Midnight Hall is a high-quality, 24-hour study space open to Drake students. In the interest of safety, access to the area outside of regular library hours is controlled through the campus access card system. Use your Drake ID Card to access Midnight Hall from the south (University Avenue) side of the library.
Midnight Hall is most often used as a group/social study space.
Midnight Hall is open during regular library hours, and remains open after the Library closes. Hours may vary during holidays and semester breaks, and any exceptions will be posted to our website.
Only Drake students, faculty and staff can use the area after the library closes. Students, faculty and staff who wish to use Midnight Hall must
Anyone without an access card will not be allowed to remain in Midnight Hall when the library closes. Issues with your Drake Card are handled by Student Services or Public Safety, depending on the time of day.
Midnight Hall is monitored by closed-circuit television. There is a security phone (just pick up and talk to security) at the entry, and the Drake card access system controls who is allowed in the area.
Responsibility for monitoring the area and controlling access lies with Campus Security and the Dean of Students. After the library closes, Midnight Hall is not managed by Cowles Library.
Midnight Hall houses the Cowles Coffee Shop, which is operated by Sodexo, While the coffee shop is not open 24 hours, there are vending machines available.
There is a printer/copier in Midnight Hall, which can be accessed through web print. This printer/copier will do both color and grayscale (b&w) printing.
Midnight Hall is intended for study and normal library operations. It cannot be reserved for meetings or special events.
On rare occasions, the library may use the Historic South Entry as an entrance or support space for events in the Reading Room and Atrium, but this area of the library is not available for general booking.
Midnight Hall has four collaboration stations available for group use on a first-come basis.
Basic collaboration allows one or two devices to be projected to a large monitor that everyone in your group can see. This makes working on presentations, shared documents, videos, projects, and other study activities easier since no one has to crowd around a single laptop or strain to see a small display.
Instructions on connecting to the collaboration stations are posted by each station.
Please note that these stations only support VGA, HDMI, DVI and component video devices. The library’s Information Desk offers special adapters for short-term checkout that allow connection to iPads or mini-dvi ports (found on some Macs).
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