Archive for The Golden Gate [X]Press news clips

Sipping, toking, snorting, shooting on the rise

November 29, 2007 at 9:15 am · Filed under The Golden Gate [X]Press news clips ·Tagged , , ,

In the time it takes most students to complete their bachelor’s degree at SF State, the campus has seen an overall rise in drug use.

Although previous reports on drug and alcohol use in the California State University system indicated that negative consequences associated with drinking are on the decline at campuses, a recent survey taken by about 5,000 SF State students suggests otherwise. In fact, the amount of SF State students consuming alcohol is at roughly the same level as it was five years ago and the use of marijuana, heroin and cocaine have gone up.

“I think numbers can be helpful to see where we need to concentrate our efforts,” said Bita Shooshani, a clinical counselor at SF State’s CEASE (Creating Empowerment Through Alcohol and Substance-Abuse Education.)

According to the National Core Alcohol and Drug Survey created by the Southern Illinois University and conducted at SF State by CEASE, 73 percent of the students surveyed reported consuming alcohol within the last 30 days in 2007, up from 71 percent of SF students in 2002. Marijuana use among students also rose 2 percent in 2007, with 23 percent of students reporting smoking marijuana in the last 30 days compared with 21 percent in 2002.

SF State’s alcohol use is consistent with the national average of 72 percent of students who reported drinking in the last 30 days. However, only 17.5 percent of college students nationwide reported smoking marijuana in the last 30 days—about 5 percent fewer students than on SF State’s campus.

Michael Ritter, coordinator of Prevention Education Programs at SF State’s CEASE said this may be reflecting San Francisco’s drug culture.

“I think that has mirrored the development of more of a common acceptance,” he said.

Cocaine and heroin use, although at much lower levels than alcohol or marijuana, has seen an upswing at SF State since the 2002 survey.

In the 2002 survey 1.8 percent reported using cocaine compared to 3.4 percent in 2007, and heroin use rose from 0.2 percent to 0.5 percent. Ritter said the rise in these numbers is consistent with the national level.

Ecstasy and methamphetamine usage is declining. According to the 2002 survey results 2.9 percent of SF State students were using ecstasy compared with 1.7 percent in 2007. Methamphetamine use at SF State was at 3.4 percent in 2002 and at 2.1 percent, five years later, according to the 2007 statistics.

According to Shooshani this year’s higher freshman population may account for the increased drug and alcohol use, and Ritter cited the school’s transformation into a more residential campus as another possible explanation.

Although SF State is right on track with other U.S. colleges in regards to drug and alcohol usage, the school does have fewer substance-related incidents such as drinking and driving. Twenty-three percent of SF State students reported driving a car under the influence compared to 26 percent of all U.S. college students and just 7.5 percent of SF State’s students reported having been in trouble with the police, residential hall, or other college hall authority for drinking compared to 14 percent of the students in the reference group representing all U.S. colleges.

Also, 15.3 percent of SF State students admitted to having a problem with drugs and/or alcohol while only 10.6 percent of the national reference groups did.

Shooshani said she sees this as a positive and attributes these statistics as reflecting a “greater consciousness” towards drugs and alcohol use at SF State.

“I think people are talking about it more,” she said of drug use. “Although people are talking about legalizing marijuana [they're also discussing] what’s a problem and what’s not a problem.”

SF State student Dan Neeson, 23, said he drank every day while studying abroad in France last semester. Now that he’s back home, Neeson estimated drinking about three times a week. While Neeson admitted to binge drinking occasionally, he said it wasn’t something he did that often or let get of hand. But Neeson said he had a friend in England who had a drinking problem that interfered with his college course work. Neeson said his friend’s teachers helped him through the school work and let him off a little more easily because of it.

“Here I don’t think that would really fly,” he said of SF State.

“I don’t believe that,” SF State student Nancy Phu, 22, said of the survey statistic that stated that 23 percent of SF state students smoked marijuana. “A lot of them are liars.”

Phu said she drinks, but not as often as she did when she was younger.

“I don’t party a lot, maybe if I was a freshman or a sophomore, but I’m a senior and am focusing on graduating,” she said.

