In nearly three years under the leadership of director Rodney Lippard, UCA’s Torreyson Library has undergone many changes, including the addition of the sensory lounge, Crafty Hour and the end of its 24/7 service.

Lippard said the number of students staying late, as well as their objectives, didn’t warrant continuing the 24-hour service.

“Last year, we studied the 24 hours,” Lippard said. “We looked at the usage again, being

data-informed. We looked to see how many people were in here overnight. We did a survey of

people who were in here overnight as to what their needs were and things of that nature. And as

people left, I did not fill those positions.”

The student survey lasted from Feb. 26, 2024, to March 1, 2024. During the survey times,

students in the library were given a tablet that included a Google form.

According to a presentation to the UCA library committee, “The intention was to survey

students utilizing the library during the overnight hours, but a link to the survey posted on social

media increased participation and opened responses to students outside the library overnight

hours. The results were in line with other statistical data that we collect regularly.”

According to the survey results, campus wifi, study rooms, study space, group meeting space

and printing were primarily voted as extremely useful. Students chose from three different options, those being extremely useful, very useful, and somewhat useful. Campus wifi secured 168 student votes for extremely useful, 71 votes for very useful and 11 votes for somewhat useful. Study rooms and study space received 164 votes for extremely useful and 12 votes for somewhat useful, however, the two categories showed a one-point difference in very useful, with study rooms receiving 75 very useful votes and study space receiving 74 very useful votes. Group meeting had 148 extremely useful votes, 76 very useful votes and 21 somewhat useful votes. Printing received 147 extremely useful votes, 78 very useful votes and 22 somewhat useful votes. Desktop computers received 116 extremely useful votes, 82 very useful votes and 40 somewhat useful votes.

Other library resources such as books, textbooks and laptops didn’t have nearly as positive

results.

Laptops had 97 extremely useful votes, 71 very useful votes and 47 somewhat useful votes. Library resources such as books, journals and microforms received 74 extremely useful votes, 60 very useful votes and 61 somewhat useful votes. Finally, textbooks garnered 68 extremely useful votes, 57 very useful votes and 64 somewhat useful votes. 

Emily Cartwright, library technician for Access Services, said that textbooks are checked out more often than you’d expect.

Cartwright said, “The textbooks are probably one of our most popular things, including

calculators.”

Although extremely useful continued to be the frontrunner for these categories, they were fairly close to somewhat useful. Total votes from each category ranged from 189 votes to 251 votes.

Lippard said, “It wasn’t really library needs that they had during that time, it was more of

a place.”

However, junior Eric Montoya said, “The library being open as a third place after work hours was a boon I cherish, especially during times when I didn’t have technology at my disposal to ensure

consistent work done in my classes.”

Junior Casey Thurman said, “I’ve always used the library, especially for printing or when

I’ve needed to hit crunch time and a project. Having the 24/7 was super useful and helped me

out more times than I could count.”

According to the library committee, throughout October 2023 Torreyson tracked the number

of students using the library, as well as what times students were entering and leaving the

building during late night hours.

Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. was the most popular check-in time. On Wednesday at that time, an average of close to 80 students would enter the building, whereas Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday would range from 50 to 60 students. 

12 a.m. was the second most popular check-in time, ranging up to F20 students throughout the week. Thursday was the most popular 7 a.m. check-in time, while Tuesday was the most popular midnight check-in time. Tuesday and Thursdays would see 50-60 students leaving at midnight, Wednesdays and Fridays saw just over 40 students leaving at midnight, and Monday saw under 40 students leaving at midnight. 7 a.m. was the second most popular check-out time on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Student averages would range from just over 20 students on Wednesday and Friday to under 40 on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. However, 1 a.m. was the second most popular check-out time on Wednesday at around 30 to 40 students.

Cartwright said, “I think most of the people that were in here overnight seem to be ok

with the change in hours. I think it’s probably the idea of the building not being open — like

when you might need it, is kind of a scary thing.”

Junior Preston Moody said, “I have actually seen real-time effect of this change in not

only my workflow but my work results. I can see my quality of work decreasing because I don’t

have the space needed for me to be able to perform at my highest potential.”

According to the presentation, throughout October 2023, an average of 42 students

were in the library at 1 a.m., 15 students were in the library at 3 a.m., 12 students were in the

library at 5 a.m. and 11 students were in the library at 7 a.m.

Since the ending of the 24-hour service, Torreyson Library has also cut back on how

many employees are working at a time.

“We had three different shifts of people, with four people on each shift, and as people

have left, we’ve reduced those to just three people on each shift,” Lippard said.

One of Torreyson’s major changes due to budgeting has been the cutting of several positions.

“The library has lost positions over the years as well, so what we do, again, is as people

leave, we look at what our needs are and how can we best fill those needs,” Lippard said.

Two to three of the recent cuts were overnight positions.

“We were able to do that [end 24-hour service] without having anybody lose their job,

which that’s very important to me,” Lippard said.

Cartwright said, “It [the library] has been easier for us to manage, especially just like

keeping the whole building open for these extra seven hours can be tricky to coordinate.”

