In 2023, we worked with 3 student partners find out what types of items UQ students would like to see in the Library collection.
Discover the UQ Students' Choice collection and pick out some fresh reading material from the Library!
About the collection
The UQ Students' Choice collection is 54 items (34 physical resources and 20 online resources) carefully selected to have a recreational reading and student life focus.
It was developed as part of a Student-Staff Partnership Project to bring the student voice into library collections and includes:
- diverse perspectives
- student recommended and selected items.
Visit the UQ Students' Choice collection
The vanishing half by Brittany Bennett, We have always been here: a queer Muslim memoir by Samra Habib, The sad part was by Prabda Yoon; translated by Mui Poopoksakul, They called us enemy by George Takei et al, Good talk: a memoir in conversations by Mira Jacob, The hungry student cookbook by Charlotte Pike and The uni-verse: the ultimate university survival guide by Jack Edwards.
Donations to the Library were used to purchase this collection. Thank you to our Friends of the Library for their generous support.
Developed with UQ students
Our student partners Dain, Lucy and Yan Yee helped to find materials and develop the collection. They:
- ran a focus group and online survey to ask UQ students which books they’d like to see in our collections
- submitted purchase requests with us so we could purchase the agreed items
- shared their experiences working together to encourage other students to consider Student-Staff partnerships.
Experiences while building the collection
On students views of the Library and the types of materials they expect to find in the collections:
“We actually find, which is not really surprising, that even though we are a university library students do actually want to see non-academic materials in the Library.”
and
“What I find most surprising in that students are quite vocal about what they want to see in the Library. Like they actually have a good idea and the voices are there, the opinions are there. We just have to find the right way to look out for it.”
Yan Yee (student partner)
“What we’ve noticed is that a lot of students tend to only view the UQ Library as a source of information gathering for their assignments and research, but we want students to know that there’s a lot more available in the Library for them outside of that.”
Dain (student partner)
On students feeling connected while at university:
“I think having a collection curated by students is really important in helping students feel connected to the UQ community.
University can be isolating and overwhelming for many students. Having this collection is a way for students to recognise that there are other students that have the same interests or are going through the same challenges.”
Lucy (student partner)
On diverse persectives in the collection:
“Another reason why I was really interested in it [the SSP project] was, I’ve been going to international Schools my entire life. I’ve noticed that a lot of libraries tended to have books that were very Eurocentric to follow the international guidelines on books that libraries would require students to read in class.
And because of that I often felt very left out because when I was reading these characters I knew they were characters but I never really fully connected to them because they weren’t ‘me’.”
Dain (student partner)
“Having more books available for diversity and different people, and not just teaching and learning staff is quite cool in a way.”
Yan Yee (student partner)
About Student-Staff partnerships
Student-Staff Partnerships are a great way for students and staff to work together to improve the student experience.
Partnerships help students to get involved, utilise skills learned in their course and gain valuable work experience.
Visit Become a student partner to learn more.