Phu also mentioned that she felt as if SF State was beginning to take on the image of a “party school,” adding that one of her professors told the class that SF State was right up with Chico State due to the amount of partying in the Park Merced area.

Regardless of whether the survey underestimated the amount of students smoking marijuana, it indicates more work needs to be done.

According to the survey 25 percent reported drinking three or more times a week in the more recent survey and 39 percent reported binge drinking—consuming five or more alcoholic beverages in one sitting—within the two weeks prior to taking the survey. Ritter suggested that students who fall into this category might benefit from seeking counseling from CEASE.

Ritter said students are often referred to the CEASE program by teachers when students come to them admitting they have a drug problem or when students are caught with drugs in the residential halls.

Shooshani said that they have seen an increase in the amount of students seeking counselors over the past few semesters and, at this point, all time slots to see a counselor are full until the rest of the semester.

For this reason, CEASE will be holding a group meeting that will deal with individual drug and alcohol assessment with a CEASE counselor on Dec. 4 from 3-4:30 p.m. in room 208 in the Student Services building. Shooshani said drop-ins are welcome.

In addition, SF State offers on-campus alcohol and narcotics anonymous meetings and students can assess their own alcohol and marijuana use by taking the anonymous e-chug and e-toke surveys at www.sfsu.edu/~cease/.

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Substance-free dorm struggles to stay sober

November 8, 2007 at 11:15 am · Filed under The Golden Gate [X]Press news clips ·Tagged , , , ,

Although dorm parties are synonymous with on-campus residences, substance-free living has been an option at SF State for a decade. This semester and in recent years, however, adhering to that theme has been tricky.

“It’s not as successful as we had hoped,” said Resident Assistant Carlo Delgadillo of the substance-free floor located at the Mezzanine level of the Towers at Centennial Square. “But no floor is, really.”

Resident Ben Langholz, 18, attested to that.

“It’s not very substance free,” he said, and added that he was aware of smoking and drinking on the floor all the time.

The Towers have been home to those who wish to live drug and alcohol-free for four years. This semester, out of the 42 students who live on the substance-free level, only two chose to live there, which floor advisor Kevin Kinney said accounts for the problems the floor has had with broken policies.

“Not all residents on the floor necessarily wanted to live on a substance free floor,” Kinney wrote in an email. “But that was the option that was available to them and they knowingly chose to take it.”

Kinney wrote that students who live there must sign a written agreement indicating they will not consume or possess alcohol or illegal drugs on the floor or they will lose on campus residency. Students also agree to not to return to the floor under the influence of a controlled substance.

This semester, some students have been moved off the substance free floor due to violating the polices. Delgadillo added that they’ve been shifting people around in an attempt to cut back on the number of conflicts in the future.

According to Kinney, a number of students on the floor have had their contracts cancelled on the floor as well. To preserve confidentiality, exact numbers could not be given.

Substance-free resident Jamie Nickerson, 19, said although she doesn’t drink in the apartment, she does like to party on the weekends.

She did not choose to live on the substance-free floor and said she was upset when she found out she was placed there.

“I think it’s really lame that they have it,” she said of the substance-free floor. “No one seems to take it seriously.”

Kyle Noland, one of the two voluntary floor residents, said his reasons for choosing the floor were, in part, due to his mother’s influence but he also wanted to live in a quieter environment.

Noland said there have been two tense meetings in which the RAs “were just yelling at the residents for not being substance free,” but said overall he is content with his living arrangement.

Delgadillo said the people that live on the floor represent a diverse group of interests regarding substances.

“You get some people that want to be there, people that don’t and people that don’t care,” he said.

Kinney said that some students need a substance-free floor to succeed at SF State. These students may have a desire to avoid a drug and alcohol environment or they may have a history of alcohol or drug use and are working towards sobriety or overcoming addiction, he said.

The first floor of Mary Ward hall is also considered substance-free, and, like the Towers, has its own set of problems with maintaining the sober status.
Resident Erik Olea, 19, said he chose to live on the floor.

“I don’t want to be surrounded by people who party, do drugs, and that kind of stuff,” he said.

