The David L. Rice Library changed its hours for the Fall 2024 semester. Last spring, the library stayed open until midnight Monday through Thursday and Sundays and on Fridays and Saturdays it stayed open until 6 p.m. Now, the library is open until 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday and Sundays and at 5 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.
Marna Hostetler, director of library services, said several factors decided this change in hours, with the main reason for the earlier closure being a decrease in usage.
“By examining the number of visitors for the past two academic years, we found that usage drops dramatically after 8 p.m. during the week, and Saturdays have always been extremely low usage,” Hostetler said. “I know from managing library spaces for 20 plus years that there is safety in numbers. When we get to a situation where there are very few people in a building, I begin to worry more about safety. A student could fall, have a medical emergency or something similar, with no one nearby.”
Hostetler said between 8 and 10 p.m. visitors significantly dropped by approximately 51% across the Fall 2022 to Spring 2024 semesters.
“With the support of the library’s leadership team, I proposed a change in hours to Interim Provost Shelly Blunt, who is my supervising vice president,” she said. “Dr. Blunt took the proposal to the President’s Council, where it was approved.”
Another factor influencing the decision to alter the hours is the Jazz Lounge being open until midnight.
Hostetler said the Jazz Lounge has 40 plus seats and tables, a multi-function printer, vending machines and restrooms.
She said library laptops are available to be checked out for a month and portable whiteboards and markers overnight.
“The proposal to change hours for this academic year was approved in July,” Hosteler said. “Hours are widely distributed several weeks before the beginning of each semester and are viewable on our web page. This is our normal practice for announcing library hours.”
Another consideration in the change was the time classes ended each day.
“Closing one hour after classes conclude for the day gives library users time to seek assistance or pick up what they need,” she said.
The last consideration for this modification in hours was the addition of the Rice Library Testing Center in Fall 2022.
“The Testing Center serves the entire campus and provides a central location and certified proctors for placement, professional, extended time and make-up testing,” Hostetler said. “The addition of a second service point in the library has stretched our staffing, so earlier closing hours have been very helpful in that regard.”
Many students are frustrated with the library’s change in hours.
There are several reasons behind this frustration including there not being an announcement leading up to the change and students not having a quiet place to study or take tests later in the evenings.
Whitney Wagler, senior English teaching major, and Allison Weichman, senior English teaching major, said they were shocked by the change.
Both Wagler and Weichman were in the library when the announcement was made.
“I was sitting in the library one time and they were like, ‘All right, we’re closing it down,’ and I was like, ‘What?’,” Weichman said.
“I first found out when I was actually in the library on a Saturday,” Wagler said. “I work all throughout the week, so it’s not really conducive for me to drive all the way back to campus and for the 30 minutes that I would be able to be here before the library closed. I went on a Saturday, and then they announced that they were closing in 15 minutes. So I asked, ‘Is something wrong? Is something happening at the library?’ And they said, ‘No, we just changed our hours.’ And I was like, ‘Are you kidding me?’ This is the one place you can go. I love my roommate and my apartment, but I need an outside space.”
Weichman is a Starbucks employee on campus.
She said all her coworkers were locked out of going into work due to not knowing about the library changing its hours.
“I got a text message from my coworker, and she said, ‘We are all completely locked out.’ I was like, ‘What? What’s going on?’ No other doors were able to work,” Weichman said. “We ended up calling Public Safety. I had to rush over in the middle of a meeting. We figured out now you have to have your student ID to swipe in but there was no notification, no heads up, not even our bosses at Starbucks knew about the change.”
Weichman said they need a space to complete their larger assignments for their senior years.
“We have a lot of bigger assignments the farther we get into the teaching program. We have a Shakespeare class where we have to watch a three hour Shakespeare play. Sometimes we can’t watch that in our apartment,” Weichman said. “One time we ended up just watching it outside on campus because the library closed.”
Wagler said her alternative study space to replace her usual time in the library has been the University Center because it’s open until midnight.
“Which isn’t bad, but it’s not like the library that has resources and things that you can use. If I’m doing a research paper as an English major, it’s kind of nice to just have that accessibility right then and there. We do have databases. That is also an alternative that I could use, but I much prefer a paper book sometimes,” she said.
