A variety of study rooms are available in the Central Reading Room, North Reading Room, and the Southampton library. The rooms can be booked using the online scheduling system, StonyBooked. Please carefully read the policies below. Patrons who fail to adhere to study room and library use policies may be asked to leave and lose reservation privileges.
Study Room Reservation Policies
Who can reserve a study room?
Current undergraduate and graduate students are eligible to reserve study rooms.
What can the study rooms be used for?
- Group study rooms are for group study and research only.
- Solo study rooms are for individual study, interviews, and participating in online classes.
- Graduate study rooms are for graduate study and research.
None of the study rooms may be used for club meetings, office hours, or any commercial activity. Please contact Student Engagement & Activities to reserve club meeting space.
Study rooms should not be used for timed test taking. A reservation or library hours cannot be adjusted to accommodate a timed test. Please contact the Testing Center in Frey Hall to take a test.
When and for how long can a study room be reserved?
- Reservations can be made up to 2 weeks in advance.
- You may make one reservation a day.
- Group study room reservations are for 2 hours per day, maximum of 10 hours a week.
- Solo study room reservations are for 4 hours per day, maximum of 16 hours a week.
- Graduate study room reservations are for 8 hours per reservation; maximum of 24 hours a week.
- Study rooms will close 30 minutes prior to the library’s closing.
How many students can use a study room at a time?
- Students must reserve study rooms that correspond to their group size. Individual students should use the Solo Study Rooms, not group study rooms.
- Reservations for group study rooms have to have a minimum of 2 people. Students must adhere to the room capacity limits for the study room they book. If a group is over the posted study room capacity, they will be asked to leave and the reservation canceled.
Expectations
- Users will remove trash at the end of their reservation.
- Erase whiteboards before leaving the room.
- Users will not move furniture into or out of the study rooms.
- Keep noise to a minimum so as not to disturb others in the library.
- Materials and personal items left unattended may be removed by library staff.
- Reservations are non-transferable; the person who made the reservation must be in the room.
- Reservations that are unclaimed after 15 minutes are subject to cancellation.
- Inappropriate conduct such as excessive noise, sleeping, sexual acts, fighting, or writing on furniture is not permitted. See the Libraries’ User Code of Responsibility.
- Users who repeatedly violate the room use rules will lose study room reservation privileges.
Fairness and Equitable Access Clause
Study room policies are designed to ensure equitable access to shared spaces. Reservation behaviors that exploit scheduling increments, gaps, or availability asymmetries to deter others and achieve disproportionate use of a specific room undermine this objective. Use that functions, in practice, to monopolize a room through aggregation, coordination, or strategic vacancy may be treated as misuse. The Libraries reserve the right to cancel affected reservations and restrict privileges when reservation patterns are inconsistent with the principles of fairness and shared access, even when individual bookings comply with stated limits.
Anti-Chaining and Gap Exploitation Provision
Reservations may not be coordinated, sequenced, staggered, or strategically spaced-including through the use of brief gaps between reservations-for the purpose of extending effective control or near-continuous occupancy of the same study room beyond individual daily or weekly limits. This includes patterns in which short unreserved intervals (for example, 30-minute gaps) are intentionally left between consecutive reservations by members of the same group, or substantially similar group compositions, in order to discourage use by others and preserve de facto exclusive access. Such patterns may be deemed a violation regardless of technical compliance with reservation increments.