Olea said he didn’t have to sign an agreement as is done on the Towers’ substance-free floor, but Olea said the floor seems much quieter compared to what he’s seen elsewhere.

Fellow resident Kyle Morris, 18, also cited silence as his reason for moving to the floor. Morris said he liked the fact that he could leave the dorms for the evening and not come back to a party.

Morris added that he has heard rumors of substance use on the floor, but he hasn’t seen it personally.

One freshmen on the Mary Ward floor substance free floor, who asked to remain anonymous, said he didn’t chose to live on the floor but said he didn’t think his neighbors took the substance-free policy very seriously.

“Sometimes I’ll be walking through the hall here and it smells like weed,” he said. “I think one of my neighbors got busted for it.”

Kinney acknowledged that while some students on the designated floors will “challenge the policy,” he said he didn’t see how that style of living should be too much to ask of students.

And Kinney claimed that the majority of the students living on these floors are living substance-free.

“On-Campus Housing is not a requirement for SF State students,” he wrote. “People who do not wish to live on a substance-free floor should probably look for other options out in the city.”

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Elevator malfunction evacuates Village

November 5, 2007 at 9:20 am · Filed under The Golden Gate [X]Press news clips ·Tagged , , ,

Residents in the Village at Centennial Square were evacuated for more than four hours early Sunday morning following an elevator malfunction on the B-side of the Village, according to SF State spokesperson Ellen Griffin.

A brief power shortage set off the Village’s generator just before midnight, triggering the elevator failure and setting off the fire alarm a few minutes later.

Nearly half of the Village residents were home during the time of the evacuation Griffin said and these students waited around outside on State Drive, and inside the Mary Park Hall and the Science and Technology Theme Community lounges for the duration of the evacuation.

According to University Police Sgt. Emiliano Balistreri, who explained the situation to the roughly 40 residents and a few Resident Assistants sitting in Mary Park, the campus police and the San Francisco Fire Department were unable to re-set the alarm and an employee from the fire alarm company was coming from San Leandro to re-set it.

A representative from the company, Simplex Grinnell, said they received a call at 1 a.m. requesting this alarm re-set. According to Griffin, PG&E and the campus facilities also had a hand in resolving the issue.

Initial reports indicated that the generator was blowing smoke or fumes into the smoke detector, but Griffin reported that once the generator was turned off the alarm remained on.

“Until they isolated why they were getting that signal [the alarm] wasn’t going to turn off,” Griffin said.

After about 2 hours of waiting around, the RAs told the Village residents that while a risk of fire didn’t appear to be present, they couldn’t allow students back in the building until they re-set the continuously buzzing alarm.

If there was a fire, there would be no warning system in place as the alarm was already going off, they explained.

After evacuating her building for many false alarms, Village resident Rachel Duron, 21, was surprised to learn that this time the alarm had gone off for a legitimate reason.

“[I’m] tired of the alarm going off all the time,” she said. “I wasn’t going to come out but my [roommates] made me.”

Fellow Village resident Alex Soden, 19, felt the process could have been smoother.

“It seems a little disorganized,” he said of the evacuation. “Three and a half hours seems way too long.”

But Erin Rea, 18, also a Village resident, said she sympathizes with the Resident Assistants (RAs) that stood waiting with the students listening for reports of an all clear.

“It sucks that the RAs are getting such a bad rep,” she said. “They can’t help it.”

Many students took naps on Café in the Park’s floor or rested their heads on the tables. Residents were allowed back into their Village apartments just after 3 a.m.

Griffin reported that the campus facilities are currently making final repairs on the failed elevator and two fully functioning elevators are still available for resident use.

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Students roll over rules

October 25, 2007 at 7:29 pm · Filed under The Golden Gate [X]Press news clips ·Tagged , , , , ,

Adhering to the adage that rules are made to be broken, SF State students routinely bend the regulations when it comes to campus conduct. But aside from the drinking and drug regulations notoriously pushed at college campuses, the main offenders tend to be those engaging in everyday activities not commonly viewed as unlawful.

Some obvious rules such as smoking marijuana or drinking under the age of 21 reflect national laws, leaving little leeway for students not to acknowledge them. But it’s the other, everyday behavior rules specific to SF State —banning biking, skateboarding, and smoking in the non-designated areas—that may catch students off guard.

