The weekend library hours could negatively affect students’ study habits and grades.
The Woodward Library is currently open from 7 a.m. to 2 a.m. Monday through Thursday. On Friday, the hours go from 19 hours to 12 hours. On Saturday and Sunday the library is only open for eight hours. This could potentially harm students who can only study when the library just so happens to be closed.
Many students do most of their studying and working on the weekends because of their busy school schedules. When someone wants a quiet place to study, the best place to do that is the Woodward Library.
The only problem with that is the fact that the library has shorter hours on the weekend, as well as having stranger times.
The library at APSU is actually open more hours per week than other universities, such as MTSU, Tennessee Tech and Belmont. Somehow, though, the library still does not seem to be open quite long enough.
Joe Weber, the director of library services, said the reasons for the library hours vary. Factors include the availability of staff, the library budget, whether or not classes are in session and most importantly, library usage.
Between Monday and Thursday the library averages around 3,800 to 4,800 visitors a day. The numbers decrease steadily on Friday and plummet to around 600 on Saturday and 1,000 on Sunday.
Although the number of students using the library decreases on the weekends, these hours could harm students who do not have any other quiet place to study when they are not working.
Students with classes that require immense amounts of studying in order to do well in the class may be at a disadvantage if they can only work from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays and they could miss out on valuable quiet time to study.
Having longer library hours could potentially give more students the chance to study in an environment that would give them fewer distractions and allow them to focus. Extending the weekend library hours could also help to accommodate more students when student availability is much more varied.
The fact of the matter is, the library should be open from morning until night every day of the week. Although the number of students on campus may be greater during the weekdays, there are still students with varying schedules.
Not every student will need to use the library to study. Not every student will need to use it in the morning or at night but the library should work to help accommodate those students whose ability to sit down and study could affect how they perform in their classes.
The library is open a large amount of time throughout the week but the weekend hours still have the potential to harm students who have only the weekend to both work and study.
