Lamont: 9 A.M. 'til Midnight

Undergraduates pled while library officials shook their heads and muttered arguments which ranged from poverty to Massachusetts laws for working girls. The extension of Lamont Library hours seemed impossible; inadequate freshman study conditions and over-crowed House libraries seemed a permanent complaint.

Despite all the objections, real and imaginary, to longer library hours, Paul H. Buck, the new Director of University Libraries, has answered one of the under-graduate's most frequent requests. In an unexpected release, Mr. Buck announced today that, beginning January 5, Lamont would remain open until midnight on weekdays, and from 2:00 to 10:00 p.m. on Sundays.

Mr. Buck's only stipulation is a reasonable one: a sufficient number of students must use the extended hours. Although the Student Council last week expressed doubt that there was enough need to justify additional hours, other reports seem to indicate that the change is a welcome one. Almost two-thirds of the freshmen class questioned last spring indicated that they could not study in their rooms after 10:00 p.m. At Yale and Princeton, furthermore, administrators report that libraries are well populated between ten and midnight. The requests for longer hours at Harvard may, of course, be the work of a small and extremely vocal minority. In that case, the University will certainly be justified in resuming the ten o'clock curfew.

At present, however, there is no indication that students will not make use of the longer study hours. In the first months of his administration, Mr. Buck has responded to a long-felt student need. He has proved that Lamont Library was not only designed and built for undergraduates, but that it will also do everything possible to serve them.