By Masudur rahman

Senior Reporter

The study habits survey recently conducted by Oakland University Student Congress could possibly influence a decision to extend Kresge Library hours.

Jarrett Schlaff, student services director of OUSC, said the purpose of the survey was to see if there was a need for students to use the library or other campus facilities beyond the current available hours.

The survey, conducted online and in person, concluded on Tuesday, Nov. 27. It asked students when and where they study most on campus.

But it didn’t ask whether students would like to see the Kresge hours extended, in fear of influencing the answers and invalidating the results of the survey in the eyes of the library administration.

“We didn’t want to skew the data,” Schlaff said.

If students knew the survey was looking to see if there was a need to extend library hours, they may have said they would use the library during the hypothetical extended hours even if they didn’t plan on actually doing so, he said.

Schlaff said 478 students participated in the survey. The results of the survey will be released later.

He said the survey generally shows that there is a need for extended hours of campus facilities because students often study when those facilities are closed.

Schlaff said he is working on a proposal directed to the library administration to extend the library hours during certain times through future semesters, especially during and before finals. Details of the proposal will also be released after it is presented.

The library administration has not seen the survey results or proposal yet, but dean of the library, Julie Voelck, said she is interested in seeing them.

“I would also like to see the methodology of their data collection,” Voelck said.

She said the increased library budget necessary to keep the library open 24 hours a day, due to the need to staff more employees, is not the only obstacle.

She said that because of the way the library is built makes it impossible to have it stay open 24/7 because of fire codes. The only way to keep the library open 24/7 would be build a new partitioned-off area adjacent to library, from which the main library can’t be accessed, to keep accordance with fire code.

But this would be expensive, and the library does not have the plans for this currently.

She said extending the library hours based on survey results is a possibility, but that the library would need to see a strong student interest before deciding to pay the increased cost.

She said the library keeps track of how many people utilize the facility, and that it is typically underused during late hours.