What the initial evaluation says....

"It’s nice & modern with a good working area."

"Looks great everything is state of the art."

"Great new layout and overall look of the library is very impressive, a massive improvement."

"Looks really nice and modern - and really spacious and quiet too. Will look forward to using it more this year."

"Looks really well thought out and nicely executed. The addition of a refreshment area is excellent. The area feels 10 times bigger and it willl be a much nicer area to come and work in especially as I am now in a final year studies and will be in here quite a bit!"

"Very spacey & modern."

"Brilliant new layout."

"The improvements on the ground floor make the library look more modern and streamlined which should enable people to study better."

New Aldham Robarts LRC

Ground Floor Student Support Zone

The Welcome ‘Hub’ dealing with all immediate enquiries and providing a referral and appointments service, and help with IT
The Transaction desk for student enrolments, fee payments, and submission of coursework
Social learning facilities (as piloted at the Avril Robarts LRC), including flexible space, support in the use of mobile technology – including laptop loans, refreshments and a blend of group study areas
Mobile and roving staff support with rooms for one-to-one meetings as needed
New self service vending, printing and RFID self issue facilities
RFID book sorter
Bookable group study rooms
Short loan Collection
24/7 access to computing facilities

Lower Ground Floor
Special Collections and Archives
Book collections
Bookable Seminar rooms
Cybernetic café
Media zone
New self service vending, printing and RFID self issue facilities
Flexible learning spaces

First and Second floors
Book and journal collections
Bookable meeting rooms (for Welfare and Careers appointments)
Group study rooms
Postgraduate zone
Silent study facilities

Completed Refurbishment of the Aldham Robarts LRC

A huge refurbishment programme has now successfully been completed on the Aldham Robarts Learning Resource Centre (LRC), which is linked to a major change programme to enhance the student experience. Planning for the refurbishment commenced in September 2009, but the majority of the work was carried out between May 2009 and the re-opening of the LRC on October 5th 2009, while the building was effectively closed to University staff and students, so that the building and structural work could be carried out in the quickest time possible. The refurbishment has allowed us to really modernise and update the LRC and provide the opportunity to bring all student facing services into one building.
The programme of change has offered an exciting opportunity to provide student focused and professional services in one single campus location, incorporating flexible social learning facilities in a 24/7 environment. By bringing services offered by the LRCs and the Campus centres into one space we can now provide a seamless and intuitive service, with staff helping people to navigate their way to the specialist support that they require. The new Aldham Robarts LRC now provides flexible, student owned space, services and technologies, which allow students far more choice as to how they make use of Library and Student Support services and facilities.

What we did
In order to bring the library and campus centres together we had to have a robust plan of being able to continually deliver services while we temporarily relocated various services and facilities, in order for parts of our buildings to be systematically closed off and refurbished. In brief, the Mount Pleasant Campus Centre was moved firstly to the John Foster Building and latterly to the Clarence Street Building, so that students were still able to enrol and hand in coursework, until finally being relocated at the Transaction in the new LRC. The Actual LRC was closed between May and September in order that the main staircase could be removed, and the whole ground floor transformed into the Student Support Zone. Work was also done on the Lower Ground floor, in order to maximise the use of space available to students.
Previous work and student spaces were wholly converted, including relocating all Mount Pleasant, Aldham Robarts and Kingsway House staff into the Aquinas Buyilding, therefore removing the need to have permanent staff offices in the Aldham Robarts LRC. This allows us to make the old office spaces in the LRC available for other uses such as meeting rooms, Group study rooms and seminar rooms, as well as new refreshments areas including a cybernetic café area on the lower ground floor.
We have also taken the opportunity to introduce RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) into the new LRC. This technology allows staff and students increased flexibility in self issuing and returning their library books.