Establishing Influential Decision Making Factors for University Library Opening Hours: An Exploratory UK Regional Study

Abstract

Many factors and pressures affect decisions made in UK university libraries on opening hours especially 24/7. This article reports on a project to examine the decision making process, influential factors, and stakeholders. A workshop for senior library managers in theEast Midlands was held to gather data and share experiences. From analysis of the workshop a framework of influential factors was devised and the decision making process was examined. Although each library had different priorities, important factors overall included pressure from undergraduates and the student's union, and provision during exam periods. Further research to examine the framework nationally is required.

Complexity in decision making: Determining university library opening hours

“…This question was important as during the first phase of this research the workshop participants had indicated this was a particularly influential factor. Most of the factors revealed in this study reinforce the findings from the previous regional workshop based study by Ravenwood et al (2015), highlighting the relevance of these findings to the academic library sector. Unsurprisingly, demand from undergraduates was the most influential and this is further explored in the next section.…”

“…The overall picture of twenty four hour opening was complicated by different patterns of opening throughout the academic year and different patterns at multiple libraries within a University, reflecting findings from previous studies (Laaker 2011;Ravenwood, Stephens and Walton 2015). Forty five percent of respondents reported opening 24/7 for at least part of the year, though only 11% had 24/7 opening throughout the whole year.…”

“…In previous research on library opening hours the participants were clear that they would welcome more evidence and better management information to support their decision making (Ravenwood et al, 2015). However, in this survey it was less clear.…”

“…A small Canadian study (Koufogiannakis, 2012) revealed types of information that librarians use in order to make decisions, which included not only quantitative data but also informal information from other librarians. This latter source of information also came to the fore in Ravenwood et al (2015); respondents were clear that much of the benefit from the day for them came from hearing about the experiences of other library managers. This is in contrast to a study by Stenstrom (2015) who considered decisionmaking practices within Canadian public libraries, where she found that the public library CEOs favoured objective, factual information when making decisions rather than recognising the importance of social interactions.…”

“…This paper reports on a national survey of academic library managers which focused on the decision making process and factors that influence making decisions about library opening hours. This expands on work by Ravenwood, Stephens and Walton (2015), in which a regional workshop to explore potential 4 influential factors was held. This research aimed to investigate both influential factors and in particular the decision making process in the academic library sector across the entire UK.…”