It’s a complaint that we’ve heard voiced by countless students over and over again: Why isn’t the library open more hours? The answer, of course, is that times are tough, and the budget is tight. 

The folks up the hill in Keane do their best every year to ensure that annual increases in tuition are minimal, and in that regard they’ve been very successful, in spite of the recession. Students should appreciate the fact that the annual increase of their Loras tuition generally is dwarfed by that of similar-sized colleges year after year. In order to maintain this, the school naturally needs to cut costs wherever possible. While we at the Lorian certainly understand this, we feel that the last place to be affected by budget concerns should be the library, and the hours it is kept open. And we make this complaint only because we feel that it reflects the sentiment of the majority of the student body. 

The hours during the week are pretty reasonable: 7:45 a.m. to midnight Monday through Wednesday, and 7:45 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Thursday (though those of us who are seniors remember when it used to be open past midnight on weekdays). The main issue arises on the weekend. The library closes at 3 p.m. on Friday, and is only open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday. This is a problem, as the weekend is perhaps the time when students need the library most. 

The residence halls are generally noisy and full of excitement on Fridays after class, and students looking to get a head-start on their homework and studying for the weekend are at a big disadvantage. The library would be an ideal escape where studious students could be productive away from the distraction of their roommates and neighbors, but unfortunately it is closed by the time some get out of class. With no library to head to after class on Friday, and the doors closing just an hour after brunch ends on Saturday, students are much more inclined to just start the weekend early and put everything off until Sunday. The current library hours encourage and facilitate procrastination, and students certainly do fall into this undesirable pattern as a result.

Now, the standard argument on the part of the school is that the number of students who use the library on Friday and Saturday is so miniscule that more hours are just not warrented, because hardly anyone would utilize them. But stop and think about it: how many students are realistically going to use the library and get settled into a productive state of mind, when they know that it is just going to close in a short time? That is why this argument does not hold water; many students would use the library after class on Friday if only it were open into the evening. And as students like to sleep in on Saturday, and then go to brunch, of course they are not going to head to the library afterward, when it will only be open for an hour or so after they arrive. 

The library hours during J-Term are another issue entirely, and the appropriate space cannot be devoted to discussing this issue in this editorial. But we will just mention that the library closed each day during the week before some classes got out. Even students enrolled in the earliest classes had no more than one or two hours after class to get in there if they wanted. And it was hardly open during the weekend at all. This handcuffed students in a big way, especially with regard to research projects. 

This is an inconvenience that students should not have to deal with. While there are many aspects of Loras College that make the students’ experience an incredible and unforgettable one, to which significant funds must be devoted — such as athletics, or the aesthetic beauty of the campus and constant modernization and maintenance that goes along with it — the most important is the academic aspect, and this is what suffers when library hours are cut. Even if most students do not want to be there on a Friday or Saturday, the ones who do should not have to pay the price for their classmates’ decision, which is exactly what is happening now. If the school were to significantly extend the library hours, especially on the weekends, we are confident that they would be rewarded by seeing more students taking advantage of that excellent academic resource.

— The Lorian staff