CUNY libraries are frequently used among students for leisure activities such as napping, chatting with friends or watching Netflix shows. 

However, students still rely on the library as a part of their overall college success. 

“I use the books all the time. The library is everything to me,” said Savannah Castillo, a junior at CUNY Hunter College studying women and gender studies. 

Forty percent of CUNY’s students that come from households with annual incomes lower than $20,000 may choose not to register for courses that require expensive textbooks with the possibility of failing or withdrawing because they cannot afford the materials, stated by the CUNY Libraries’ Open Educational Resource website. 

“The library gives me a place to sleep if I’m super exhausted,” said Julia Kogai, a sophomore majoring in English at CUNY Baruch. 

Between commuting to her part-time job and to campus, Kogai said there’s no time for her to travel home to sleep. 

Kogai used to reserve study rooms frequently. Now, she de-stresses at the library and gets more studying done at home. 

“I wish they allowed us to eat food,” Kogai added. 

Eating in libraries is generally prohibited, but not at Hunter College’s library which has floors
specifically for students to eat snacks and drink beverages, according to their online policy statements. 

Similarly, the inability of Baruch’s library to seat all of its students makes it hard for students like Kogai to catch a break between her classes, according to Anisa Chowdhoury, a sophomore studying marketing at Baruch. 

The ever-growing student population at Baruch makes the seating per floor in the Newman Vertical Campus inadequate. 

Hunter’s North and West buildings lack seating altogether, forcing students to sit on the floor
or squeeze together on the sky bridge. 

However, since the library building is interconnected with the campus, going to the library for a short amount of time in between classes isn’t as much of a burden for Hunter students as it is for Baruch students. 

“Queens’ library is much nicer than Hunter’s for a fact,” said Tatiana Diaz, a psychology senior at CUNY Queens College, who transferred from CUNY Hunter. 

The abundance of brighter lights and less cluttered space made studying easier for Diaz, something she wished Hunter’s library offered. 

When asked to compare CUNY libraries with local public libraries, Chowdhoury said CUNY’s advantage is textbooks. The local public libraries’ advantages are the activities offered. 

“There are probably other resources that I don’t know about because it’s not publicized,” Chowdhoury said about the Baruch library. 

Each of the individual CUNY libraries has its own distinct benefits for students when it comes to their rules. The advantage that all CUNY libraries share is the accessibility and convenience of resources.