The city of Leeds is home to three universities. These are, The University of Leeds, Leeds Beckett University and Leeds Trinity University, all whom offer students a range of libraries that can be found throughout the city.
The Sheila Silver Library, which is the city campus library for Leeds Beckett, is the only student library in Leeds which is open for access all day and all night for the universities students. The remaining libraries have set opening times, and do not remain open throughout the night.
As an incentive for students to make more use of the Sheila Silver Library, the library has began handing out blankets to students who are in need of them all through the colder months. This was only introduced recently, and there is no doubt that one of the reasons has been the rising cost of bills.
The high expense for bills has motivated students into spending more time at the library in order to keep warm, free of cost. Leeds Beckett have made their city building more accessible for this reason, as it is used by students more often than their Headingley campus library.
Joe Taylor, manager of Sheila Silver Library, has confirmed that the blanket incentive is something that will “hopefully be established at the Headingley campus library as there is no reason that it shouldn’t”.
All other libraries are still yet to confirm whether they will extend their opening times, and if they will be taking any extra measures to help their students in this time of struggle.
