This past summer fourteen faculty members used the library for a Writing Co-op Project ("Writing Nook"), led by Professor Susan Felch. Participants accepted into the program had to sign an agreement to work in the Hekman Library from 8:45 to 4:30 each day for a week; they promised to turn off email, phone and other electronic devices and focus exclusively on writing.

The library provided protected spaces for each writer, ranging from enclosed offices to carrels to wide-open tables.

"To a person, the participants made substantial progress on the writing goals they set for themselves," Felch reported in her memo to the deans. 

This program can serve as an illustration for students that working in the library in a quiet, enclosed space, and eliminating the "noise" of distractions in order to focus, can be very beneficial in terms of accomplishing one's academic goals.