Last Day

How can this semester be over already? We just started only a few weeks ago. But here we are in the thick flurry of activity as students make a mad dash to the finish line. On the final week of class, when exams and papers are all due, we find more students in the building than ever before. Though we extend our closing hour from midnight to 1am, there are still tons of students in here until the last possible second. The evening building person has to repeatedly encourage people to leave.

It won't last though. In past years, there was great activity on Monday and Tuesday, petering away on Wednesday and by Friday, basically nothing going on. Last year and this year, the activity goes straight through Thursday and on into Friday morning at least. By the afternoon, we are down to a handful of students who have the misfortune of being scheduled for an exam on a Friday afternoon.

It's rather like running full bore towards a goal line, only to discover once you reach it that you have run over the edge of a cliff. Now what? The running part has ended, but you have to get your bearings, turn yourself upright, and set off in a different direction. For us, in the library, that means summer projects - doing all those things we cannot do during the semester, but that make the semester run smoothly. So we will plan it out, and hit the ground running. At least, that's the idea.