DJAMILA NOELLE GROSSMAN/Arizona Daily Wildcat Accounting senior Zahra Lalwani, left, and finance junior Suad Ahmed-Hassan work on homework for one of their classes in the ILC. Library officials recently conducted a survey that found students' main complaint to be the difficulty of finding a computer at busy times.

The UA Main Library and the Manuel T. Pacheco Integrated Learning Center offer plenty of resources for the general public, and library officials are working to help handle the load of resources as well as make the area a safer place.

A library survey taken in February was released last week and a team is working to better cater to the needs of library users.

Marianne Bracke, assistant librarian in the science library, was the leader of a team dedicated to "finding information in a new landscape."

The team has worked to improve the library for the last two years by looking at how people can best take advantage of the resources provided, she said.

Changes were made gradually, mostly in the last year, and the survey was intended to get feedback about those changes, Bracke said.

The survey was taken at five different service sites within the different libraries on campus, Bracke said, each with a slight variation.

The ILC survey is the most representative because the majority of visitors go there, Bracke said.

The survey addressed points of service with 24 questions and was taken by 274 people in the library and the ILC, Bracke said.

Participants ranked five points they found the most important, five areas they think the library does the best and five points that need improvement, Bracke said.

The biggest concern surrounding improvement was about finding a computer during busy times, Bracke said, which is a problem difficult to address.

Priority to the 250 computers in the ILC is given to CatCard owners, Bracke said, and toward the end of the semester a classroom will be opened that adds 50 computers.

"Getting people to computers can be challenging," Bracke said. "It's a matter of sharing resources and that's a reality."

The limitation of space is also an issue when it comes to increasing the number of computers, Bracke said, and with the expansion of the wireless network she hopes it will bring relief to the situation.

Help with identifying research articles and books was ranked most important, a point the staff wants to emphasize by finding out exactly what is not working for students, Bracke said.

One issue the survey does not address is the lack of people asking for help, and Bracke said she wants to work with individuals to find out why.

There is a specialist for every department on campus that many people do not know about, Bracke said, and she tries to build a stronger network between the help desk and the subject specialist.

"There are all those untapped resources that most students don't know about," Bracke said.

Students also rarely use the interlibrary loan, which enables the library to receive resources from other libraries or via the Internet, Bracke said.

It is also possible to chat with a librarian any time the library is open to ask questions about resources and research.

To make the offered support more apparent to students, a redesign of the library Web site is planned, Bracke said.

"I want them to be aware that the library is a resource for them," Bracke said. "We're always adding better databases, we're always here to provide research help. We genuinely care to provide a better educational experience."

Granted, convenience is an important point when it comes to usability of the library, but safety can also be an important issue.

Katie Harrell, a psychology freshman, said she studies at the library almost everyday in between classes, but does not like to stay until after dark because "it's a little bit more creepy late nights."

Harrell said she is not scared in the library itself, but when she leaves and it is dark outside. If she could choose one thing to improve, she said she would like to see more staff walking around at night.

James Fromm, the library's facilities manager, said public safety is a big issue that has been given higher priority in the past to decrease crime-related incidents in the building.

Even though the numbers went down compared to the last academic year, crime is still present in the library, Fromm said.

"It's not a very high percentage, but it's there," Fromm said.

Last year, Fromm said the library and ILC had a little more than 320 police calls, and of all incidents, sexually-related crime decreased the most.

But the number of incidents is not that high when compared to the roughly 800,000 people who used the library last year and things need to be put in perspective, Fromm said.

Fromm said when it comes to safety, staffers wear identification and patrol all areas of the library more frequently, there is a safety brochure at the entrance, police make random patrols through the building, and a CatCard is necessary to enter from 1 a.m. to 7 a.m.

Library officials also keep their awareness up and tell people to call the police if they see something suspicious, Fromm said.

"You see something, you report it. If you're not sure, you report it," Fromm said. "We err towards reporting it even if it's not a problem because that's the best way to nip it."

Sgt. Eugene Mejia, University of Arizona Police Department spokesman, said there were 192 incidents, including three indecent exposures, 10 suspicious persons and seven calls without incident between Aug. 19, 2004 and yesterday.

Mejia said he could not confirm whether the number of calls decreased since the year before.

UAPD does not gage their success on the number of calls they receive, Mejia said, because they encourage people to call if anything suspicious happens.

"If the majority (of calls) turned out to be nothing, then we succeeded," Mejia said. "If we have increased reporting of people calling then the crime should go down."