Dissertation Plan

Working Title of the Dissertation Plan

Brief Review of the Literature and List of References

The Follett Report (Joint Funding Council’s Libraries Review Group, 1993) recommended that university libraries consider lengthening opening hours in an effort to reduce the pressure on space caused by rising numbers of students. This may seem surprising when considering Lancaster’s (1982) forecast that we would see a ‘disembodiment’ of the library in the last two decades of the twentieth century due to developments in information and communication technologies (ICTs). Whilst technological advances have allowed many library resources to be accessed remotely, user surveys indicate that increased access to the physical library is still in high demand. Delaney (2002: 20) writes: “with 24 x 7 accesses to electronic resources comes an expectation of similar access to print resources. Dissertation Plan

Reduced funding means that university libraries need to consider what is most important to students. Longer opening hours appear to be a priority. Whilst most demand has been passive, for example indicated by user surveys, in some cases it has been much more direct.