So some SGA Senators have been discussing the current operating hours of the AOK Library. UMBC seriously lacks a study place where students can study, what is considered, "after hours." Although the atrium is open 24/7, the library closes at 12 on school nights and earlier over the weekends except Sunday. Personally, I've always found the atrium space not big enough for all the students that head down there once the semester really starts back up. There aren't enough tables, and there surely don't seem to be enough outlets. Compared to our peer institutions as well, like U of Alabama or U of Arkansas and others, our library closes down 2-3 hours earlier every school night.
In an attempt to understand the situation better, we contacted Larry Wilt, Director of the Library and spoke to him about this issue. We talked about possibly only having one or two floors of the library open for an extended period of time - 2 to 3 hours every night. While the library understood the need to extend hours, he told us that the current budget could not possibly support such a venture. With this economy and the budget cuts, finding money to fund another 2 hours of running the library becomes much harder as well. According to Larry Wilt, Director fo the AOK library, research was done in 2003 to come up with estimated costs of extending the library hours by 2 hours every night of the week. For Fiscal Year 2003, costs came up to about $35,000. We can add inflation costs to that and come up with a rough idea for costs for now.
So here is our question:
1. Would longer library hours help us? Would you want to see the AOK library hours extended?
Should the library be open longer than 12 AM?
Tuesday, February 3, 2009Posted by at 1:42 PM
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34 comments:
I already posted on umbcunderground about this, but I would be much more interested in expanded weekend hours than later hours during the week.
35000$ That's nothing. Who cares, raise tuition an extra 3 dollars per student so we can study in the library longer. The late night study space would be put to great use, especially on the weekdays.
@Anon:
That seems like it would make sense, but the Governor (with strong support from USM officials) insists on maintaining tuition "freezes." Since the school can't raise tuition, they have to either reduce services or charge students additional fees - many times both.
Link: Tuition Freeze Debated Front and Center.
I think students need to utilize other areas on the campus more to study. Commons is open until 12 as well, and on a weekday night its just as peaceful, perhaps more so given the crowd in the AOK. There are also lecture halls, and of course the computer labs in the engineering building that Ive found much better study places. Less crowds, less noise than the library in my opinion.
I agree the atrium doesn't cut it at 2 am, but the library is an entire operation and I balk at the idea of making that staff stay that late. And even that late those handy energy drinks still wont be allowed....
Just to let you all in on a little secret:
If you are willing to go out of the way a bit, the Engineering building has some study spaces (in the hallways) as well as a computer lab, and it is open 24/7.
YES! Some majors, such as history and English, require the use of resources that cannot be taken from the library, such as microfilm and reference books. I also believe this would benefit commuter students, who cannot just walk down to the library when they need to study.
Yes. The library hours are not very efficient. Once, I had weekend seminar that required me to print something out prior to 8 am, but the library was closed. Another time my computer crashed at midnight, halfway through a 10 page paper, there was no computer to the rescue.
The most annoying part is that the week before finals the library still closes at midnight. If there was one week that I would love to see the library fully open past midnight it would be the week before finals.
Why don't they just hire more students at meager pay to run it for a few hours. Yea, they may not be able to find me that journal from 1956, but at least I still have access to it.
Pretty please with cherries on top!
Yes, All Universities should have their libraries open for students at all times! I am surprised that it is not open later than 12am or even 24 hours.
It should be open later. If they want to avoid extra costs, fix the self-checkout machine, and don't have people sitting behind the desk getting paid to be on facebook.
I don’t agree that the library needs to be open later. Part of growing up is learning to prepare appropriately and learning time management. If you are writing a paper that is due at 8:00am after 12:00am the night prior then it’s your fault if something goes wrong. The school shouldn’t have to pay more money to keep the library open to rescue from your own inadequate planning. COME ON PEOPLE THIS IS THE REAL WORLD TAKE RESPONSIBILITY AND LEARN TO MANAGE YOUR TIME EFFICIENTLY.
It would be nice if the library was open 24/7 so I could get books, etc. whenever I wanted, but I realize that might be cost-prohibitive. At the very least, though, there should be a drop box for returning books after the library has closed, like other universities have.
Yeah, I don't think they need to hire more people. Just have the first 2 or 3 floors open so students can use the study rooms and computers. Place a security guard in the front of the library, problem solved.
Since UMBC is too cheap to spend money on students and campus issues they should at least allow students to be able to study more often which is what UMBC is all about anyway.
Of course it should be open later!!
This university library hours are nothing short of pathetic. During finals week this university does not even provide a feasible environment for us to study in after 2 am.
After nearly 4 years on this campus, I strongly believe that the library needs to be open longer, preferably 24/7.
Why? I am a Computer Science major, and that involves a lot of programming, often into the wee hours. Its a good idea to do most projects on the school computers. Yes, there is the Engineering building, which is open 24/7, but it has several problems - for one thing, its on the opposite end of campus from the dorms, not a fun walk at 4 am in the morning in bad weather.
There's also people that need to do other types of projects at all sorts of hours - and university students don't necessarily follow the same schedule (heck, there are people in the real world who do night shifts and such). And, quite frankly, its nice to have a place of sanctuary on a Friday or Saturday night when your roommates are party animals (and you're a nerd) and keep you from sleeping until 2 or 3 am anyway.
Multiply everything by 10 for Fridays and Saturdays, when the library closes at 6.
Why not close Engineering (or even leave it open) and instead/in addition open the Library? Staff, etc. makes it more expensive, but it will serve a wider variety of students - not just us geeks - while being much closer to the students who are likely to be on campus during off-hours, those in the dorms.
"while being much closer to the students who are likely to be on campus during off-hours, those in the dorms."
