While we have already said goodbye to our graduating class, we here at Hirsh wanted to share our updates from this spring’s affiliation count, conducted over the course of two weeks in March and April. This count is an important part of our library’s survey gathering each year, as it helps give us a snapshot of how folks are using the library.
As a bit of a departure from previous years, we wanted to run this as a superlatives list, and will share some of our tables with you at the end of the post.
Highest volume in five years: 2026
First of all, we wanted to shout out this year’s affiliation numbers. During the seven days we surveyed, we counted 2,559 of you using the library, an all-time high for the past five spring affiliation counts. We’re so glad you spend time in our space.
Most populated floor: Seven
While the fourth floor has some heavy traffic, particularly at lunchtime, there’s one floor that wins out every year, and has done it again this spring. During our survey, we counted a total of 1,187 patrons on the seventh floor. It is also the floor where we counted over half (55%) of the medical students, and almost half (47%) of the MBS students in the library. We’re glad you like it and want to remind you that respect and consideration for your many fellow patrons is key, so thanks for keeping quiet while you’re up there!
Most populous group: Dental
Our dental students broke into the quadruple digits this affiliation cycle, with 1,160 instances of students from the dental program using some space in the library during our survey. Following them up, we have the medical students (732) and MBS students (333).
Highest use of the Sixth Floor: MPH
The public health students are most frequently found on the sixth floor, with 88 students counted there during our survey. On all other floors during our survey period, we counted between 15 and 17 instances of students.
Most likely to spend Saturday at the library: MBS or Other Tufts (undergrad, student from other campuses)
There’s two ways we could count this, but Tufts students from other campuses win the former, which is to say that we counted 38% of your total number on the Saturday we conducted our survey. Per capita, your use of the library was highest on this day. We counted three of you! Thanks for coming down. Now, if we were to simply pinpoint the group that was the most present on Saturdays, that would be MBS, with 62 instances of students counted that Saturday. I hope your exam the following week went well!
Charts
Thank you as always for your participation in our work, and for utilizing the space we have here for you. See you next time!