Piles of bones lined the desks of room 3002 in The Commons at Helm Cravens Library. 

Library workers began noticing an increasing need for plastic replica bones being checked out for use in studying for Biology courses, specifically Biology 131 Human Anatomy and Physiology. To aid the students, they purchased two new skeletons and piloted the Bone Night program during the fall semester, said Daniel Newman, library assistant at Helm Cravens. 

Since then, the collection has been slowly growing. 

“We’ve got about 40 kits worth of bones for the biology students to use,” Newman said. 

Bone Night lasts from Feb. 22-25 and March 1-4 from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. on the second floor of the Commons. 

Jessica Matusik, a freshman nursing major, says the bone nights are great to “help us prepare for what we’re actually doing for the test.” 

Newman organizes student enrichment activities in the Commons, the majority of which are for finals week. 

When organizing the event for this semester, Ashley Orehek, the STEM Librarian at the Helm Cravens Library, collaborated with the Biology 131 classes to schedule Bone Night around the time quizzes are taken. 

“This is one of the ways we’re trying to encourage students to come to the library and do some group study,” Newman said. 

Bone Night also raffles off a Spencer’s Coffee gift card to a random attendee at the end of the two weeks, as an added incentive for students. 

“We want to make sure, as a library, one of our primary goals is student success,” Newman said.