Assignment 7- Testing the Hypothesis

Testing the hypothesis



· People waste a lot of time walking around libraries trying to find a place to sit.

· Opportunity: Students at the University of Florida waste time that could be spent on homework walking around Library West (the central most library on UF’s campus) trying to find an empty seat because there is no see where vacant seats are prior to walking around the library.

o The who: Students at the University of Florida

o The what: They waste time that they want to be using to study walking around the library in search of a seat.

o The why: There is no way for students to see where vacant seats are located in the library prior to walking around and searching for them.

· Testing the boundaries

o Testing the who: This is a need among private as well as public universities all over the country that do not have a system in place to alleviate the opportunity, not just Library West at the University of Florida. I know this because I asked a student who attend the University of South Carolina if he experiences this issue of wasting time trying to find a seat at his libraries and indeed he does. However, since I am in Gainesville, I am limited to see my own experiences and for me this opportunity presents itself at Library West. But, a system to solve this problem can be implemented all over.

o Testing the what: Since not everyone spends time studying at Library West, not everyone experiences the issue of wasting time trying to find a seat. I would be interested to see if all 5 libraries on UF’s campus experience this same “what”. From the research that I have conducted it seems most common in libraries that are closer to the center of campus such as Library West and Marston Science Library.

o Testing the why: Students blame this “why” on many different reasons. Some believe it just depends on the time of day that you come to the library, which will affect how busy it is; thus, determining how long one has to walk around to find a seat. Others believe it is the library that you choose to go to. It was even suggested that the library is just inefficiently designed so that it does not maximize the space wisely inside. Therefore, this why doesn’t hold the same for everyone. However, I believe if there were one system to get rid of the problem all together the different why’s wouldn’t matter so much since people will have a way to get around them.

· Interviews

o #1:

§ I conducted this interview with a student who is currently a junior at the University of South Carolina to try and determine the extent of the “whos” within this opportunity. He expressed that he experiences the same issue of trying to find a seat for extended periods of time at the libraries on USC’s campus. He believes this is an issue on his campus because the libraries are so large that it can take forever just to search one floor alone. He often tries to avoid the problem by just staying at home to study even though he feels most productive in the library.

o #2:

§ I interviewed a Law School student at the University of Florida to see if graduate students also experience this need. He informed me that at the law library he can always find a place to study but he believes this is because of the efficient use of space in the library. As a graduate student, he doesn’t come to the center of campus much to use these libraries since everything for him is mostly centered at the law school. However, he is a double gator and sated that he wished some sore of system was in place during his undergraduate years to fix the problem. This made me wasn’t to redefine my “who” to UNDERGRADUATE UF students since they are the ones who are mostly in the center of campus.

o #3:

§ I found another to student walking around Library West to interview about this opportunity. She explained how she faces this issue all the time and she believes it is dependent on the time of the semester. She described how last the week the library wasn’t nearly as busy as it was this week because the first exams for courses are about to happen. However, she also believes that sometimes the crowd in the library is just random and determined by an individual’s study preferences that day. This made me take a different view on the what for the opportunity.

o #4:

§ I interviewed an employee at the circulation desk at library west to see what they thought about this opportunity. As an older man, who doesn’t come to the library to study he said he had never thought about how time consuming it could be to walk around to find a seat. He expressed to me exactly how large the library is and by the time you search every table up to the fourth floor it could take almost an hour. He says that he also has heard of students attempting to implement a system to solve this problem but it has yet to work.

o #5

§ For my last interview, I walked over to Marston Science Library to interview a student studying here to see if they face the same issues. She claimed that even though Marston has more study spaces than library west, it is still extremely hard to find a seat sometimes. This interview was good news to me because it shows that multiple libraries on campus could benefit from some sort of new system. This could potentially expand the who of my opportunity, however for the purpose of this project I decided to initially focus on one library and could choose to later on expand.

· Summary:



o My interviews brought some points to my attention that I hadn’t thought about before. For example, in interview #2, I almost neglected grad students when trying to assess the trouble with crowded libraries on campus. Now, I realize that to target a more accurate and specific who, this opportunity needs to be tailored towards undergraduate students. This trims down the number of students included to nearly half of what it was, since the graduate students here account for such a large population of students on campus. From interviewing students at both centrally located libraries (West and Marston) I was also able to see that both libraries carry this opportunity which could present a larger market and expansion for a possible solution in the future. In addition, from talking to the student that attends USC it also makes me believe that this solution can be taken nationally to schools all over the country with the same issue. It would be nice to have a system that works at certain times of the say, such as when the library is busiest, or at certain times of the year, like right around exam time. However, since it is difficult to predict these patterns I believe a 24/7 system would be the most useful. Even though from my interviews I discovered that there were multiple reasons that people believe as to WHY library crowding and the time consumed searching for seats is a problem, I believe one system to resolve all whys can be put in place.