Books Right Here Right Now is a major strategy project at The University of Manchester Library. This project will seek to improve the student experience by investigating student reading behaviour and implementing innovative models for providing text books.

In order to achieve this, we believe the Library must be adaptable and adopt radical new ways of facilitating access to material. We want to move to a demand driven model of acquisition, looking to purchase or obtain content at time of need and targeted at particular student cohorts.

As part of the market research underpinning this project a number of user stories have arisen which drive our work.

As a student…

“I want to be provided will all the essential items on my reading list so that I do not have to pay for them myself.”

“I want the reading lists provided by my tutors to use clear and consistent terminology so that I know exactly what I am required to read for my course (and where and how I can get access to these items).”

As an academic…

“I want all my students to have access to an electronic version of their core (essential) texts so that they can do the reading required of them”

“I want the Library to negotiate and manage book deals with publishers so that I can focus on teaching my students and doing my research.”

As an institution…

“We want to provide our students with free access to their core texts in order to improve the student experience at the University of Manchester.”

“We want the library to oversee and negotiate our e-book deals so that we get better deals and do not duplicate content.”

As a library…

We want to develop a new model for providing institutional access to core texts so that we can be innovative in our provision of books to support teaching.

We want a better understanding of how and what our students are being directed to read so that we can provide them with access to the right books in the right format at the right time.

 

Responsive Design designed by Luis Prado from the Noun Project