesmybrick

Maybe instead of getting frustrated at the NLI for changes they have to make due to dwindling resources and staff numbers it would make more sense to be concerned about the overall lack of funding for cultural institutions. Sadly if cutbacks in staffing numbers and funding to places like the NLI continue you can probably expect such restrictions to become more widespread.

man1

Boulevardier wrote: »

If I am reading a text after 6.30PM and I see a reference to another text,which I may need to see there and then, I can no longer do so.

I agree with your frustration on the above point. I have spent time in the NLI in the past and would often see references to other texts etc that I would then request. It is sometimes important to have it at that time otherwise you can lose the flow of what you are writing at that particular moment. These type of requests cannot be ordered the day before as you don't know at that stage what you will require.

CaptainRock

Boulevardier wrote: »

Captain, I hope you are right about taking those things "into account." Lets wait and see how much they manage to do so.

As for senior staff in the NLI, yes, of course I know that there is a duty librarian in the evenings, but that is not what I had in mind. He/she does not take part in book delivery. I am suggesting that senior staff, including the director, come in and start doing this.

Still nothing back from the email I sent NLI about this on Thursday.

Such senior staff play important roles in ensuring that the library is managed appropriately and material is acquired for future contribution to knowledge. They are not there to answer at your beck and call because you find such changes inconvenient. Surely someone that works in a library would appreciate that the director et al have other priorities in terms of the operation of the library than pandering to the likes of you.

Boulevardier

Pandering to the likes of me?? Sorry, but that is their job! If I told a reader here that I was too busy to "pander" to them, I would be deservedly out on my ear!

In any case, I have just had a fairly standard reply from a lady in the NLI, but she has nicely offered to discuss the situation with me on the phone, so that is something.

CaptainRock

Boulevardier wrote: »

Pandering to the likes of me?? Sorry, but that is their job! If I told a reader here that I was too busy to "pander" to them, I would be deservedly out on my ear!

In any case, I have just had a fairly standard reply from a lady in the NLI, but she has nicely offered to discuss the situation with me on the phone, so that is something.

Good God, there are plenty of frontline staff to answer your beck and call, without the need of senior management to deal with you. For someone that works in a library, you don't seem to be able to appreciate the difficulties that the National Library is being presented with. I am sure that where you work has similar difficulties.

Boulevardier

Captain, you don't give up easy, do you?

The whole problem is that there AREN'T "plenty of frontline staff" to answer to my beck and call!! If there were, there would not be a problem!

CaptainRock

Boulevardier wrote: »

Captain, you don't give up easy, do you?

The whole problem is that there AREN'T "plenty of frontline staff" to answer to my beck and call!! If there were, there would not be a problem!

and I am sure that the reason why there is not plenty of frontline staff is because of the recruitment ban in the public sector, hence the changes to the system in the library. Can you appreciate this at all. Have you ever been to the British library and seen the restrictions on ordering there? 10 items a day and a wait of up to 70 mins for the ordering of material. If you read the piece on the website, you would see that there is plenty of work that needs to be done in the background to maintain a level of service to the general public. I am not happy with these changes either, but i understand that they have to be brought in, due to cutbacks and the Croke Park agreement. with the hatred for the public sector that is out there, it is not good to see 4-5 staff sitting idly at a desk when they could be clearing backlogs in other areas of the library to ensure that other material is available for readers. I would recommend that you talk to that lady that emailed you. I sincerely doubt that we will come anywhere close to a rapprochement on this, but if a member of staff informs you as to why these changes were brought in, perhaps you would be a little bit more understanding of the difficulties that the library faces.

ilovesmybrick

Well the lack of frontline staff is due to cuts being forced on institutions like the library. Maybe you should try and understand the difficulties in maintaining services in the face of cutbacks, from working in a library you must surely see how little resources are available in the present climate. The staff there do their utmost to help every reader and researcher and Im sure they would love to be able to instantly retrieve material for you, but no library or archive I have ever worked in or studied in has the resources at the present time for this. I agree that it can be frustrating, but this is not the fault of the staff.

Boulevardier

Yes, there I partly agree with you. The recruitment embargo is becoming a cancer in the public services, and it is not helped by the Sunday Independent-type attacks on the public service.

However, the answer does not consist in accepting the cutbacks, but in stridently opposing them. I think that NLI staff themselves would appreciate that. If cuts are not opposed, the government will simply leave them in place even when (or maybe if?) things get better.

convert

Boulevardier wrote: »

We can't all send in advance orders while we are doing our day jobs.

