What Students Really Want from their Library

 As part of our activities for Aotearoa New Zealand School Library Week I decided to survey our students to find out "what do you like about the library?" and "how can we improve the library?".  To make it as easy to do as possible, I kept the survey to those two questions.  The survey was voluntary, but I ended up getting 288 responses from 18 classes and 2 teachers.  These were made up of one Year 2 class, nine Year 3-4 classes and eight Year 5-6 classes.  I didn't ask the junior classes as I knew that it would be time-consuming for teachers to write down the students' answers.  

I put the results into a spreadsheet and then took all the answers which were given by five or more students and put them into a word cloud (using wordart.com) so the results are easy to see.  I have a meeting with our principal to share these with her, and I will use the student suggestions as evidence when asking for funding for things they have asked for.

What do you like about the library?

These results didn't surprise me too much.  If you add all the book-related answers together then that would be the most common answer.  I wanted to differentiate between students who talked about the kind of books we have i.e. "cool books", with those who mentioned the number of books we have and those who like the variety of books.  And of course, some just said "books".  

The Reading Wonderland is a room in the library for quiet reading at lunchtime, and where classes go during their library visits if their teacher wants to read to them.  The walls are completely covered in a mural, which may be why students like it, or it may be because it is the quietest area.  Both "murals" and "quiet" were also common responses.

The reading environment was a popular topic, with the students appreciating the cushions and beanbags, and the comfortable, cosy and warm surroundings.

How can we improve the library?

It was nice to see that the top suggestions for improvement all involved having more of what is already in the library - more cushions/beanbags, books and murals.  

The request for more copies of popular books was one that has had me look more carefully at how many reserves we have for certain books and I have made some extra purchases in that area.  It seems we never have enough Minecraft and Baby-Sitters Club books but I will keep trying!

Unfortunately, some of the suggestions are impractical and we won't be able to implement them.  I would love a bigger library, or a second floor!

If you're wondering about the references to Milo, he's my dog who comes to school as a support dog.  The dragons the students want back are from years ago!  They are giant stuffed dragons that unfortunately need repairs that I do not know how to do.  I might have to appeal to the school community for help.

It wouldn't be an open-ended survey without getting some delightfully unique ideas for improvement.  Here are some of my favourites:

Nope, not doing Saturdays!

Oh dear, that's a very steamy, adult romance...

So nice that they were thinking about Milo

Yes, I want a robot!

This one was from a teacher (who loves coffee)

A satisfied, concise, customer :)

Some of the surveys were even illustrated.