Trinity’s library booking system will be updated to reflect new public health advice regarding close contacts, with students able to spend a maximum of one hour and 45 minutes in the same seat.
In a statement to The University Times, Trinity Library Communications Spokesperson Caoimhe Ní Lochlaínn said: “Public Health has advised that ‘if an individual were to develop COVID-19, any person who has spent a cumulative period of more than two hours during a 24 hour period in an enclosed space with that person would be considered a close contact and would be required to self-isolate for 14 days’.”
“In order to minimise this risk, the Library is implementing a revised booking system from Monday 22nd February 2021, that limits readers to 1 hour 45 minutes at a specific workstation.”
“The reader then takes a 15 minutes break outside before moving to their next ‘booking’ which is another workstation elsewhere in the Library. To facilitate the implementation of the change, advance bookings for Tuesday 23rd February onwards will only be possible from 10pm on Monday 22nd February.”
College has changed the library booking system multiple times this academic year.
The changes, which include a 25-hour limit on booking per week and a new check-in system, were introduced in an effort to combat the number of students booking slots and failing to show up.
In an email sent last year, the library instructed students to check in to their seats using a code sent by email. However, those who had made bookings before the introduction of the new rules did not receive any check-in codes.
In an email statement to The University Times at the time, Ni Lochlainn said: “Regrettably a cohort of users who had placed a booking before the introduction of check-ins have encountered some technical issues in the new system.”
“Emails which were meant to issue automatically to this cohort with check-in codes that would allow them to confirm their bookings did not transmit.”
When the issue was first raised, library staff instructed students to cancel their bookings and book the seats again quickly.