You say you aren't in a position to place an advance order while at work, yet today alone you managed to post at 9.24, 10.11, 10.28, 14.21, 14.28 and 14.59.

Perhaps you're turning into

the kind of people

whom you claim post on boards.ie?

Boulevardier

Oh all right, I walked into that one, but like I said in one of those earlier postings, its a good job I am not a bus driver. The same applies to many, many other jobs. Also, I am often too busy. You got me on a slack day.

CaptainRock

Boulevardier wrote: »

Oh all right, I walked into that one, but like I said in one of those earlier postings, its a good job I am not a bus driver. The same applies to many, many other jobs. Also, I am often too busy. You got me on a slack day.

Did you even bother reading the website, you can order the day before you visit, so the inconvenience that you refer to for bus drivers and other workers that would have difficulty accessing the internet during the day is minimal. Plus you can phone orders in, so they can do that on their lunch break.

We are very lucky that these are the only cutbacks in the library. You can be sure that the mandarins in the department would want it closed at 5 every evening and not opened on Saturdays, so while cutbacks are painful and an inconvenience, they could have been a hell of a lot worse and staff numbers are to be cut further I believe in the library by the end of the year.

Boulevardier

Are you prepared to fight those cuts, or will you just put up with them?

Rather than resignedly saying they could be worse, I would advise vehement opposition to any cuts. The less people oppose them, the more the government will try and get away with.

We Irish have become too passive and resigned to our fate. It is a bit sad really.

CaptainRock

Boulevardier wrote: »

Are you prepared to fight those cuts, or will you just put up with them?

Rather than resignedly saying they could be worse, I would advise vehement opposition to any cuts. The less people oppose them, the more the government will try and get away with.

We Irish have become too passive and resigned to our fate. It is a bit sad really.

I have protested about these cuts and am suffering because of them and am facing the prospect of being a highly educated spalpin, like many of my contemporaries. But a bit of perspective is needed. I would sooner fight cutbacks to frontline services in hospitals and education than complain about the rearrangement of services in the National Library because they inconvenience you, while the senior management fight to save what they have from further cuts.

Boulevardier

Captain, I have said all I can. it looks lie we will have to agree to differ.

Baron de Robeck

If you think the NLI is bad you should see the situation at a certain library in a major university:

Recruitment ban has resulted in some departments having only a third of their former staff.

No book service at all in some library areas after 16.00.

Cutbacks in late opening hours making it almost impossible for somebody to use if they are coming in after their day job.

Waits of up to five days for books that once arrived in three hours!!

Returned books not being re-shelved often for a number of months, leading to a huge backlog. Anybody else requesting these books has little chance of getting them any time soon.......

In times of even more staff shortages due to illness etc there can be no book service or reading rooms can be forced to close for lunch.

No duty librarians at certain times of the day because there are no longer enough of them to cover a full rota.

later12

I am astounded that people here seem to be supportive of this. How many of you use the NL on a regular basis?

Like the OP I am a frequent user of the NL. I spent much of last year from April to December in the National Library on academic work, which was very successful and would not have been possible without the tremendous flexibility of the National Library's staff, many of whom I became acquainted with.

I am about to begin a further study on the financial health of the arts in the early years of the free state in the coming weeks, and the level of detail that some of the figures and explanations with which I am working demand, means that such a change in the delivery of resources will make the study very bumpy and delayed.
I am not a full time academic scholar, I have a 9-5 job, and while I will be lucky enough to have access to a University library during the course of this work, that is mere chance. Other people like myself who venture into academic research on a quasi-vocational basis might not have that facility.

I would frequently use more than five items in a reasonably short space of time, and the idea of having to take two-hour breaks every time I need to check a new source or find a new figure and need to clarify it will be a big setback to my work, as it would be to anybody in my position who already has a full time profession beyond undertaking research.

I am very disappointed in the National Library for taking this decision; I thought it was slightly more understandable with the manuscripts but nevertheless unfortunate.

OP have you heard any more on this with your conversations with the NLI staff? I will be communicating with them myself to express my disappointment, but I am not quite convinced that it will be enough to change the new arrangement.

CaptainRock

later10 wrote: »

I am astounded that people here seem to be supportive of this. How many of you use the NL on a regular basis?

Like the OP I am a frequent user of the NL. I spent much of last year from April to December in the National Library on academic work, which was very successful and would not have been possible without the tremendous flexibility of the National Library's staff, many of whom I became acquainted with.

