Posts by: Thomas Quinn

For the holiday break this year, Hirsh Library will have some adjusted hours:

Rainbow Snowflakes

Image by Rachel Burkum from Pixabay

December 17th: 7:45am – 5pm

December 18th & 19th: Closed

December 20th – 23rd: 8am – 5pm

December 21st – 23rd: Library Service Desk Closed, remote help available until 5pm.

December 24th – January 2nd: Closed*

January 3rd: Return to regular hours (7:45am – 11pm)

*Please note, the 24th – 2nd is a Tufts University level closure, so the building will not be accessible via card swipe. Put your feet up and relax! Or go exploring!

If you need any assistance while we’re closed, you can always feel free to e-mail hhsl@tufts.edu, and someone will get back to you. The desk will follow the above hours, but we’re here to help, and we like to make sure we always can help.

But no matter what, we here at Hirsh Library hope you have a relaxing and rejuvenating break, and we’ll see you back here in January!

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Image source: https://pixabay.com/en/pole-clock-snow-outside-winter-2603564/

This weekend is the final Extended Hours weekend of the semester! Hirsh Library extends its weekend hours to help you study, and we will be open from 10am to 10pm on:

Saturday, December 11th
Sunday, December 12th

We will also have free coffee for you this Saturday! The coffee is scheduled to show up at 4pm, so so you can come take a quick study break and commiserate while you caffeinate.

As a reminder, the Med Ed building hours do not change. Swipe access is from 6am – 11pm, and if you are here by 11pm you can stay until midnight. Extended Hours are strictly for Hirsh Library services.

If you have any questions you can feel free to swing by the desk on the 4th floor, or call us at 617-636-6706. Otherwise, we look forward to seeing you this weekend!

Happy Studying!

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Hirsh Library! It’s been good seeing those of you who have been around, and I hope the rest of you can make it sometime soon. Because fun fact: we’re open our full hours! You may have heard. I know some of you have heard, because just this past October we went around asking where you were from, and now we’ve got the data to prove it!

All the graphs you see below are from the library staff walking around for one week in October, asking the question “What program/school are you with?” You can click on them to make them larger if need be. If you’re interested in comparing this set of numbers to the way things looked pre-pandemic, then I would recommend checking out the post I wrote about the October 2019 Affiliation survey (please note: we did things a little bit different this time around, so it’s not a perfect 1 to 1 comparison, but it’s solid data all the same).

 

Graph showing how many people were counted by school affiliation

I’ll start with the information everyone always asks about first: how did the programs compare, numerically? Well, over the week 810 people told us they were with the Dental school, and 568 told us they were with Med. For those who weren’t here before the pandemic landed, you’ll be interested to know two facts: 1) that the numbers are lower than they were in 2019, but that the percentages here hold steady, and 2) I was honestly surprised at how many people turned up on this survey. It’s so great to see so many people are coming into the library, even when their classes are hybrid or even primarily online. And look at the rest of this spread! Friedman, PA, PHPD, and GSBS are all turning up in good numbers, and MBS has a strong showing at 238.

Hilariously, if you compare this data to its equivalent from 2019, you’ll realize that Dental, Medical, and PA all have lower numbers than two years ago, but somehow the other programs all went up. MBS being at 238 actually places it in third place for total counted for both 2019 and 2021.

Just goes to show: we’ve got some good furniture and space here.

But how does the furniture and space effect the counts? Glad you asked!

Number of people counted organized by floor they were on.

Everyone loves the 7th floor.  This has never been in question, but seeing it laid out like this really drives it home. Normally, when I see numbers like this, the 7th floor is about double the next closest floor, which fluctuates between the 5th and 6th floors. This time, the 5th floor had 426 people, and the 7th had 1021. Amazing. And heartening to see!

The remaining ways of looking at these numbers are to break it down by weekday, and by time of the day. Here are those two charts:

Number of people by which weekday they were counted

Number of people by what time of the day they were counted

After the other two charts, these don’t provide anything too shocking. Thursday being the busiest day and 11am being the busiest time actually track with the way things were when we were closer to full capacity – the most popular weekday tended to fluctuate month-to-month between Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, but the closer you are to lunch the busier the library gets.

Which is fair. Who doesn’t study with their stomach, after all?

I will leave you today with this thought: we have a staff full of people here to help, and we have a Reserves collection absolutely chock full of books, anatomy models, phone and laptop chargers, laptops, and about a dozen other things to help keep you supplied and comfortable while you’re studying and working on your papers, so that you can excel here at Tufts. In fact, we are stocked for numbers of visitors significantly higher than what you see in this post.

So why not stop on by to the Library Service Desk on the 4th floor of Med Ed, and see what we have to offer? We may surprise you.

In the meantime, have a great rest of your semester!

~Tom~

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Image source: https://pixabay.com/photo-1752164/

Exam season is upon us, which means it’s time for Extended Hours! Hirsh Library extends its weekend hours to help you study, and we will be open from 10am to 10pm on the following days:

Saturday, December 4th
Sunday, December 5th

Saturday, December 11th
Sunday, December 12th

We will also have free coffee for you all on the Saturdays! The coffee is scheduled to show up at 4pm, so so you can come take a quick study break and commiserate while you caffeinate.

