March 2012 24/7 library celebrates ten years of excellence

Libraries and Learning Innovation at Leeds Metropolitan University has been recognised for its excellent customer service for the tenth consecutive year. Having first received the Governments Charter Mark in 2001, the Universitys library services have recently been re-accredited with its successor, the Customer Service Excellence Standard (CSE), achieving full compliance across all 57 criteria measured and the award of Compliance Plus for seven of these criteria.

Assessors praised the University service for its culture of customer focus, with an excellent understanding of the needs of all of its customers which is used to develop and improve services resulting in high levels of customer satisfaction. As a direct result of student feedback over recent years, Leeds Metropolitans libraries are now open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, all year round and a new library search engine, called Discover, now makes it much easier for students to navigate approximately 400,000 resources that are available to them.

Director of Libraries and Learning Innovation at the University, Jo Norry, said: This clocks up a fantastic achievement for us as our ten year anniversary of delivering excellent customer service to this standard. I am delighted and very proud that we have maintained these high levels of service throughout a period of rapid change in our sector and profession, whilst students expectations have continued to rise. We work hard to listen to our students and to put them at the heart of everything we do.

Library services at the University received a score of 84% satisfaction in the most recent National Student Survey and 91% satisfaction in the Autumn 2011 International Student Barometer.

The government standard offers public services a practical tool for driving customer-focused change within their organisation. It aims to make a tangible difference to the users of public service by encouraging organisations to focus on their individual needs and preferences.

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For further details please contact Carrie Braithwaite in the Communications team at Leeds Met on 0113 812 3022 or email c.braithwaite@leedsmet.ac.uk

Notes for editors: Leeds Metropolitan University has over 25,000 students and around 3,000 staff. The Vice Chancellor of Leeds Metropolitan University is Professor Susan Price and the Chair of the Board is Lord Woolmer of Leeds. Leeds Metropolitans four faculties are: Arts, Environment and Technology, Business & Law, Health and Social Sciences, and Carnegie. Leeds Metropolitans heritage can be traced back to the founding of the Mechanics Institute in Leeds in 1824. International students rated the University top in the UK for language support, accommodation quality and learning spaces in the 2010 Autumn Wave of the International Student Barometer and sixth in the world for the quality of its lectures. We have over 1,500 international students from 122 countries around the globe. The Universitys award-winning learning environments include

Broadcasting Place, which was voted the best tall building in the world

in 2010 by the Chicago-based Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) and also winner of the 2010 Leeds Architecture Awards New Building category.