Although police records show that nights and weekends keep campus police busy cracking down on underage drinking and noise complaints, weekdays they spend much time enforcing university regulations. Since the start of the semester 28 citations for skateboarding have been recorded, 12 for smoking, and 48 for jaywalkers, according to University Police officer Pat Wasley.

While the breaking of these rules may seem trivial, University Chief of Police Kirk Gaston argues that there are important reasons why they’re in place.

“It all has an impact on people’s safety and quality of life,” he said.

Wasley acknowledged that the police can’t hand out citations to rule breakers because calls must be prioritized.

“You do what you can with staff you have on hand,” Wasley said of the 38-member force.

Although the city of San Francisco prides itself on using alternative, non-polluting forms of transportation like bicycles and skateboards, SF State prefers students leave those items locked up while at school.

The narrow walkways on SF State’s small campus aren’t conducive to bicyclists and skateboarders, Gaston said, adding that skateboarders might injure people walking in the packed campus paths or exiting from buildings. The school could be liable for any such injuries.

He said that some of the skateboarders perform tricks that damage the school’s railings.

Gaston said the University Police Department (UPD) is stringent on the anti-skateboarding policy and regularly issues citations and confiscates boards. Citations for both skateboarding and bicycling cost between $100 and $150. Currently, a pile of confiscated skateboards is sitting in the police station office that will not be returned to the owners until they go through the appropriate court process.

But police records show that most students found breaking skateboarding rules get away with a simple warning. From the beginning of September until last week, only three skateboarders were cited out of the 22 reported violators. Some regular skateboarders said they skate around the entire campus and never get in trouble for it.
“Cops are pretty cool about that,” Robert Mercado a 23-year-old student said about his skateboarding. “I’ve never been cited.”

One skateboarder, Mandeep Sethi, 18, said that he hasn’t personally been cited for skateboarding but he has seen others cited. Sethi said while he acknowledges the possibility that a skateboard could hurt someone at SF State’s compact campus, he disagrees with the policy.

“It’s ridiculous,” he said. “In 2007 they still fail to understand that skateboarding is a means of transportation.”

While Gaston said they’ve been issuing citations for skateboarding, an officer who asked not to be named said citing cyclists is often unnecessary.

“ As soon as they see us, they get off their bikes,” he said. “Most of the time.”

The officer emphasized that riding them on SF State’s campus is “ dangerous and inconsiderate.” Earlier this semester, a student was injured when she was hit by a cyclist near Burk Hall. The officer said the student suffered a broken nose and a shoulder injury because the cyclist was on his cell phone and not paying attention.

Students placing bikes on the railings is another problem, Gaston said. Students with disabilities, especially impaired vision, need the railings. Gaston said if there were an on-campus emergency that would be a catastrophe for these students.

Aside from personal transportation offenses, SF State also has had a fairly restrictive smoking policy in place since the fall 2004 semester. It states that smoking is prohibited on campus except for the nine designated areas marked with purple signs along the perimeter of the campus. At this point, the officers have only been issuing warnings for smokers that aren’t smoking in the designated areas, even though the UPD frequently receives calls of complaints about smoking.

Some areas are more susceptible to getting smoke than others and the smoke regularly comes into classrooms and offices on campus. “Wind drafts take it right into a building and some people are very sensitive to that,” Gaston said.

Some who have heard of the smoking policy said they do not know where to find a designated area. Others feel inconvenienced or offended by the policy and willfully ignore it.

“It’s inconvenient to walk all the way off campus when I have a 10 minute break in between classes,” said Matthew Morgan, a politics and philosophy major smoking behind the closed Franciscan building near the library. Morgan, 19, said he was a new student who did not know about the designated areas, but he would likely not use them.

One student smoking in a designated area on Holloway Avenue, behind the library and fewer than 100 feet away from where Morgan and others stood, disagreed. “The campus isn’t that big,” says Matthew Chevedden, 22. The philosophy student said he found the bench with the salmon-colored ashtrays by following the purple square signs that direct with arrows.

