As a dyed-in-the-wool procrastinator, I can proudly say I almost never do my homework while the sun is shining. Indeed, it seems like the only time I can really buckle down and get to work is at night, preferably 12 hours or fewer before the assignment I’m working on is due. Maybe this is because I’m lazy, or maybe I subconsciously enjoy the thrill of racing against the clock to complete my grammar homework before class, like an episode of “24” with gerund phrases. I don’t think I’m alone here. I doubt many of my classmates are strangers to the “all-nighter,” that fabled nocturnal orgy of academia and Red Bull that often makes up for many weeks of skipped classes and neglected textbooks. Procrastination and late-night cramming sessions may not be the most logical way to approach one’s college education, but if all college students incorporated logic and careful consideration into everything they did, there would be no need for a University Health Center or a Department of Public Safety.
Therefore, it’s to all our benefits that Knight Library is now open 24 hours a day. The ASUO is funding the library’s extended hours on a provisional basis and will analyze the number of students who make use of the library late into the night to determine whether it’s worthwhile to keep these hours in the future. Even if the number of students using the library at night doesn’t match the daytime numbers, I still feel the extended hours are worthwhile because of what they offer to the University community. Like a 7-11 that sells knowledge or the world’s lamest nightclub, the largest library on campus now maintains the same night-owl schedule as most of its patrons.
Granted, I say this as someone who doesn’t use the library very much at all. While the library is a great place to do homework and study, I prefer to do these things at my apartment because, unlike the library, my apartment supplies free food and a private bathroom that I know a homeless person hasn’t slept in. Furthermore, I have yet to reach the point in my education where my classes require me to use a stronger source of research than Wikipedia, so I don’t need the library to make use of its books or archives. Despite this, on the few occasions I’ve been in the library late at night, I’ve seen 20 to 30 students hard at work on the first floor alone. If this service remains available, I get the idea that more students will start to take advantage of it, and perhaps feel safer procrastinating more.
My reasons for wanting the library to stay open all night may not be conventional. I don’t have a color printer. The Internet access my apartment complex provides tends to fail at inopportune times. But sometimes, my neighbors party a little too hard and I like to know there’s a quiet place to study should I realProxy-Connection: keep-alive
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need it. The library is the center of knowledge and academe on campus, and as such it should be open to suit the needs of its patrons, many of whom don’t necessarily study between 7 a.m. and midnight. This is why the 24-hour library is important to me: While I don’t use it all the time, there are occasions when I truly do require its services, and knowing it’s open all night gives me a certain sense of security. Armed with the knowledge the library will always be there for me, I’m free to procrastinate to my heart’s content – in the long run, it might not be helpful for my study habits, but at the moment it feels like the greatest thing in the world.
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