ALL-NIGHT BOOKING

It's 1 a.m., Jacqueline Roberts has work to finish, but Harvard's last library has closed. So she heads to her dorm's laundry room, where the hum of dryers offers less noise than two roommates. "The only thing worse than having seven pages left to write on a term paper due the next day is having absolutely no place to write that term paper," she says.

For students like her, help may be on the way. Last month Harvard's Undergraduate Council released a 20-page "executive summary" demanding a 24-hour library. The paper, based on a survey of 300 students, reported that 92 percent support a round-the-clock facility and that the lack of one significantly threatens "the academic performance, mental health and general well-being of undergraduates."

Five of the seven other Ivy League schools have all-night study spaces. At Cornell's Uris Library, 14,654 took advantage of its 24-hour access last semester, studying between 2 and 8 a.m. Next year Brown will open a 24-hour student center in the Sciences Library. But until then, the resourceful Harvard type A's might have to prepare for plan B: getting some sleep.