Gee Library to extend hours for late night studying

Gee Library will open the first floor of its building to students wanting to study later than midnight starting in late October.

"We noticed that when we close at midnight we were having to tell people 'Hey we are closing, it's time to get up and leave,'" Director of Libraries Greg Mitchell said. "And it's not a large number but it is still a number of people there so we began to think about it."

Mitchell said many places around campus were looked at for use as a late night study hall, but Gee library was the most suitable to fit the needs of students.

"The problem with the library is that it is a huge building," he said. "It's over 140,000 square feet, and our number one concern is safety. If you are open out in the middle of the night with a great big building like that then it's very difficult to be able to control what is going on. So we began thinking of how we could limit the space and that the main thing people want is computers."

They found that installing sliding dividers like the kind found at malls would enable them to section off the first floor along with all the amenities that it contains.

"What we hit upon was a way to secure the first floor of the building," Mitchell said. "The computer lab, the walk up scanners, photocopiers, the bistro seating and study areas are there to give people a reasonable amount of stuff there."

The new hours would be Monday-Thursday open until 3 a.m. and the project is set to begin in late October so the library has time to properly add the security gates and hire additional staff.

"At midnight what we will do is clear out people on the upper floors of the library and that one area that is still 40-50000 square feet will stay open until 3 a.m." Mitchell said.