A crowded library: should we switch to access passes?

Students of secondary schools and higher professional education: they’re not really desired guests in the University Library, but they seem to visit regularly. This issue has been brought up in a complaint submitted to the University Council.

Cataline Sinnige, member of the University Council, explains: “When the major programmes are not preparing for exams, it should be quieter in the UL, but in reality, it’s always totally full. And that’s because others are using the UL, such as secondary school students. You can tell which ones they are by the textbooks they carry – ones we remember from our own days in secondary school. EUR students are annoyed when students from secondary schools and universities of applied science use the already limited space.”

The question is whether Erasmus University should work with passes to control who has access to the library. Leiden and Groningen universities already work this way, for example. But according to Matthijs van Otegem, director of the UL, the library itself hasn’t received any complaints: “It is indeed very busy during exams, but we have no plans to actively keep other students out of the UL. Then we’d have to implement checks, such as showing your student card upon entry, and our own students would suffer under this measure as well. Moreover, it isn’t how we want to treat each other: should forgetting your student card mean you can’t get into the UL?!”

Students upset by the crowds during peak hours are, since 1 January 2015, welcome to work in the library until 12:00 a.m. Otegem comments: “We can’t fit any more chairs in, but we are open longer hours.” NB