Bridget McCracken, chair of the student affairs committee and member of the campus’ smoking task force, said some students have been ripping down the designated smoking signs or spraying graffiti on them and said that often smoking is worst at the beginning of the semester because it takes people a while to learn where the designated areas are.

But McCracken acknowledged that the new policy has been a step in the direction they wanted to be going.

“We’ve come a long way from not having a policy at all,” she said.

Another commonly broken rule on campus that could have a more immediate effect on student well-being is jaywalking. Gaston said illegally crossing the dangerous 19th and Holloway happens often, with people most frequently darting across 19th by the East side of Hensill Hall.

“It’s scary to watch people that do that,” Gaston said. “That’s a fatality waiting to happen.”

In the on-campus dorms and apartments, Judicial Coordinator Patrick McFall said the three most common policy violations are loud noise, underage drinking and marijuana use–which seems to be particularly low this year, he said.

Freshmen are often the ones most likely to bend the rules, McFall said, because of that “fresh taste of freedom.”

“It’s natural that students are going to test the system to see where the boundaries are,” McFall said. In reference to the lengthy lease resident students must sign, McFall pointed out that students are informed about all of SF State’s policies before they even move on campus.

The punishment for certain behaviors varies by violation. Noise complaints often illicit a visit from the cops and a warning. More serious offenses, like being in possession of drugs or dealing them, can get students kicked out.

An accurate number of on-campus housing violations was not immediately known because student housing records are not recorded at the county level.

“What happens in housing stays in housing,” McFall said.

As an extra preventative measure this semester, SF State adopted a three-hour online program already offered at numerous universities across the country. The program seeks to inform incoming freshmen about polices and facts related to alcohol.

“What people see as little things end up cumulating into a big thing,” Gaston said of all the rules broken on campus each day.

Additional reporting by Adam Loraine, staff writer

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Dorm residents promote eco-friendly living on campus

October 11, 2007 at 12:49 pm · Filed under The Golden Gate [X]Press news clips ·Tagged , , , ,

If light bulbs mark new ideas, longer-lasting light bulbs mark a new green way of thinking. Aptly, some on-campus residents are promoting simple environmentally minded measures that could keep the Earth cleaner.

The Towers Residents’ Environmental Organization [TREO] started up this semester, after Associate Director of Residential Property Management and TREO adviser, Jim Bolinger, said an opening for the residential themed community became available.

The concept for the group was one Bolinger and Tower’s Resident Assistant and co-chair of the group, Keir Johnson, said should be a natural part of everyone’s lives.

“The environment is something everyone should be paying attention to, it’s a great way to get unity for a good cause,” Johnson, 24, said of TREO.

TREO is a themed community for residents living on floors 13, 14 and 15 of the Towers. In an effort to open up the group to all housing residents, Village assistant resident director, Dre Dominguez, 24, said they created the Housing Eco Friendly Residential Organization (HERO) this group, which is still unofficial, works with TREO.

Dominguez, HERO co-chair, said the group has been growing rapidly.

“It’s literally kind of picked up overnight,” said Dominguez who lives in the Village’s more environmentally friendly “green” apartment.

Dominguez estimated that about 100 students make up the three TREO floors in the Towers and 30 to 35 residents are involved in HERO. Bolinger estimates that 2,500 students currently live in the core housing.

The organization’s first main project will be in distributing Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFLs). 5,200 of these energy efficient light bulbs were donated to SF State housing from PG&E and the Sierra Club and will be distributed to each student in housing from now until Nov. 30.

After the CFL distribution, HERO plans to work to improve recycling in on-campus housing.

“Recycling is going to be one of our main issues because it’s very easy to do,” Johnson said.

The goal is to reach a 75 percent waste diversion rate, Bolinger said. This means they would like to see 75 percent of all disposed items either recycled or composted with only 25 percent thrown away. In August, Bolinger said a 40 percent waste diversion rate was reported. In March, the highest month recorded, that rate was at 53 percent.

The organization plans to improve recycling rates in a number of ways. Starting in the Towers, Dominguez said TREO will begin painting and beautifying the doors to the recycling rooms.