You had me until right there. Why do you need to frame the argument in such an us vs. them way? Commuters use the library/engineering computers during "off-hours" as well. This isn't an argument against the library, there is plenty of parking there for commuters, I just am not comfortable with your framing of that argument.
i agree with sentiments expressed regarding the lib being open 2-3 hours later atleast during finals week if nothing else because the atrium becomes absurdly hard to work in.
If the library is going to be open later then 12, then a security measure is going to have to be instituted; because having some person sitting at a desk to the side of AOK, whose only looking to see if I have a soda is not going to stop anyone with bad intentions. You feel me?
At the university I attended prior to UMBC, you needed to show your ID in order to be admitted into the library. This university is so innocent and "young" in alot of ways. It's cute sometimes, but in certain aspects it can be a little disheartening.
During the exam week... library should def. be open 24 hrs... there have been many times when I am studying and library closes and i am forced to move to the atrium which can not hold as many people as there usually are. and i end up going home and sleeping.
UMBC tends to take pride in being such an academic oriented school, the least they can do is keep the library open for longer period of times.
35K is not much for as much money as they take from students.
make the gym have a membership fee and put that money you charge me for into the library funds. i am not going to gym, why are you taking my money anyways.
Honestly I just want a freaking night drop box. I see now reason why we don't have one.
@last anonymous
"I don't use any of those books in the library, why should I have to pay for them then? "
The gym is the most used building on campus. I agree that the library should be open much longer or even 24 hours but we shouldn't be pulling away from things that are vital as well. We should pull money from the chess team instead.
Friday and Saturday hours are a little ridiculous. Especially saturday. They screw over everyone who lives here and does their work on the weekends by not letting us in the library after 6. It would be nice if it was open until midnight every day. However, like a previous poster said the library shouldnt need to be open all that time to accommodate peoples laziness and procrastination. If you need access to material, get that during the day. For instance, my girlfriend who is a visual arts major needed to write a paper on some things which were in special collections at the library. Do you know what she did? She took pictures of the stuff so she could look at it later. That way she did not need the library to be open forever. I being a computer science major disagree with what the previous computer science major said. We do not need the school computers to do our work. No matter what system we are on we can login to the schools servers and test our programs on them. Thus eliminating the need to be at one of the schools computers. And every computer science major ought to have a computer of their own.
Do people really use the library this late? Nobody I know studies at the library at such atrocious hours. Personally, I'm usually in bed by midnight (I have early classes and need at least eight hours of sleep). When I do stay up past midnight, all that I'm doing is relaxing. I don't know how people don't have time to do homework and study during the day. As others have pointed out, time management is an important skill.
People keep saying that $35000 isn't that much. Well, to me, it is. Why should my tuition money go to keeping the library open longer just so that people with bad time-management skills can continue to maintain those poor skills.
for those of you who seem to think that the library times should stay because we need to learn time management, then i sincerely apologize for your narrow-mindedness. people like myself, who have school in the morning, and then go to work during the day to, well, afford school in the morning... only have night time to study. yes, the library being open past 12 would make my life a billion times easier when it comes to resources to help me prep for finals week and any heavy hw day.
@aaron:
Ok, you study at night because of class/work (I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt and will assume that, aside from meals, you don't have any free time between classes/work). Most assignments are not due the class after they are assigned (and even if they are, that means you have at least two days). I find it hard to believe that you NEED to study in the library any time that you study (even if we assume that you need to use one of the library's resources that you aren't allow to borrow).
I am another vote for the library to stay open longer. I want to make sure that I understand the school's point-of-view on this: The money is not in the budget to keep the library open longer at a University where academics is suppose to trump all, however, I bet if the sports teams needed something extra, they would get it. And this is not a school like College Park where the athletic's brings in a ton of money for the school.
Another issue that really gets me going is is:
I often study on the 6th floor on the library in the mornings. I do
not understand why the cleaning crew is just beginning to clean this floor at 9am in the morning. I've had them vacuuming as late as 10am still. This is unacceptable
to be disturbing a quiet floor two hours after the library has opened. I have attended other schools where the cleaning is performed after library hours by a
company, and these kinds of disturbances do not happen. I am currently in the library watching one of the cleaning men sitting a reading a magazine that he found, how much is that costing the University?
I vote earlier too.
I do understand the frustration of the library hours. It's a pain when you have class all day, and finally at 1 am you get an energy burst and actually feel like doing some work...but we must learn to work around it. The school is doing the best that they can, and the tuition is very affordable, thank goodness. I think us students need to try to be a little more disciplined and get in there earlier. Maybe even get out a ton of books so you can have a mini library at home!...for a week or so. get a bunch of people to do this and then go to someone's house for a study group session with tons of books to pass around. I guess I'm just trying to say, we need to get creative!
I was very surprised to find that the library closed so early. I transferred from St. Mary's where four nights a week it is open until 1am. And in the weeks surrounding finals it is open 24/7. It is very inconvenient, even though other study places around campus are available.
sooooo where's the blog post detailing the sga's perspective on what just happened today? HMM??
I think it goes without saying that this issue has been rather delicate. Once the dust settles we'll be sure to have something up. In the meantime, other campus news sources have been carrying the story.
NEWSFLASH: The United States is in a depression right now! But of course, there are a few short-sighted children who want more, more, more, no matter how much it costs, who pays the bill, or however difficult it might be. The library is already short-staffed. As library staff retire, their jobs are NOT being filled due to budget cuts and hiring freezes. Look at the facts, the library is downsizing due to budget restrictions. Yet a few children think that the library can magically hire more staff so that a small handful of students can study at 2am? Grow up and get real. The library is more likely to close earlier than it is to stay open later.
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