I am about to begin a further study on the financial health of the arts in the early years of the free state in the coming weeks, and the level of detail that some of the figures and explanations with which I am working demand, means that such a change in the delivery of resources will make the study very bumpy and delayed.
I am not a full time academic scholar, I have a 9-5 job, and while I will be lucky enough to have access to a University library during the course of this work, that is mere chance. Other people like myself who venture into academic research on a quasi-vocational basis might not have that facility.

I would frequently use more than five items in a reasonably short space of time, and the idea of having to take two-hour breaks every time I need to check a new source or find a new figure and need to clarify it will be a big setback to my work, as it would be to anybody in my position who already has a full time profession beyond undertaking research.

I am very disappointed in the National Library for taking this decision; I thought it was slightly more understandable with the manuscripts but nevertheless unfortunate.

OP have you heard any more on this with your conversations with the NLI staff? I will be communicating with them myself to express my disappointment, but I am not quite convinced that it will be enough to change the new arrangement.

I have been a regular user of the library over the past three years and know the staff very well, having gone for lunch and coffee with some members over recent times. I expressed my disappointment to them about these arrangements. However if one goes to the British library, one can only order a maximum of 10 items a day, which really stifles research, more so than these arrangements in the NLI. Having talked to some staff about this last week, they informed me that while this arrangement is here to stay, there may be changes to the ordering of material, like times, as the two hour gap is indeed too long. Having spent three weeks last summer checking several hundred footnotes, I know that these arrangements are a significant inconvenience, but I have expressed my opinion as to why these have been brought in in other posts.

convert

later10 wrote: »

I thought it was slightly more understandable with the manuscripts but nevertheless unfortunate.

Why is it ok for the manuscripts reading room but not the main reading room?

I am based in the manuscripts RR for the majority of my research, and often go through boxes of material each day, a lot more than 5 per ordering session, and the staff have been wonderfully flexible in assisting me with regard to this. However, to intimate that such changes are acceptable for one reading room and not another is, quite frankly, insulting to those who use the facility.

later12

convert wrote: »

Why is it ok for the manuscripts reading room but not the main reading room?

I did not say it is OK, I said it was also unfortunate but that it might be slightly more understandable.

In the manuscripts room, material may be a little harder and more time consuming to source and deliver to the reader, especially where it forms part of a large collection. In my experience it can already take quite a while to have manuscript material brought out to the reading room, and people typically spend longer going over these sources. It is not quite comparable with the speed of access that we have been used to in the library, where it is a simple matter of picking an indexed book off a shelf and delivering it with a group of other books to other readers.

Boulevardier

Later10, sorry for this delay in replying, which is because I was away.

I agree with you both on your substantive point, and with what you say about the over-willingness of some other posters to accept an inferior service. I think it is an endemic Irish trait.

The response I got from NLI was as you would expect - the party line. I emailed them again with suggestions for additional pickups at 5.30 and 7pm and they did not reply.

As for it being only for a trial period, well yeah, right!

later12

Boulevardier wrote: »

Later10, sorry for this delay in replying, which is because I was away.

I agree with you both on your substantive point, and with what you say about the over-willingness of some other posters to accept an inferior service. I think it is an endemic Irish trait.

The response I got from NLI was as you would expect - the party line. I emailed them again with suggestions for additional pickups at 5.30 and 7pm and they did not reply.

As for it being only for a trial period, well yeah, right!

Has anything happened on this front?

I stopped using the NLI because like you say, it wasn't just the new delivery system, it was the bizarre times they chose to deliver the books.

If you finish work at 5pm, you may not have your book delivered onto your desk until 6.40pm. That leaves about one hour before the bell is rang to close finish up reading and leave back your book.

An email facility exists, but that's essentially for users who can be in the library from first thing in the morning, not for those who may have work or college to attend and can only get to the library at a later time in the day.

convert

later10 wrote: »

An email facility exists, but that's essentially for users who can be in the library from first thing in the morning, not for those who may have work or college to attend and can only get to the library at a later time in the day.

No, you can email in your order even if you won't be in at 9.30am. I've done it lots of times - I email them the day before I'll be visiting, and the material is there waiting for me at whatever time I get in, whether it's morning, afternoon or evening.

Boulevardier

There is a desperate need for an additional early evening delivery time, but the chances of convincing the NLI people of that at this stage is nil.

I was in yesterday (monday) afternoon, and the place was pretty full. They cannot really plead falling user numbers. The place is being run down.