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Fondren extends hours

By Jocelyn Wright     9/11/08 7:00pm

Students seeking a quiet place to work on Friday and Saturday nights can now avail themselves of Fondren Library's new hours. Fondren will now be open an additional two hours Friday and Saturday as part of a pilot program that will continue through the fall semester. The library will now be open from noon on Sunday to midnight on Friday and from 9 a.m. to midnight on Saturday. Fondren will keep its normal facilities open during its new evening hours, Vice Provost and University Librarian Sara Lowman said. Like on any normal weekday night, two staff members will be on duty and the hours of the reference staff will not change.

Lowman said the discussion to change Fondren's hours started after the Student Advisory Council, made up of eight students from the Student Association, said students wanted the library to be open later on Friday and Saturday nights. An SA poll last spring asked if students would use the library if it were open until midnight on Fridays and Saturdays. Over 50 percent of the students polled said they would.

The extended hours went into effect last weekend. Lowman said she believes numerous students took advantage of the new schedule. She said Fondren staff will be keeping track of the number of people who leave the library between 10 p.m. and midnight on Fridays and Saturdays to see if students continue to use the program.



Assistant University Librarian for Information Technology Diane Butler said if this pilot program proves successful, it will be extended through next spring as well.

Lowman said the library's hours were not extended earlier due to staffing complications. She said most of the library's staff already works 40-hour weeks, making extending their hours complicated. However, Lowman said these costs are of small importance as long as students frequent Fondren.

"It's not a significant expense," Lowman said. "We're just paying for staff, power and other operational expenses when the building is open. As long as people use [the extended hours], I think it's justified."

Grant Anderson, a religious studies graduate student, said he thinks the new hours are a good idea.

"It sounds like a good thing that provides more jobs for students and lets kids study later," Anderson said. "For myself, if there's a deadline, and I'm writing a paper, it would be nice to be able to stay until 12 [midnight]."

Although Will Rice College freshman Hermann Paird said he thinks the extended hours are a good idea, he doubts many people will take advantage of them.

"At a certain point, you have to relax or you go nuts," Paird said. "But as long as one kid uses [the extended hours], it's worth it, and somebody will use it."

In addition to extending library hours, Butler said she and the Student Advisory Council are working on setting up a student lounge on Fondren's fourth floor. Currently, the lounge has chairs and vending and coffee machines. Butler said they are working to paint the room and to add more power strips for studying purposes.

The Student Advisory Council will reconvene in October. Butler said she is trying to find out other things students would like to see in Fondren.

"We will probably be doing something in the area of research," Butler said. "Students last year said they would like to have more research assistants."

Butler said any students interested in participating should send her an e-mail at diane@rice.edu.



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