Otterbein students will need to find a new late-night study spot after Courtright Memorial Library announced shorter hours at the start of the fall semester due to being understaffed.
The library will close two hours earlier on Monday through Thursday, making the new hours 7:45 a.m. to 10 p.m. instead of 7:45 a.m. to 12 a.m. Friday’s hours are staying the same from 7:45 a.m. to 6 p.m. On Saturday, the library will open 30 minutes later at 12:30 p.m. and close an hour earlier at 5 p.m. On Sunday, it will still open at 3 p.m., but it will close five hours earlier at 7 p.m.
“Last year, I used the library almost every day. After practice, I would go from seven to midnight,” said sophomore nursing major Grace Dziatkowicz. “I haven’t gone at all this year because with all my classes and practice right after, I only can go later. Since I can’t go anymore, I just do my homework in my room.”
The library decided to change the hours after it couldn’t find a graduate student to hire for the graduate intern position. “We have a currently open, unfilled graduate intern position with the library that is an essential position for the evening and late-night hours in the library,” said Rebecca Gale, the circulation manager.
“The position is currently posted on Otterbein HR’s career webpage and has been posted there for several months. Individuals that are eligible for that position, the eligibility requirements are in the job posting itself, can apply for the position there. Right now, we are accepting Antioch grad students in specific programs, and the exact programs we match with are in the job posting as well.”
It will take time to get the hours back to what they were last year once a graduate intern is hired. “It would not be an immediate switch back to the midnight hours due to the onboarding and training that goes into having someone work the late-night hours," Gale said.
"We would also need to rearrange our undergrad students' schedule, because right now, those students are scheduled for the shortened hours and we would need to make sure that we have adequate undergraduate student staffing in the night hours as well, so it might take a couple of weeks to get those schedules redesigned to fit any expanded hours, but it is the library’s goal to return to as close to what we had last year as soon as possible.”
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