James Branch Cabell Library responds to students’ Facebook requests
Fulfilling your late night caffeine fix is easier than ever with recent changes to the schedule at the James Branch Cabell Library Starbucks location.
Mason Brown
Contributing Writer
Fulfilling your late night caffeine fix is easier than ever with recent changes to the schedule at the James Branch Cabell Library Starbucks location.
The changes will allow students to satisfy their midnight coffee cravings until 2 a.m., Monday through Friday. The extended hours are a response to the library now being open until 2 a.m. and the success Starbucks saw during the 2010- 2011 VCU finals weeks, when they stayed open for 24 hours.
The Cabell Library Starbucks has been profitable because of the high volume of students and faculty and has been noted in internal Starbucks surveys as “the fastest in speed of service in the nation.”
“We did hear a lot of feedback about students not wanting to go to 7-Eleven at 2 a.m,” said Melissa Leake, marketing manager for VCU Dining.
“We heard from the students and responded from their feedback … Every year we hear about students wanting extended hours of operations, and we had the opportunity to extend the hours due to the library’s new 2 a.m closing time.”
“Caffeine is essential, at least for some of us, to late-night study or morning work,“ said Sue Robinson, director of communications and public relations for the VCU libraries. “It’s a sound business decision for Starbucks and Aramark. The VCU library’s Starbucks is one of the busiest stores in the nation.”
Night-time coffee is accompanied by another addition to the James Branch Cabell Library: new doors.
“The back-to-the-’70s, heavy and stubborn doors are gone…” Robinson said. “In their place are sliding atrium-style doors. The old doors posed enough of an aggravation, and a safety hazard, that students started a Facebook page to vent about the doors.”
Other additions to the library include a public fax machine, headsets for video chatting and a giant poster of men’s basketball head coach Shaka Smart for the breezeway.
The library has also bolstered its digital catalog by adding 140,000 electronic books and more catalog options for researching students.
