At the end of the Spring 2024 semester, the Library announced a change in its operating hours due to students’ low usage during late hours. However, beginning Fall 2024, it was decided that the hours would remain the same, and the Library would continue to close at 11 p.m.

The initial cut in hours was made due to an anticipated budget due to the state cuts, Janet Crum, the newly appointed dean of library services, said in a statement.

The budget has not been increased or changed, leaving the Fresno State Library with a big question mark on how it’ll pay for the restored hours.

“Some of that work [to keep the library open longer] actually is still in progress,” Crum said.

The library does not have its budget yet, which academic services typically receive in October.

The cut-off at 8 p.m. was determined by an assessment that counted the number of students who utilized the library and its services during different times of the day.

Lisa Bell, Fresno State public information officer, stated that the assessment was made through the gate counter on how many people entered and exited the library during operating hours during the Fall 2023 and Spring 2024 semesters.

During the Fall 2023 semester, the peak of students visiting the library would happen at 11 a.m. on Wednesdays, reaching 15,619 students on average. Throughout the week, on average, 2,080 students used the library during 7 p.m. and would drop to 1,521 by 8 p.m.

During the Spring 2024 semester, there was an average of 3,641 students using the library throughout the week at 7 p.m. That number dropped to 2,656 at 8 p.m.

President Saúl Jiménez-Sandoval acknowledged the state budget cuts in his speech at the 2024 Faculty and Staff Assembly on Aug. 20.

“Why is the CSU so prone to budgetary challenges?” Jiménez-Sandoval said. “We do not have a secured line budget item. Our budget is discretionary and this often leads to unpredictable and inadequate funding.”

Jiménez-Sandoval dissected the California Education Master Plan of 1960. The different colleges in the state are divided into three tiers.

• The University of California (UC) system has a constitutionally mandated budget because it has been a public trust university since 1879.
• The CSU receives discretionary funding, which can fluctuate year-to-year.
• The California Community College (CCC) is a part of Proposition 98, making its funds constitutionally mandated.

In an interview with The Collegian, Crum shared that students took their concerns about the library decreasing its hours to the president, who asked them to adjust their hours back to what they were.

Jiménez-Sandoval said that he is committed to listening to student concerns and met with ASI President Faith Van Hoven, who shared that students had been taking their thoughts on the new library hours to ASI leadership.

Crum is a first-generation college graduate and holds a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of the Pacific and a master’s degree in library science from the University of Washington.

“My personal opinion is that libraries saved me when I was a child,” Crum said. “I would not be in this chair having this conversation with you as the dean of the library if it wasn’t for the teeny tiny public library in my hometown.”

Crum said she believes deeply in the power of higher education, which is why she plans to target multiple goals in her first year. She wants to listen and learn, collaborate with staff and students to create a 3-5 year plan on the vision of the library and shift the financial budget in the right direction.

To cut back on expenses, Crum shared that the Library is currently in a hiring freeze, so if someone were to leave, their position would stay vacated. She also mentioned looking into possibly trimming student hours and that any potential changes would be “carefully assessed to balance student needs, operational efficiency and fiscal responsibility.”

The “two big pots” of money in a library budget, according to Crum, are the staff and the funds that are used for acquiring library resources. There is only a small amount of money that is used to pay for the building and supplies.

“With my experience, over 30 years as a librarian, our collection budget is quite small for an institution this size,” Crum said.

The library’s budget for 2023-24 was $7,887,153, with actual expenditures of $7,569,753. San Jose State University, a CSU and fellow Mountain West contender, had a total budget of $6,215,431 during the same year.

Crum said that she has been meeting with multiple development specialists to create projects and collaborations across different colleges that could attract financial support. She wants to learn how to get endowments to create a “sustainable base” that produces funds yearly as opposed to one-time donations.