Shorter Bass hours due to budget cuts
Shorter Bass hours due to budget cuts
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Yalies hoping to reenact the all-night library study parties of recent years have likely been disappointed that Bass Library is not open 24 hours daily during the exam period this semester.
Associate University Librarian Danuta Nitecki said a 24-hour Bass is one of the items the University Library has had to cut from its budget this semester. Finding custodial staff and security to work through the night, and paying them overtime, is a challenge in a time of tightening budgets, she said.
This semester's shorter hours are not linked to past reports of student behavior such as smuggling food, alcohol and camping supplies into the library, Nitecki said. She added that the decision is not permanent and that the 24-hour schedule might return after reevaluation in future semesters. Bass first offered 24-hour access during exams in the spring of 2008.
The library will be open from 8:30 a.m. to 2:45 a.m. daily until Dec. 17.
Comments
None 2 years, 5 months ago
This is absurd. Yale should have a 24 hour library, especially during finals.
None 2 years, 5 months ago
Yale has enough money to give tenure to the professor of such a worthy course as "Sex, Evolution and Human Nature,” Yale has continued to increase financial aid despite the economic crisis, but Yale does not have enough money to keep a library open, even during final. Priorities anyone?
None 2 years, 5 months ago
recent alumni, Whats wrong with a course called "Sex, Evolution and Human Nature?" Sounds fine to me!
None 2 years, 5 months ago
Yale DOES have MULTIPLE 24-hour libraries. They're called residential college libraries. We actually have twelve of them (well, eleven). Whining much?
None 2 years, 5 months ago
well, #4 is certainly right, but the residential libraries are crowded beyond belief come finals. last time i checked, both widener at hahvahd & butler at columbia offer 24-hour services. push comes to shove, i'd trade hot breakfast for a full time 24-hour library.
None 2 years, 5 months ago
Recent Alum, financial aid is DEFINITELY more of a priority than keeping Bass open 24 hours. As others have pointed out, there are a variety of 24-hour study locations available to us, including college libraries and common rooms and, during finals week, the dining halls. Moreover, local coffee shops often have extended hours during finals. Financial aid, on the other hand, makes it so that less wealthy kids can afford to spend 24 hours studying without have to worry about a job. I'd say that preserving financial aid rather than promoting unhealthy sleep habits was the right move.
None 2 years, 5 months ago
Perhaps this is a way of the library getting attention and putting pressure for more funding? Much more obvious than other cut backs.
None 2 years, 5 months ago
This is sad. I owe all that I understand of Godel to a Bass finals period 24hr extravaganza.
None 2 years, 5 months ago
4 has got it right. Get to know your residential college library; lots of my best learning at Yale happened in mine...
None 2 years, 5 months ago
Yale does not have twenty-four hour libraries open. It has twenty-four hour study halls decorated like libraries in each residential college but there is nowhere for serious research access.
Most serious universities offer much longer library hours than Yale, including over the summer and other vacation periods.
I guess this is because Yale students (like #4) don't read anything except what's in course packets, in which case why not cut down the library hours even more?
If all you want is a study space, why not use your own room?
None 2 years, 5 months ago
For serious research there are several options:
Seriously, if that's your complaint, why not complain that the Beinecke doesn't let you look at rare books at 4am?
Some people aren't guaranteed privacy and quiet in their own rooms, so they go to other places where they can work without being interrupted.
None 2 years, 5 months ago
Q: But what are we to do between 2:45 and 8:30am!?!?!
A: Sleep.
If you need reference materials so badly at these hours and you can't be bothered to check them out, copy them when things are open, or use them online, you've been undermining yourself all semester.
Reap what you sow, 24-hour cramhogs!
None 2 years, 5 months ago
As a visiting professor I do use libraries up until they close, and on weekends, owing to being busy with teaching and meetings during the day. I find that Yale's closing hours are unusually early for a place that's said to be a research institution. Bass is open longer hours but it's not much use for research. Options like checking all of the books out are not feasible when you go through fifty to a hundred books per day mostly in the evenings. You may learn this if you go to graduate school though probably not if you go to graduate school at Yale. Undergraduate research for short papers of no more than thirty pages is no comparison.
But this article is not really about libraries or research. As earlier commenters observed, it is about not having enough study halls.
None 2 years, 5 months ago
Actually my research is all done and I would just like a good study space that doesn't have to be a research library.
None 2 years, 5 months ago
I guess you do your serious research after 2 a.m. right before that paper is due. Some serious research right there.
None 2 years, 5 months ago
Maybe a solution is to close the libraries and open study halls so there isn't the need to pay for for all that book and staffing infrastructure that no one is using.
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