UC Santa Barbara students will have to find a new late-night study spot as the library will no longer be open from 1 a.m. to 8 a.m.

The library previously was open 24 hours every day of the year, but the university decided to cut hours as part of a campuswide effort to reduce spending.

Associated Students President Le Anh Metzger learned about the cuts to library hours a few weeks ago when someone sent her a link to the university’s announcement. 

“I was overall just a bit surprised, and also pretty disappointed,” Metzger said. “It’s kind of the only space like that that we have. There’s no place in Isla Vista that’s open 24 hours, and there is no other spot on campus that’s open all the time.”

The library will be open 24 hours a day only during finals week as well as the week before finals known as “dead week.”

The library also will now be closed on university holidays, including Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Presidents Day, Cesar Chavez Day, Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day and Labor Day.

Overnight and holiday employees will be reallocated to non-holiday daytime hours, according to a UCSB Library news release. 

Metzger noted that the loss in hours takes away a safe and quiet place for students to work in the middle of the night and early in the morning. 

“People have different living situations where it might not be conducive to their studying and their academic success to be studying at home,” Metzger said. “I think just having the option of the library as a safe space to go all the time is really important.”

Metzger and Off-Campus Senator Natalia Pascher sent an open letter to Executive Vice Chancellor David Marshall about the cut hours, asking to meet and find solutions. 

Since that letter was sent, Metzger said student leadership has met with library leadership and will be meeting with Marshall to further discuss the cuts. 

“I hope we can come to some sort of middle ground,” Metzger said. “I think it’s really understandable that there are budget cuts and that sucks, and there are places where we’re gonna have to reduce costs, but maybe we can think about ways that we can reduce costs without having to completely lose 24-hour library access.”

Students also started a petition to bring back the 24/7 hours. It has more than 900 signatures before the academic year has even started.

The effort to reduce spending comes after vice chancellors and deans were asked to plan for significant and permanent budget reductions earlier this year because of ongoing budget shortfalls.

Former Chancellor Henry Yang announced in March that departments were asked to reduce operational costs 10% to 12.95% as the university would no longer be receiving $24 million in state funding. 

Library staff found that there was very little activity in the library from 1 a.m. to 8 a.m., except during dead week and finals week, according to a UCSB Library news release. 

Staff found that most people would leave the library after midnight, and on most nights, no one was in the library for longer than an hour. 

By cutting low-occupancy hours, staff hopes to continue investing in high-impact services and collections for students, researchers and professors, according to a UCSB Library news release. 

Second-year data sciences and statistics major Ebenezer Alemayehu said he was disappointed by the cut hours and would often go to the library late at night as a first-year student. 

“The late-night hours were super helpful to me,” Alemayehu said. “I showed up to a lot of them because the days get busy, you have classes, and I also worked, so late night was kind of my only option to get away and just have some place to focus away from the chaos in the dorms.”

Now, Alemayehu said he’ll probably study in his living room at home. 

“Having the library would definitely have been a better option,” he said.

The UCSB academic year will begin Thursday.