She says they hope to hold workshops at their meetings to educate residents about what is and isn’t recyclable as well as posting laminated signs that explain in addition to paint.

“Right now we’re talking about what lengths we can go with paint,” Dominguez said. “Signs that say trash goes here, recycling goes there.”

When students misplace their garbage in with the recycling they are contaminating the recycling, something Bolinger and Dominquez said are detrimental to working towards the 75 percent waste diversion goal.

“If the recycling is contaminated enough they won’t take it,” Dominguez said.

HERO member, Matthias Gropp, 19, said he’s excited to be a member of an on-campus environmental group.

“It seems natural in this city,” he said.

Sarah Jennings, 18, says she had experience with community service and community clean-ups before and says she feels fortunate to be a part of TREO.

“I think it was a lucky coincidence I was put on this floor,” she said.

Following the recycling project, TREO and HERO have plans for a community garden with indigenous plants.

“It’s difficult to get things going when people are first and foremost here for school,” Bolinger said. “We’ll do coaching, we’ll do contests whatever we can [to get the students to be more environmentally aware] but at the end of the day it’s up to the students.”

What the members of TREO and HERO are learning in housing is something “they can take home,” Bolinger said.

All on-campus residents are invited to join HERO, the group meets Wednesday nights at 8 p.m. in the Mary Ward Hall Cantina.

For more information e-mail HERO at sfsu.hero@gmail.com.

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City Hall veteran to lead campus safety preparation

October 2, 2007 at 3:17 pm · Filed under The Golden Gate [X]Press news clips ·Tagged , , , ,

While the University of Memphis canceled classes and locked down its campus Monday morning following the fatal shooting of 21-year-old student and football player Taylor Bradford, Gayle Orr-Smith coincidentally started in a new position later in the day as the Emergency Preparedness Coordinator for SF State.

“We are very fortunate to have her,” said Penny Saffold, vice president of student affairs.

Orr-Smith enters the job after working in various capacities at San Francisco City Hall. She was deputy mayor of public safety under Mayor Art Agnos, where she oversaw emergency services in the aftermath of the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake. Orr-Smith has also served on the San Francisco Police Commission, and on Mayor Gavin Newsom’s 10-Year Plan Council to tackle chronic homelessness.

“The administration is very excited to have her here,” Campus Police Chief Kirk Gaston said. “Particularly someone with her experience and qualifications.

Gaston said the Emergency Preparedness Coordinator position was formally filled by officers working the shift part-time. With the addition of Orr-Smith this is the first time they have formalized it to a solo-position.

The Campus Police have already started working with Orr-Smith on planning safety strategies and moving forward with revisions, Gaston said.

“She’s already started even though she’s getting her parking permit,” Gatson said in regards to Gatson moving forward even though she’s new and settling in this position.

Saffold said that in light of recent similar events such as the April massacre at Virginia Tech, the campus has been looking to step up their existing security system.

“We feel that we’re safe but we did evaluate our campus after Virginia Tech,” Saffold said.

In addition to the new campus Emergency Preparedness Coordinator position, the campus began asking students for their phone numbers in early September so students can be contacted via text messaging. If an emergency situation happens on campus all students should be notified immediately, Safford said.

“That’s one of the reasons we’re trying to get this rolling,” said Jo Volkert, associate vice president of enrollment planning and management after hearing about the University of Memphis shooting.

“What they learned at Virginia Tech is that emails are too slow,” Saffold said.

Volkert said that student response for the request for contact information has been steady.

Gatson said that the university police department is prepared to react to any criminal activity as they network with other agencies outside the university.

“We’re very proactive in our crime prevention,” Gatson said. “We welcome anybody from the community to come in with any safety concerns, or any concerns, so we can address (them).”

A few SF State students expressed that in spite of the shootings happening at various universities across the country, they feel safe at SF State.

“I do feel very safe on this campus,” said SF State student Liz Freeman, 18, after learning about the University of Memphis shooting “But I think this is unfortunate that this is happening in this country.”

Fellow student Josh Hallis said although he’s not tuned in to the types of security measures in place at SF State he maintains his own sense of feeling security.

“I’m not really too scared about that happening here,” he said.

