Longer Library Hours Needed

As students hastily cram for midterm exams this week, many will be flooding Lamont Library in search of a quiet place to study. Unfortunately, they will still be forced to leave at the early hour of 12:45 a.m. The Harvard College Library system rejected the Undergraduate Council’s proposal to extend Lamont’s hours. The council’s proposal would have extended library hours by one more hour each night, providing students with more time to study. Yet the decision to maintain the current hours flies in the face of many undergraduates’ academic needs.

Students’ rigorous academic workloads and busy schedules often leave no other choice than to study late at night. Thus, it is imperative that an important resource like Lamont Library be available to accommodate students’ needs. Lamont, as the primary undergraduate library, is full of useful resources like the language lab, Internet and computer connections, ample study space and group discussion areas—as well as the reading reserves. What’s more, anyone who has been at Lamont at closing knows that a horde of students could benefit from extended hours.

The College library system contends that later hours would jeopardize worker security. Yet, the council’s proposal to extend Lamont’s hours could have been easily implemented without great strain on the staff. For example, shuttles could have been cheaply and easily provided to students who work late. And accomodations could be made for staff who must work late but require public transportation.

Yet concerns for staff are not the library system’s only consideration. Lynda Leahy, associate librarian for research and instruction, indicated that the council’s request for later hours inconveniently competes with various other projects of the Harvard College Library system. From the ornate mailings to first-years about the library system to ongoing Widener renovations to the upcoming launch of the new Hollis system, the library’s projects are indeed numerous and costly. But the Harvard College Library system is primarily meant to serve the undergraduate population, and accordingly, later hours should be an attainable priority—a relatively inexpensive project which would most tangibly serve students.

Unfortunately, bureaucratic obstacles are also obstructing immediate library hour extensions. Leahy conceded that though she did not know the specific projected cost of keeping the library open an hour later, library administrators have already declared that extending Lamont’s hours is not a viable option in the near future. This prediction is perhaps more upsetting given that the library has not released the details of its budget. If the library truly faces severe financial constraints, it should not hesitate to disclose its expenditures and publicy justify the choices it is making. Tradeoffs could be made to make later hours a possibility; for example, council member Rohit Chopra ’04 has suggested that morning library hours be reduced to accommodate later hours.

Leahy did indicate that later hours would be considered over the next several years, especially during the library system’s upcoming attempts to accumulate more student input. Yet, the number of students in Lamont late at night shows that many undergraduates strongly desire extended library hours now, rather than years down the road. Harvard rightly spends millions of dollars on its libraries, and some of those resources should be spent now on an improvement that would tangibly increase students’ access to Lamont.