Late-night bibliophiles find new home in 24-hour UC lab

After 16 years of 24-hour service at the Ned R. McWherter Library, the learning commons now closes at midnight, leaving the University Center as the only 24-hour computer lab on campus.

Previously, the second to fourth floors of the library closed at midnight, and the first floor, the commons, was open 24 hours. Now all floors of the library close at midnight Monday through Thursday and 6 p.m. Friday.

In response, almost 700 University of Memphis students have joined a Facebook protest group, "Make the McWherter Library 24/7 again."

Susan Dalton, sophomore public relations major and member of the online group, said it would be ideal if both the library and the UC lab could stay open all night long because the UC lab is more of a social environment than a study environment.

"When I go to the library, I actually sit there and focus," Dalton said. "In the UC, I'm likely to be unproductive. There are no study rooms. It's crammed, and it's a pain to get to."

Dean of University Libraries Sylverna Ford said one of the reasons McWherter is no longer open 24 hours a day is that the UC lab has 80 computer terminals, while the first floor library commons has only 46.

Between the hours of midnight and 7 a.m., computer usage drops significantly, she said. It is more cost-effective to keep the UC open rather than the library, which Ford said was never at capacity.

"This building was never built to be a 24/7 place," Ford said of the 16-year-old library. "It's not a secure closing. We would find people wandering around on the other floors which were supposed to be closed."

Students who want to pull all-nighters can now go to the Technology Hub on the second floor of the UC, which, after 11 p.m., is only accessible through the third floor of the Zach Curlin Parking Garage.

Park said the library hasn't been as busy since the UC opened.

Freshman political science major Emma Sulkowski said that as a Richardson Towers resident, she misses the convenience of the library.

"It's inconvenient late at night," she said. "And it seems in (the UC), it's hard to find a computer sometimes."

Betsy Park, interim head of the learning commons, said about 10 students have e-mailed to tell her that the library was a better place to study than the UC.

Junior education major Dexter E. Dowell, also a member of the online group, said that on some nights, he would stay in McWherter past midnight until his 9 a.m. class started because he had so much work to get done.

"Now, I just go to the library during the day and get my work done. I went into the Tech Hub one night, and they were too loud, so I left," he said. "I was up there 15 minutes."

Sophomore anthropology major Jennifer Hooper said it's easy for her to study in the UC because there is more space.

"When the other floors closed in the library, everyone had to go to the first floor, and then it got loud," she said.

Bob Barnett, director of the UC, said students at the center are "very excited and very busy" at the moment, hosting approximately 140 events last week alone.

He said that when he has been in the Technology Hub, he has not personally witnessed anything that is distracting, but he has heard reports.

"The UC lab is designed to be a collaborative space," he said. "It's a little different, but that's no excuse for people to be distracting."