Testing later hours is critical to permanent change at a university library. Not every student works best at night. It is important to consider how each individual closing time impacts students. A student may be a commuter who has to work a paid shift and finish at 6. She has a very short window of time to find a workspace to study. There are students who live in very crowded or noisy situations (families, roommates) who also may need the library to study. Access to the library may be a matter of practical opportunity more so than preference.

Extended library hours has costs as well. There are trade offs to keeping the library open. Security, staff, and utilities cannot be infinite resources. Keeping the library open for only a small number of patrons during off-hours is a poor use of resources that could be used for other services during the day. Students who study and work during off hours also face an increased, and possibly less reliable, safety risk while traveling to and from the library. A proposal to keep library resources open for extended hours leaves many questions. Who would use the extended hours? What would it cost? Could a smaller supervised study area fulfill the need?

A pilot study could help answer these questions. For six weeks, the library could keep a study floor open until midnight on two weekdays. During this time, the library should collect data and give people the opportunity to provide anonymous feedback. The observations might help determine if the library is reaching students who are unable to find a place on campus to study due to commuting or work conflicts. The observations also might help determine if the service is meeting the needs of disabled students. Other considerations should be the staff’s experience, the cost of an additional staffed hour, and the effect of the extended service on other students (e.g., disruption, noise).

The effect of the extended service on staff also should be considered, as there likely will be additional requests for service (e.g., early opening, bookable evenings, improved access to online materials, and other reasonable alternatives). Extending service during assessment periods also should be considered. To ease disruption and cost, a smaller evening service may be more appropriate. This approach takes student access seriously while acknowledging there should be flexibility in library policy based on evidence.