Jamilya Nurkanova
Conflict Story Proposal
With the beginning of the midterm week, Baruch students as well as other college students at The City University of New York will benefit from the open 24-hour libraries on their campuses. As a public college, Baruch’s William and Anita Newman Library gets most of its funding from the city. Compared to private schools and its libraries in New York City, the Newman library is open daily from 7 a.m. to midnight. Many students at Baruch feel that this needs to be changed. College students have different schedules, some take classes in the evening from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., some from 7 p.m to 10 p.m, which at the end of a school day leaves them with a few hours to study in the library. Also, as a commuter school, many Baruch students work during the day, which leads them to study at night. I think this issue is important because as students, we have the right to have a place to study that is open to us at any time. There are so many factors to consider: some students have abusive homes, where they can’t physically study; some of the households are loud and noisy, etc. While the college officials claim that a 24-hour library is not cost effective. By having less people, they can turn off heat, dim lights and save energy. It doesn’t make sense to have it open 24/7, when there are only 10-15 people in the whole building. Yashvir Soborough, senior at Baruch College says: “We go to an University. We need a place to study, to study efficiently. Regardless of the time of the day.” Another student at Baruch, writes on the forum: “I’ve always argued that CUNY’s are as good as any private school, but this is one of their shortcomings. CUNY libraries either close at 10 or 11pm.”
For this story, I would like to conduct a survey in our class, to see how many students would vote for a 24/7 library. Also, I am trying to contact the Student Government to know their thoughts on this issue and whether students have previously brought up this topic in order to fix it. And I am looking to find an official contact, who would be able to give me official and financial data, and reasons for library’s current working hours.
sources:
Yashvir S. – 201 334 7190
Henry Ma – 646 269 5027
http://wirednewyork.com/forum/showthread.php?t=15647
http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/library/about/hours.html
