M any a college student has pondered the meaning of life while holed up in some forsaken nook on campus while completing their mountain of work or a forgotten assignment. UNC students deserve a comfortable place to work at all times, weekends included.The grind never stops. Our libraries shouldn’t either.
UNC has yet to keep a library open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. While this might seem like an inconvenience hardly worth bringing up, imagine having a disgustingly large amount of work due in one weekend. On school nights, a trip to the library is not always necessary, as one’s roommates, housemates and suitemates tend to be on the same studious page. But as any student knows, Chapel Hill weekends are anything but quiet.
Two potentially crucial nights of work time when quiet space might be most scarce — Friday and Saturday — are the only two nights when the libraries are closed.
Several peer institutions already offer 24/7 library hours. Perhaps more interestingly, though, is the fact that two of our most highly recognized peer universities, the University of Virginia and Duke University, do not. Nobody would begrudge UNC for setting a high bar for these two academic rivals.
If nothing else, keeping libraries open 24/7 would be a nice selling point to prospective students.
Though some new money would be necessary, a skeleton staff would be sufficient to ensure students have a quiet space. A security guard requiring One Cards at the entrance would guard against damage by intoxicated students.
An always-open library would be a smart and relatively easy improvement to UNC’s campus.
