BRITNEY MALONEY
News Assistant
SGA and Payson Library reached an agreement in the fall semester that extended the library’s hours on weeknights.
The library will now remain open an extra hour five days a week.
The additional hour was put into effect this month, and the library now stays open until 3 a.m., Sunday through Thursday.
Mark Roosa, dean of Libraries, said he sees the change as positive.
“Extending the library hours is a way for us to build community,” he said. “We want to create an environment where students feel comfortable and welcoming and we think we are accomplishing that.”
Roosa met with Leon Dixson, SGA president, and Michael Yoo, SGA secretary, in December about increasing the hours the library is open and to get their thoughts on the matter. The student representatives agreed that being open until 3 a.m. would be beneficial for students.
“SGA has been advocating for extended library hours for at least the last three years,” Dixson said. “And the library staff has been progressively extending the library’s hours of operation.”
Gradually extending the library’s hours of operation has been experimented with for the past few years. Last spring the library opened its doors for 24 hours during dead week and the library received a great response. Even during the wee hours of the morning students were using the library’s resources.
In addition to making the library open 24 hours a day, coffee and free printing was also offered. Roosa said he was surprised at the response of students.
“I had no idea that students drank so much coffee,” he said. “It was such a success that we gave up on making our own and made trips to Starbucks to get large amounts.”
Keeping the library open later means later shifts for workers and a greater cost to the university.
“Extending hours here is always going to have an impact, particularly a cost impact,” Roosa said. “However, we have realized that students need evenings, so we now have an evening supervisor, Anne Jorgensen, who is doing a great job.”
The dean said that there is even thought of keeping the library open even later in the future, until 4 a.m.
“We are gradually moving into it,” he said. “We made the move from 2 a.m. to 3 a.m. and we will keep in contact with SGA to continue stretching the hours.”
Roosa said that steadily moving into being open 24/7 gives the library staff an idea of what students want and how to staff the library.
01-26-2006