The word “busy” can be found in the dictionaries at the Robert E. Kennedy Library. Or, students can always just look around to see the word in action because winter quarter finals are coming, and the library staff is preparing for the rush.
University librarian Anna Gold has seen the action firsthand.
“During dead week in the fall, we had almost 10,000 visitors here each day vying for 2,000 seats in the library,” Gold said.
Students complained on this year’s Student Library Advisory Council survey that finding space to study in the library during finals was a problem, said council adviser and architecture librarian Jesse Vestermark. Vestermark received student input from 915 survey participants; 83 percent of students said they use Robert E. Kennedy Library during finals week, and 61 percent said they use it three or more times during finals week, he said.
“The 17 percent of students who said they ‘never’ use the library during finals said it was because of scarcity of space,” Vestermark said.
Gold and the library staff said they know that space is an issue.
“As anyone who’s been here during finals knows, we don’t have enough room for all the students who want to study here,” Gold said.
The library makes changes during the finals period to hold the additional students.
“We’re always looking for ways to support students with the resources we have, like bringing in 100 extra chairs or opening up library meeting rooms in the evenings,” Gold said.
In addition to more seating, Robert E. Kennedy Library also offers extra services to students.
“We partner with counseling services to make it easy for students to find out how to get help during a tough time,” Gold said. “For instance, when students check out a book during dead week, we put bookmarks with counseling services information in between the pages. We also put free, healthy snacks out at the front desk.”
College of Liberal Arts librarian Brett Bodemer is head of the library’s research help service and knows the positive effect this can have on students.
“Finding the right information can save precious time,” he said. “It can help students earn a better grade, too.”
The demand for the librarian services tapers off dramatically during dead week and finals as students focus more on studying for exams than doing research papers and projects, Bodemer said.
Librarians contribute to students’ well-being by modeling calmness and friendliness as they understand the burden of finals-induced stress, Bodemer said. They put emphasis on offering a supportive manner to help alleviate that.
The demand for more electrical outlets and wireless services increases with a large number of students studying in the library. The library staff works year-round to satisfy students’ needs. Library Information Technology director Dale Kohler said he makes sure the library is ready for this demand.
“We keep adding more electrical outlets and monitoring the use of our wireless network,” Kohler said. “Dead week and finals really push our power and wireless to the max, and we’re always working to increase our capacity.”
The library’s Information Technology Services staff has also installed 40 additional wireless access points, Kohler said. They plan to configure and turn them on this weekend. This will give students the bandwidth they need during finals as well as throughout the school year.
More help is needed during finals weeks because of the longer hours, but the library doesn’t add any employees to the staff.
“I wish we had more staff to work during dead week and finals,” Gold said.
The hours, however, do increase.
Robert E. Kennedy Library closes at midnight instead of 6 p.m. on Friday and Saturday before finals, Gold said, but the staff stretches their hours and workload to make it happen.
“We appreciate that our library student assistants also help make those extra hours possible,” Gold said.
Julian’s Patisserie will also have extended hours until midnight during dead week and finals.
“We do whatever we can to make students feel welcome so they can be productive and focused during a really stressful time,” Gold said. “All hands are on deck to stretch every bit of floor space, furniture, computer access — everything — to the max.”
This article was written by Lacey O’ Connor.
This article originally stated that Anna Gold was the university librarian since 2008. She has been on the library staff since 2008 and was promoted from associate dean to university librarian in 2011. It also stated that Library Information Technology installed the 40 extra wireless access points, when Information Technology Services was responsible for installing them.