A library is a place where students can go to do research, work on a paper or simply study in a quiet environment- except Saturdays at the Pierce College Library.
But is Saturday not usually when students may be off school and work and choose to get their homework done?
Not at the Pierce Library.
What if Starbucks is too noisy and students want to find a place to meet for group study?
They can go anywhere but to the Pierce Library.
Pierce is the only one of the nine Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) colleges that does not have its library open Saturdays.
“Most of the things pull down to money,” said President Robert Garber.
“When we used to be open on Saturdays, not too many students showed up.”
David May, chairman of the Library Science Department at the Los Angeles Valley College, feels that it is essential to have the library open on Saturday.
“It is important for the colleges to keep their library open on Saturdays, even though we do not have that many students come in, just because the library is a crucial part of the school, being the resource and learning center,” said May.
“Even if it helps one student it is worth it.”
The Valley library is open 62 hours a week, even though its student enrollment stand at 16,000 compared to Pierce’s enrollment of more than 19,000 students for Spring semester.
Florence Robin, Head Librarian at Pierce feels the same way.
“I think it is a good idea to keep it open on Saturdays,” said Robin.
“Once the students get used to it and we have a regular schedule, we should have a pretty good turn out.”
According to both Garber and Robin, the college tries to put money in the places where it will be utilized most effectively.
It depends on the college’s priorities.
Are we really the most underprivileged college in the LACCD?
“If it is possible, I would definitely like to keep it open on Saturdays,” said Garber.
“It would cost from $10,000 to $15,000 to do that, though.”
Robin commented, “It is also hard to find people who want to work Saturdays.”
School officials, however, feel that instead of keeping the library open the money could be used to add more basic courses as math and English on Saturdays which would altogether benefit more students.
Garber suggested that he may take a survey of the Pierce student body to see whether they prefer having the library open on Saturdays or more Saturday classes.
This can be made possible by having the Associated Students Organization (ASO) and the library science department work together, hand in hand.
Although their hours differ from each other, each of the colleges, except Pierce, are open for at least four hours every Saturday.
The ASO pays to keep the library open on the finals weekend during both the spring and the fall semester.
“They pay about $1500 for keeping it open during finals,” said Robins.
This amount is not enough to keep it open, it takes about $1,800 to run the library during weekends for those two weeks.
Once again, we are stuck in a box, where no one except the student body itself can be the decision maker of what is right and what the priorities are.
Recently, the college has been trying to have more of the Monday and Wednesday classes available on Saturdays.
This may attract more students to come to school and thus, make more use of the facilities.
Speaking of facilities, why should the Learning Center and the Copy Tech not be open on Saturdays?
A lot of the students do not have a laptop or a computer at home and would appreciate it if they could come to school to research and type up their papers on their day off.
The Freudian Sip is open until 12 noon on Saturday to support the ‘food crisis’ that students may come across.
If all the facilities were open on Saturdays at least for a few hours, this would bring more students in.
It makes it easier to take Saturday classes if the ‘class’ itself is not the only activity going on at school that day.
The advertisements about the library receiving new books and having workshops to let the students know about the ‘wealth of resources available in the library’ should not be advertised only at the library itself.
Have the advertisements posted all over school to make sure students know that ‘Yes, the library is open’ or ‘Yes, the library will be here to help you research your paper.’
Whenever there is a big game or an ASO activity there are banners in bright colors throughout the school that inform us about what it is that they are doing.
Why not do the same for ‘library events’?
Perhaps if the students were informed properly they would show up on Saturdays.
ASO has a ‘Publicity Committee’ to help get these posters and advertisements posted.
Take a student survey if you have to.
Try to make an effort to learn the students’ wants and needs- we do have more than 19,000 of them, after all- and then to satisfy them.
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