Students typically flock to the library as finals week approaches, but this semester, the library is coming to the students.

Since April 4, staff members from the Penn State University Libraries have been assisting students in the HUB-Robeson Center with finding full-text, online articles for research, said Catherine Grigor, manager of public relations and marketing for University Libraries.

Wendy Girven, a Gateway Library staff assistant, said the HUB is a popular place for students to work on papers and projects, and having the librarians available helps bring more resources to them. She said the librarians help students navigate around the library and can help with electronic and online research on the spot.

She said they hope to continue the service through the summer and add more hours in the fall. Currently, the librarians are available Tuesdays and Wednesdays from noon to 9 p.m. and Thursday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the HUB information desk.

For those who plan to go to the library, the Pattee and Paterno libraries will extend their hours beginning this Saturday. The libraries will be open until midnight on Saturday and until 2 a.m. from April 30 through May 4 to accommodate for students' late-night studying.

The Centre Area Transportation Authority bus service will also extend its hours in conjunction with the extended library hours. The last trip will leave the Pattee Library stop on Curtin Road at 2:21 a.m. for the Blue Loop and 2:15 a.m. for the White Loop, running about 20 minutes between each stop.

The library has also recently gotten a funding boost. The National Endowment for the Humanities recently granted the University Libraries' preservation department $349,998 over a two-year period in a statewide effort by the Pennsylvania Newspaper Project to preserve a variety of historic newspapers to microfilm.

Grigor said the easily accessible microfilm is probably the best preservation standard available because there could be issues of maintenance down the road with digital archives and expiration dates with CDs.

"Even if we would not have electricity at some point, you could hold up a candle and a microscope and still be able to read it," she said. "The low-tech of it will ensure preservation for centuries."

Karen Morrow, microfilming project coordinator, said the microfilm being produced will be housed at the State Library of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg, and anyone can access it through an interlibrary loan system.

"Newspapers document the culture, the social norms, the history, the economic development of an area, so for students who are doing research, using newspapers can give you a flavor for how people reacted to the events that occurred around them," she said.

Morrow said the grant money will go toward microfilming the newspapers and staffing the statewide committee who considers which titles will be selected.

"It's such a rich resource for learning about our past," she said. "The whole state of Pennsylvania will benefit."