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Library offers answers via instant message

September 20, 2007 at 9:03 pm · Filed under The Golden Gate [X]Press news clips ·Tagged , ,

SF State’s library has signed on to one of the latest trends in communication by adding an instant messaging feature to their website–giving students nearly instantaneous answers to their research questions.

The opportunity for students to instant message a librarian is a feature added to the library’s website in July, but one that really only kicked off at the semester’s start, librarians said.

SF State is the second California State University school to adapt the instant message feature, after Cal State East Bay, and also one of a few campus libraries in California to instant message, including UC Berkeley, and City College of San Francisco.

Jeff Rosen, references and services coordinator at SF State, said student use of the instant messaging feature has been picking up steadily after a slow start. Rosen said librarians are now getting several instant messages a day.

“We really think it’s important that we’re there when students need us,” Rosen said of the new instant message feature, “Not when it’s just convenient for us.”

Rosen said part of the reason they decided to add this feature was because the library staff has been noticing a decrease in the amount of students approaching the reference desk with questions and decided it might be time to make the process as convenient as possible for students.

“Some students perceive the library as complex and crowded,” Rosen said. “(This is) a way for them to not have to come into the building.”

Darlene Tong, head of information, research, and instructional services at SF State, said the program has been promising and said she hopes students will feel comfortable instant messaging a librarian.

“We’re just trying to reach people with the technology they’re already using,” Tong said.

Tong acknowledged that if the instant messaging program gets to be too much for a librarian to juggle, along with their phone and in-person requests for information, they may move the instant messaging to a separate office or they may hire more staff members to work at the reference desk during one shift.

Reference librarian, Laura Moody, said that since she’s started typing instant messages at the beginning of the semester, it seems to take the place of some of the phone calls.

“We still get phone calls,” she said. “But now that we have IM it seems the phone calls have dropped off.”

Moody said that because the system is so new they don’t have much data on exactly how many instant messages they receive but she says it seems like they get about one or two an hour and during 4 to 7 p.m. the reference desk’s peak hours, they could get several.

Marie Blackard, a librarian from University of San Francisco (USF), said she likes using instant messaging.

“It’s very convenient and fast,” Blackard said. “Except in the case of very long and involved questions.”

USF has offered their instant message service since the spring of 2006, Locke Morrisey, head of collections, reference and research services at USF’s library, said that they usually receive about three to five instant messages a day. The fewer count, compared to SF State, can be attributed to the fact that SF State has approximately four times as many students as USF. And Morrisey added that the semester is young, once the paper assignments start coming in, they should be seeing more instant messages.

Morrisey also moonlights at SF State’s library two days a week. While Morrisey doesn’t take credit for collaborating with SF State on implementing the instant message feature, he does say that he demonstrated the program here at SF State.

Different libraries are using different methods for instant messaging. USF provides students with different choices from AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) to gTalk, ICQ, Jabber, MSN and Yahoo, Cal State East Bay provides chat options in AIM, MSN, and Yahoo.

SF State offers Meebo, a web-based chat widget that, librarians argue, is much more customer friendly than other chat services, especially for people who are not used to using the technology. Students don’t need to make any downloads or get an account to instant message a librarian at SF State, and although Morrisey admits they’ve had a couple little glitches in getting the technology to work from time to time, the system is pretty user-friendly.

Several students spending time at SF State’s library on a couple of recent afternoons said they were not aware, or only slightly aware, of the new program. Some students said they might look into using the instant message feature while others expressed little interest.

“I think it’s more personable if you go up and talk to the (librarian),” SF State Student Tehani Thompson, 22, said. “But I can see how it could be convenient for some students.”

Fellow student Shrouq Hasan, 20, said she might try instant messaging a librarian sometime. “I think it could be useful,” she said adding that students could benefit from the convenience of asking librarians questions while they are sitting at their desks working on their projects.

Students can access the instant messaging services—on or off campus—by going on to the library’s homepage at www.library.sfsu.edu, clicking on the instant messaging icon on the top right portion of the screen and typing their questions directly into the instant message box. Except for a few hours on Sundays, librarians are available to answer student’s instant messages during all of the library’s usual open hours.

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