While Lippard had difficulty filling the positions, one of the decisions to end the 24-hour

service was because of cost.

Lippard said, ”There’s the direct cost of the staff. So when you look at the salaries for

that overnight position and the fringe benefits with that, that’s one cost. But then there’s the

indirect costs, which you don’t necessarily think about for an institution being open 24 hours.

You know, there’s the heating, there’s the air, there’s electricity, the plumbing, all of those kinds

of costs.

“But then our books on the shelves. You know, if you go to find a book in the stacks, you

look for it by call number, right? You go by and see what the call number is,” he said. “Well,

when you’ve got the lights on 24 hours a day, for five days a week, it’s like having the sun, so

this number starts to fade and you can’t see it then. So that’s no good if you can’t find the book on the shelf. So we have to go and pull the books and relabel them.”

Torreyson Library had a total budget of $3.59 million during the 2019-2020 school year, only for it to plummet to $2.80 million during the 2020-2021 school year. Since then, the library’s budget has gradually increased, with the October 2023-2024 revised budget being $3.16 million.

One of the recent additions that Lippard is most proud of is Torreyson’s online chat service.

“We have now instigated around-the-clock chat with the librarian service,” Lippard said.

“So that’s 24/7, you can get online and chat with a degreed, professional librarian. It’s not a

chatbot, it’s an actual person on the other end.”

The company that Torreyson has partnered with is Chat Staff, a North Carolina-based company that supplies libraries with online librarians.

“The librarians on the other end have access to everything that we have access to, so they know which databases we offer, what our services are. So if you are writing a research paper and you have questions about help with finding resources, you can get on there and chat

with them anytime, day or night,” Lippard said.

A major library change that Lippard introduced was the study room booking system. 

Lippard said, “We’ve moved to booking our study rooms, which I know some people had

some issues with that. But in the long run, it makes it more equitable for all of our students, so

that everybody has an opportunity to have a study room available for them. People aren’t just

occupying it for a whole day at a time.”

Another recent addition to the library has been Crafty Hour, a weekly event that allows students to destress with Legos, puzzles and more.

“Tomorrow [February 4] is our first time starting it [Crafty Hour] back this semester, and we’ve already had people asking about it. ‘When is that going to be happening again?’”

The Torreyson sensory lounge — located on the first floor in room 117 — is available to

all UCA students, offering a quiet, atmospheric location to study and relax in. The room contains

a variety of different seating, including Mood pod bean bag chairs, a rocking chair, lounge chairs

with privacy screens and more. The room also has many fidget items and equipment such as a

white noise machine.

Lippard and the library team also recently designed a new mission statement for

Torreyson.

The Torreyson website states, “Torreyson Library, in alignment with UCA’s mission,

fosters an environment of open inquiry by providing services, collections, and spaces that

ensure equitable access to knowledge while building a community that values and practices a

dialogue of reflective discovery and thoughtful use of information.”

Even with the added resources that Lippard has brought to Torreyson, the library

continues to struggle with gaining the attention of students.

“The issue with libraries — and this is any library I’ve ever been to — [Torreyson]

offer a lot of things, but people don’t always know about what we offer,” Lippard said.

Although Torreyson markets itself through signage, Instagram and Facebook, it’s

continuing to look for ways to engage students.

“We are looking at our services and the services that we offer, and how we might offer

those in better ways to students,” Lippard said. “So, for example, our reference services, are we reaching people the way we should? Or is there some way that we could help students with

reference in different ways? So we talked about doing videos online to help with certain things,

just tutorials that people could get to easily quickly. We are always looking to improve the library,

the atmosphere, the look of the physical nature of the library, to make sure it’s always

welcoming.”

Several projects that Lippard dreams of include replacing the library’s furniture with more

customizable options, offering more study spaces and replanning the location of several library

services.

“This is a great building, but it was a building that was built for libraries in the past,” Lippard said.

Although Lippard has plenty of ideas for the library, they aren’t achievable without the budget needed.

“Our costs go up every year, even if everything stayed the same, our cost for our databases usually go from 4% to 6% increase every year. So that’s databases alone. That’s not, you know, supplies and things of that nature.”

Lippard said Torreyson constantly evaluates what resources are and aren’t needed,

and where the library can cut back.

“Do we still need this? Is it relevant?” Lippard said. “Are there other resources that would work better, that may not cost as much, or are there new programs that need to be supported that we’re not currently supporting?

“Every year, we may cut some things and bring in other things. So, for example, we have

a database that we have been paying for the full text, the full complement of that database; we

need to make some cuts. It wasn’t being used as much as other databases, but they offered

where we could not subscribe to the full database, but we could use what they call tokens to get

to articles as we need them. So we ended up doing that which cost us less in the long run, but

still kept that access available,” Lippard said.

Despite budgetary restraints, Lippard has continued to look for ways to give Torreyson an extra boost in funding, such as grants and other means.

“Since I’ve been here, we actually started a library support fund that people can contribute to during the day of giving that was not ever done before,” Lippard said.