SGA brings 3 weeks of big changes

After additional dialogue with the library, the Student Government Association (SGA) decided to fund extended library hours the week before finals week, beginning Nov. 29. Though the library will be covering the cost of extended opening hours during finals week itself,

it has traditionally provided 24-7 access for the week before that as well, giving students extra time to prepare for final exams and projects. Due to budget costs, Library and Information Services (LIS) was unable to come up with the additional $1,603 needed to keep the library open all night for the week before. The SGA is temporarily stepping in to fill the financial gap this semester. LIS should be confirming the reinstatement of 24-7 opening hours for the last two weeks of school in a campus wide message soon.

The money will go towards three primary needs. LIS needs to hire an outside security force and cannot use Public Safety during the time period. They must allow ask LIS staff members to volunteer for the extra shifts. Should no one volunteer, as is usually the case, the Library would have to offer the shifts to students employees who would be paid time and a half for the shifts.

Circulation services manager Elin Waagen said she was glad the popular service would return for this year.

“The bottom line is that the 24/7 service is really well-appreciated,” said Waagen. “I’m happy that we get to offer the service again this year, and I’m glad that SGA supported it.”

Waagen said that students seemed to use the library for the entire evening during the week before exams actually begin.

“Condensing the exam period into one week may be a more effective use of time,” she said. “We’ve found that library use drops off in the last three or four days of exams. The heaviest use of the library actually occurs the week before exams begin when most of the papers seem to be due.”

Student workers also reported heavy li- brary use after 1 a.m. during finals week.

“I think it’s a good idea,” Rachel Ochako ’11 said. “Being here, I can definitely see peo- ple being productive after 1 [a.m].”

Waagen said that previous attempts at the service were unsuccessful but remained optimistic students would take full advantage of the service this year. She emphasized that changes would likely continue.

“We’ve tried different ways of scheduling this before,” she said. “We tried to make cuts during the weekend of exam week, but that was not well received. That won’t be an experiment we will continue. Hopefully the shorter exam period will help students make good use of the 24/7 service.”

Though budgetary issues seem to be a key factor behind the reduction of opening hours, many students express disbelief that $1603 for an additional week of extended hours would be so hard to come up with. As mentioned in a previous article, Dean of LIS Mike Roy has cited pressure from faculty members as a critical reason for the decision to cut back hours.

It is unclear if the adhoc stress commit- tee, comprised of faculty and staff members, had anything to do with the cuts. A member of the committee clarified that the Stress Committee did not have the authority to recommend changes to the LIS and thus did not do so. According to Roy, many faculty members expressed concern to Roy about the message that keeping the library open 24/7 would send to students about staying up to study. Both physical and mental health issues were brought up in these communications.

Vin Recca ’12, who has been leading the dialogue between the SGA and LIS, asked, “Is it the library’s fault for maintaining 24 hours [that students are stressed out]? It’s not — it’s just general academic stress. There’s a disconnect between what professors think we can do, what we can do, and what we think we can do.” He went on cite the correlation between stress and alcohol abuse, perhaps the biggest issue on campus. “If students aren’t that stressed, would they be drinking so much?”