“It’s just more comfortable studying in the library than just out and about on campus,” Weichman said.
Evan Scott, junior computer science major, said he’s been studying at his apartment or the Recreation, Fitness and Wellness Center as an alternative, which can be distracting and loud.
“That’s why I always went to the library, late at night, it’s always quiet, because there’s not really people in there, which is probably part of the reason why they changed the hours” Scott said.
Weichman said she doesn’t mind the library closing at 10 p.m. during the week but doesn’t like the weekend hours.
“It’s closed when I start my shift at Starbucks, and by the time my shift is over at 5:30 p.m., it’s closed again,” She said. “I don’t even get to use the library at all on Saturdays, and I would like to.”
Scott said the new hours make him procrastinate more because he can’t go to the library during the time he would.
“I can’t go to the library anymore because, by the time I get there, they close in an hour and a half to two hours,” He said. “By the time I sat down and got focused, they’d be like, ‘We’re closing in 30 minutes.’ If it’s like a big, important assignment or something, then what’s the point of having to interrupt myself to leave to go back to my apartment?”
Wagler said she procrastinates her assignments that are due on Sunday.
“On Saturday, I’m like, ‘Well, better get started.’ And then there’s no place for me to go,” she said.
Wagler said she recognizes that the modification of hours is likely nicer for employees since they don’t have to work as late now.
“It’s probably saving them some money not having to keep everything up and running. But with so many students, you kind of have to weigh it,” she said.
Weichman said she thought with an increase in enrollment, there would be more resources.
“Everything’s been cut in half. With the Lloyd, we’re down to one lane now. The library closes at five on Saturdays. They closed out another lane on the campus with the nursing program. It feels like we’re growing, but we’re being more constrained each year” Weichman said.
Susanna Shepard, senior elementary education major and library student worker, said she was surprised by the hour changes but is happy about it.
“I am usually one of the closers. Which means I have to leave the library at late hours,” she said. “Last semester we closed at midnight which was not as fun for me because during finals week we stayed open an extra hour. So, that meant I had to leave the library at one in the morning, which made me feel unsafe.”
“I have worked night shifts every semester because they are the only shifts that really work with my schedules. I am glad I do not have to work as late anymore. I make up the hours I lost by just working on the weekends,” Shepard said.
Wagler said she wonders why a formal announcement wasn’t made.
“I think I would be less disgruntled if I had gotten a message like, ‘Hey, here’s what’s happening and why it’s happening,’” Wagler said.
Scott said he thinks a questionnaire should have been sent to students before changing the hours.
“I definitely think they should have had students’ opinions on what they think the hours should be instead of just cutting two hours away randomly,” he said.
Shepard said she received an email about the change in hours for the upcoming semester from her employer during the summer.
She was unaware that the library did not announce its change in hours leading up to the start of the fall semester.
“I think they should have made an announcement to the students on campus before the semester started,” Shepard said.
People that Wagler and Weichman know are also upset about the change.
“I have a friend that I work with at Starbucks, and they’re like, ‘I have 20 friends, and we’re all collectively upset about it.’ I’ve not heard one person say this is a great idea” Weichman said.
“I’ve heard a lot of upset people who do online classes, and they go to the library for their exams and stuff because they’re proctored and filmed, and you have to be in a clear space. And my friend was like, ‘This sucks. There’s nowhere in my house that’s like a wide open space with nothing around me.’ The library closes early on Saturdays, and her exams are due on Saturdays,” Wagler said.
Scott said he thinks an alternative could be to have the first two floors open later in the evening, “so that you don’t have to worry about the whole library.”
Weichman said she thinks a solution could be to close at 10 p.m. every day to save the confusion.
Shepard said she has heard a lot of negative feedback from other students about the hour changes.
“What the students did not realize was that we took head counts of how many people were in the library during the late hours. There were hardly any patrons in the library even during finals week,” Shepard said.
She said a benefit to closing earlier is that there is less time for late night shenanigans, and she also believes that this change was needed for the health and benefit of the library staff.
