<p>“At least one 24-hour library is supposed to be one measure of how serious (at least a segment of) the student body is.”</p>
<p>It could be a tipping feature, but would anyone actually eliminate a school over it, e.g., if the school were ideal in most other ways?</p>
<p>“for the rare times you need to visit”</p>
<p>Um, the context here is college. :)</p>
<p>“Others, though, including many very competent students, rarely set foot in them.”</p>
<p>I sense a contradiction, in that the OP means a measure of how serious … the student body is. The more serious, the more need for a library to find the reference works. How many books in a million-volume collection have been digitized?</p>
<p>Depending on your field, there might be a lot. I know I can usually find a digitized version free of cost on Google Books for lots of the material I had to cover in undergrad.</p>
<p>Obviously several people on here do not realize the actual value and necessity of a library on campus. Libraries are more than just physical books or large buildings full of them. Who do you think gives you access to all the digital books, databases, periodicals, etc. that you need for reports, papers, research projects? IT departments may give you access to the server but it’s the library that provides the resources. I challenge those who say that a library is not necessary to actually go to their college library and see what is available. Also, not everything can be easily found on the Internet. Librarians can provide guidance on how and where to find an abundance of things. </p>
<p>BTW, NC State’s main library is open 24/7 most weekdays.</p>
<p>Libraries are a great value to campuses. But to say that a 24/7 library says something about the academic committment of the student body, is just stupid. All a 24 hour library says is that the school feels its worthwhile keeping a large building lit, heated, and staffed during hours when 99% of the student body won’t be there. Or that the school is so large, there are always students in the library to justify the expense. Not true at most small selective schools that allocate funding differently. </p>
<p>Now, a 24/7 computer space is definitely a worthwhile thing to look for in a school. Also, 24 hour facilities for special work, such as a 24 hour art and/or architecture building so you can be working on your class projects (usually intensely time consuming) as long as you need, using the special equipment you can’t have in your dorm (not many dorms equipped with darkrooms). </p>
<p>Or for engineers or other scientists, being able to access the labs 24 hours. Unless you can do your orgo homework on your in-room chemistry set </p>
<p>Those are the kind of 24 hour facilities you really NEED and should want. THey show that students are working on their projects in a committed fashion, and that thtey have access to specialized facilities and materials not found in non-academic settings. </p>
<p>All campuses NEED libraries, they’re still important, more so than ever in the digital age. But having a 24 hour library doesn’t say a thing. The work of a lirbary can be done just as well 7 AM - 2AM or 8 AM - Midnight as it can 24/7</p>
<p>Or to be cynical about it, a 24x5 or 24x7 library is a measure of how often students procrastinate. </p>
<p>Wellesley College’s libraries close at midnight on school nights, and Wellesley is no slouch in the academics department. However, there is late night access to the science center, so there are plenty of places to study/ use a computer.</p>
<p>The University of Chicago has a 24x6 floor of its main library. It’s not open after 1am on Sunday mornings. (Who says there’s no fun there?)</p>
<p>When I was in college, the main Yale libraries closed at midnight or 1 am, but the Law School library was open 24-7, and people liked to use that a lot. Also, all of the residential colleges had their own libraries that were open 24-7. I think the Law School library closes early now . . . there’s barely any reason to HAVE law libraries anymore.</p>
<p>In some fields, the information you need is more likely to be found in journals than in books. University libraries usually have online subscriptions to journals, which members of the university community can access from anywhere by logging in to their university’s web site. Maintaining this resource is part of the library’s job. But students don’t have to go to the physical library to access it.</p>
I’m sorry, but routinely demanding that students do their work at 2:00 AM is just sick. It is not healthy for the students to neglect sleep on a routine basis.</p>
<p>^I’m not saying you should work at 2 AM, I’m just saying that keeping a library open till midnight or 1 AM is perfectly long enough for most students. How “committed” students are is not at all reflected by how long the library hours are. Students that are in the library at 2, 3, 4, 5 in the morning are usually the ones that left their work to the last minute, not the ones scrambling to perfect it. </p>
<p>Whereas students in the lab or the dark room all night are usually doing processes that actually require long periods of time at awkward parts of the day (you can’t rush a kiln when you’re firing a pot, or a scientific experiment, it takes as long as it takes to code a computer program). So whether it has a 24 library doesn’t tell you anything at all.</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, I one time was up till 2 AM working on something that wasn’t due for a while (I don’t remember how long, but something in the range of about a week). Basically I just wasn’t tired, so I figured I’d keep working. I was also working with a friend. And when I left, there were still several people there. </p>
<p>The only time I’ve ever needed it to be 24-hours a day (all night) was when I procrastinated and had to do everything the night before it was due. </p>
<p>Even so, it’s always nice to have the 24/7 library. Every college is going to have students who procrastinate, so atleast the ones who have the resources available 24/7 can get their stuff done at the last minute.</p>
<p>Also, when I say library, I really am referring to the computers. Where I go most of the computers are in libraries.</p>
<p>mamagx3: I wholeheartedly agree with you that the libraries provide the resources. I don’t think anyone is saying that libraries aren’t important, just that 24/7 access to the physical building isn’t an accurate measure of student commitment to academics. As a librarian, I’ve created tutorials, research guides & pdfs of instructions that are accessed electronically 24/7 to assist student with our databases and specific topics/classes. We also do a lot of our reference work via email or phone.</p>
<p>At Yale, there are libraries in the residential colleges that (I think still) are open all night–they have limited resources, but you can study and work there.</p>
<p>^We have something similar in the houses at Smith. Most of the houses have converted their old “beau parlors” (back in the day, men weren’t allowed above the first floor in the Smith residence houses, so they had private rooms off of hte living room where you and your beau could sit in relative peace and quiet) into libraries and study spaces. Each graduating class donates some books to their house library, so the rooms are cozy and filled with books some of them more than a century old. And those are of course open all the time and segregated from the house living rooms which are more social places with TVs and such.</p>
<p>Like another poster said - Vassar’s library isn’t open 24 hours. I think it’s sick to have the library open in the middle of the night? what kind of message are you sending about how you should be allocating your time? The library is certainly open late enough. I never once my entire time in college pulled an all nighter for academic reasons. If you are a night owl, there are plenty of study spaces and computer spaces on a college campus to work away from your room. Judging the quality of school or it’s academic rigor or whatever by library hours is pretty ridiculous. Paying for lighting and heat and employing people at odd hours is certainly not fiscally responsible to me, and not how I’d want my college to be prioritizing it’s finances.</p>
<p>Ohio State has more than 20 libraries. The Science & Engineering library is open 24/7 although you need an ID for access between 11:30PM and 8AM.</p>
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