A Sacramento State student is gathering signatures on a self-started petition with a goal of keeping both the University Union and the University Library open 24 hours a day.

Michael Demos, a history major, said he received 121 signatures in the first 4 hours of petitioning on Sept. 4. Currently, the petition has 625 signatures.

Demos’ idea to keep both facilities available throughout the night came from his experiences with libraries on the East Coast and difficulties he’s had on Sac State’s campus getting access to the resources he needed.

“I’m from New York originally, [and] back there, the libraries are always open 24/7,” Demos said. “When I came out here, a lot of people told me it would be the same and that I would be able to get into the library and the Union whenever I needed to, but that wasn’t the case.

According to Demos, depending on the AIRC — which can still fill up even mid-semester — isn’t enough.

“The main goal is to try to make sure that students have a chance to go somewhere and use all of the books and tools they need,” Demos said. “I’m a history major, and there’s certain books that aren’t available online.

Although there has been support for the petition, some students questioned whether or not Sac State would be able to afford the cost of the changes and whether those changes would truly be beneficial.

“It sure sounds nice, but I feel like it would hurt us more than it would help,” said Michaela Alvarez, an anthropology major. “Sac State already has a lot of debt, right? Wouldn’t this just cost more and eventually be up for the students to pay for?”

According to Dean Sorensen, director of The University Union, the proposal is something that could be talked about and explored more, but it depends a lot on cost and what services the students are looking for and whether or not those services are available elsewhere.

“I want to make sure that we are serving the students as best we can,” Sorensen said. “But it would certainly lead to financial, safety and logistical issues that would be impacted if we tried to stay open for longer hours. Nighttime hours are crucial for maintaining, cleaning and making improvements to the building, and staying open would make all of those things more difficult.”

According to the dean and director of The University Library, Amy Kautzman, this problem isn’t uncommon for college campuses.

“I’ve worked on many campuses, and this isn’t the first time this issue has been raised in regards to library hours,” Kautzman said. “In every campus I’ve worked in, people have asked for 24/7 library access.

“At a number of those institutions, we experimented with different hours only to find that while people say they want 24-hour access, they don’t really use it unless it’s time for finals,” Kautzman said.

Demos said he has no plans of slowing down until he’s garnered the support he thinks is necessary to make the changes he wants.

“There’s been good progress and support, but I’d like to get to 5,000 signatures by the end of September,” Demos said. “[Sac State President Robert] Nelsen talks about us being a ‘non-commuter school,’ and I think this is the chance to bring more people to campus and make that happen.”