Instead of shortening its hours, Mugar Memorial Library administrators have contracted a private busing firm to shuttle students across campus when the library begins operating through the night for final exams, starting Dec. 12.
Administrators said they briefly considered canceling the 24-hour finals schedule after the university cut the late-night Escort Security van service earlier in the semester, worrying that students living far from Mugar would not be safe walking home late at night.
“It’s just very late for security liability issues,” Mugar Administrative Coordinator Cathy McLaughlin said. “You don’t want people walking home alone at that hour. Normally, we’re open to midnight, and there are no vans to take patrons home. When we’re open for 24 hours, if someone’s leaving at one, two, three in the morning, you don’t want them walking alone.”
From Dec. 12 to Dec. 19, a library-sponsored shuttle, operated by Crystal Transport, will drive students to “anywhere on BU property” from midnight to 6 a.m. The bus will pull up by the Mugar steps outside the School of Theology on Commonwealth Ave.
“They wanted to make sure there would be transportation for students who lived in the Hyatt,” said work-study student Stephanie Wood, who works at the reserve desk in Mugar.
“We all knew people would be upset if [the library was not open during finals week],” the College of Arts and Sciences senior added.
McLaughlin said because the escort service was not sponsoring a van, Mugar stepped up “so that we would make sure that everyone got home safely.”
McLaughlin said the library had to find enough money to pay for the shuttle during finals week.
“We paid for the package for that particular time slot for those days,” McLaughlin said. “I assume that we will be helped with it [financially by BU], but I don’t know.”
Dean of Students Kenneth Elmore said if the library had not arranged transportation plans for students, the university is “willing to keep the escort service going to 6 a.m. each day walking people back and forth to get them where they want to go.”
Elmore’s office now only provides a walking escort service after its van service was cut earlier this fall.
Wood said although the library’s decision to stay open all night during finals week came just yesterday, the only problems the short notice could cause are staffing shortages come Dec. 12.
“Usually, we sign up for overnight shifts at the library much earlier on, but they still didn’t know up until about [yesterday] that there were going to be overnight shifts,” she said.
Mugar is the only library on campus that will be open 24 hours during finals week. Library staff sign-up for finals week began last night, Wood said.
“I just feel there might be less people,” she said, “because some think [there still aren’t overnight hours].”