I appreciate this decision very much and will certainly take advantage of this opportunity during the last two weeks of school.
I understand the financial drain this represents…but it would be a beautiful thing to one day have 24-7 access to reference materials, as which is currently limited (particularly on weekends, which is the only time many students have to do their research).
Could we not maintain a single student worker to occupy the reference desk all the time (i.e., during current “closed” hours), with minimal responsibilities, just a pair of eyes to oversee entrance and exit and perhaps occasionally check out materials? I suspect that both undergraduate and graduate students would profit from this move.
Also, while the prospect of living in the library is probably not that appealing to incoming freshmen (I’m imagining the campus guide telling some fresh-faced 18-year-old: “And here’s where you’ll sweat through your first all-nighter…”), a few will appreciate the availability. Well, I guess with the current curfew, they won’t be able to do that until their sophomore year.
Library hours are actually one of the things that I considered in school selection (and represent a small factor in graduate pursuits as well).
Morgan Philpott