As a reminder, the Med Ed building hours do not change. Swipe access is from 6am – 11pm, and if you are here by 11pm you can stay until midnight. Extended Hours are strictly for Hirsh Library services.

If you have any questions you can feel free to swing by the desk on the 4th floor, or call us at 617-636-6706. Otherwise, we look forward to seeing you the next two weekends!

Happy Studying!

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Thanksgiving break is almost here, which means a chance to relax, recharge, and put those pants you have with elastic waists to good use! Hirsh Library will have altered hours for part of next week, so here is the breakdown for you:

Monday 11/22:  7:45am-11:00pm (regular hours)

Tuesday 11/23:  7:45am-11:00pm (regular hours)

Wednesday 11/24: 7:45am-3pm

Thursday 11/25: Closed

Friday 11/26: Closed

Saturday 11/27: Closed

Sunday 11/28: 12-10pm (regular hours)

All of us here at Hirsh hope you have a happy, healthy, and above all relaxing break, and we will see you again when we return to normal hours on November 28th!

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This Thursday, November 11th, Hirsh Library will have shortened hours in honor of  Veterans Day. We will only be open from Noon – 7pm that day.

The Med Ed building will have its normal swipe access available – the shortened hours are specifically for assistance and books or equipment checkouts.

We will be open for our normal hours starting again on Friday the 12th.

We hope you have a great holiday and we will see you again over the weekend!

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Hi there everybody!

Starting on Sunday, October 17th, we will be bringing back the School Affiliation Week. In past years we’ve scattered our days among an entire month, but given the way life is lately we decided it would be best to have it one-and-done, like a disposable face mask at the end of a long day. Here’s how it’s going to work.

From Sunday, October 17th through Saturday, October 23rd, members of the Hirsh Library staff will be walking around 3-4 times a day with a clipboard in hand. We’re going to ask everyone in the library what school/program they’re with (Med, Dental, GSBS, etc). And that’s it. We’ll make a check mark and move on. Afterward – probably sometime in late November (so I have time to analyze and collate), I’ll be posting the data we gather right here on this blog! If you want to see what that looks like, here’s my post from June 2020.

And this is what the survey looks like for us:

If you don’t want people to get too close, or you just don’t want your studying interrupted, you can always leave your ID out, or just write your program down on a piece of paper and leave it next to you. If you’re in a study room, feel free to write down the number of people and their program(s), and tape that to the outside of the study room door (not the window). If you need paper or tape we have them at the desk! Just come ask.

Just please remember to take down any signs you put up, and to remove any IDs or papers you put on the desks by you.

If you have any questions or concerns at all, don’t hesitate to ask us! You can call us at 617-636-6706, e-mail us at hhslcirc@tufts.edu, visit our live chat on the Ask Us page, or even just swing by the desk on the 4th floor and chat to us in person.

Thank you for your assistance with this, and we look forward to a nice smooth Affiliation Week!

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Hello everyone! This Monday, October 11th, the Hirsh Library will have shorter hours in observance of Indigenous Peoples Day.

The Library Service Desk will be open from 12pm – 7pm, and we will not be on Live Chat. Although you are always welcome to e-mail us and we’ll get back to you ASAP!

HHSL will return to our normal hours on Tuesday, October 12th.

We hope you have a great weekend, and enjoy the Boston Marathon if you decide to check it out!

In observance of Labor Day, the Hirsh Library Service Desk will have restricted hours on Monday, September 6th. The desk will be open Noon – 7pm that day, and there won’t be live chat. But you can e-mail us for help all the same, and we’ll get back to you when we can!

We will be back on Tuesday, open 7:45am – 8pm, with Live Chat going until 11pm that day.

Thank you for your patience in our re-opening. We’re excited to be back, and look forward to seeing you all at the desk!

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Photo credit: Tom Quinn

In honor of the Independence Day (4th of July) holiday this year, Hirsh Library will be closed Saturday, July 3rd, through Monday, July 5th. This will mean that we will not be monitoring our live chat during that time. However, you can still always e-mail us at hhsl@tufts.edu and we will get back to you when we can.

As a reminder: on Tuesday, July 6th, the Hirsh Library Service Desk will officially be re-opening! For the month of July, starting with the 6th, the Library Service Desk (on the 4th floor of the Med Ed building) will be open from 7:45am to 5pm Monday-Friday. We will still be monitoring our Live Chat until 8pm Monday-Thursday, and on the weekends as we have been. As we get closer to the fall, we hope to expand the hours, so keep an eye on the signs at the desk when you swing by to see what we’re doing!

And if you’re a student and interested in working at Hirsh Library, we have good news! We are accepting applications and are going to be hiring soon. You can read all about it right here.

Everyone at Hirsh hopes you have a happy and safe holiday weekend next weekend, and we look forward to seeing you all in person very soon!

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