Reppery

This committee is where staff and students from the Faculties of Science and Life Sciences come together to discuss issues of importance to both groups.

Most of the discussion was around having subject-specific resource rooms (or mini-libraries) in each school or department in addition to the main library in order to be closer to students and offer more specialist materials not generally available in the library.

Most students and staff agreed that this was a good idea, but that funding and staffing would need to be discussed before any decisions were made. Visit invitations from departments already having resource rooms were extended to all members of the committee.

Another item of interest was the trial extended library opening hours. For the first seven weeks of the summer term, the library will now stay open until midnight from Monday-Thursday, retaining existing opening hours at all other times. However, from 7:30pm to midnight, reduced staffing will be in effect. A representative from the library assured the committee that the results of this trial would be taken into account when deciding whether to permanently extend hours. Issues of funding would also need to be discussed.

Most of the rest of the meeting was concerned with accepting minutes and reports from other committees and boards.

As a surprise to most members, parts of the committee in session were recorded as part of a new university short film on student representation. As chair of the committee on the day, I was interviewed along with the sub-dean of the Joint Faculty and a student member of the committee.