Library opening hours

Many of you have contacted us because the university libraries have shortened their opening hours. Of course, we are very sorry about this and are working to have the opening hours reversed.

For this, we would first like to provide you with background information:

It was only in 2017 that the library’s opening hours were extended on the initiative of stuvus. The additional costs incurred by additional security staff were financed by quality assurance funds. These are funds from the state that are explicitly intended for studying and teaching and can be distributed in part by us students.

The strategy agreed with the university was that stuvus would provide funding for this on a trial basis. Should the opening hours be accepted accordingly, permanent funding was to be negotiated. Based on the positive evaluation, the university was then asked to assume the costs. In discussions with the university, there was a promise in 2019 that the funding can be taken over completely by the university from 2020.

Unfortunately, after the promises were made, no corresponding implementation was initiated. 

Due to the corona pandemic and the resulting closure of the libraries, the issue did not come up again until 2022, when we were surprisingly asked to continue to finance the costs despite our stated commitment. Unfortunately, based on the commitments, we had not budgeted for additional funding for the extended hours and therefore cannot provide the funding.

Since then, stuvus representatives have been in discussions with various people within the universities to keep the libraries open. Most recently, funding was secured until the end of March 2023, but a follow-on solution could not be found. This is because there is no agreement on who within the university must provide the finances for this. Indeed, these additional costs coincide with high additional costs due to increased energy prices, which has necessitated some budget cuts.

Ultimately, due to unresolved funding for the coming months and years, the University Library has decided to reduce opening hours back to pre-2017 levels. This is something we deeply regret.

Because we believe that study should be a high priority at a university, we are currently advocating to reverse this cut.

Feel free to write us your opinion about this in the comments: To what extent does the cut limit you? To what extent can you switch to other learning opportunities such as study rooms or institute workrooms and libraries?