Access Services Interest Group

Hello, 

I would like to get some feedback from 24-hour libraries and your staffing structure within Access Services. 
How many staff do you have to keep the building open and provide services? Do you have full-time workers overnight? What is your student worker to full-time staff ratio? 

Prior to the pandemic two of our branches were 24/7 and we would staff the library all night with library employees. I think there were 4 employees at each building and their weekends were staggered. We would try to have 3/assigned per night because illnesses/absences happened quite often and we tried to avoid leaving one person alone all night.  Though that would happen still since there was a little more turnover on overnight, so staying fully staffed was a struggle. I worked evenings at the time and would on occasion stay til 2AM to help out if someone was going to be alone all night. There was a push to always have the desk staffed by someone. Students were sometimes scheduled from say midnight-2am, or 5-8am, to give staff breaks from the desk, but that varied with budget since overnight shifts for students got premium pay and our student budget was always tight. 

Now one branch is 24/7 but only staffed until midnight since it's in another department's building we let them worry about having overnight staff. The other is 24/5 and we have two guest service specialists from midnight-8am the five days we are open all night. They are basically an unarmed employee of our campus and public safety department. They are not trained in library procedures, just do walk throughs, give directions, and notify campus police if there is an emergency. This library is near downtown so drunk students will wander in sometimes because it's a safe space to pass out or use the bathroom. They just close the desk for their breaks/walk throughs now if someone is out. 

Hello, 

I would like to get some feedback from 24-hour libraries and your staffing structure within Access Services. 
How many staff do you have to keep the building open and provide services? Do you have full-time workers overnight? What is your student worker to full-time staff ratio?