Your midterm is gonna suck no matter where you study

Your Butler: the fluted columns, the intellectual legacy, the perfect study spot. Unfortunately that serial sniffler surrounded by a fortress of textbooks thinks so too. The Panopticonesque 209 is for people who want to be seen studying, not actually get any work done. But Butler’s just so purdy, you say. Excuses, excuses. Aesthetics certainly don’t make up for the awkwardness of bumping into that person—your global core TA who you saw at 1020 last night, that kid you drunkenly hit on that one time—everyone’s got that someone. Well, you’ll run into them. Definitely. Because the gods are out to get you like that. Enter, libraryhops, an old favorite feature we dug up from the archives and excerpted below. To those who’ve already discovered these underrated study havens, sorry to out your cherished spots. Check out the full the campus library marauder’s map.

Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library: Everyone knows that Avery is the Paul McCartney to Butler’s John Lennon: the second-most-famous one, the arguably better looking (or more aesthetically pleasing) one. Avery is gorgeous, it’s close, it’s quiet, there’s Brownies in the basement, there are scores of attractive Italian people sitting outside smoking clove cigarettes. You get the picture.

The Social Work Library: The primary, overarching virtue of the Social Work is its health. Floor-to-ceiling windows onto Amsterdam provide light to remind you what time of day it is. The main disadvantage is that it’s never open later than 9pm. But there is a silver lining in the reduced hours; the place has a clean and wholesome feeling, as if frequented by people who live normal, well-adjusted lives that involve going home to a family or at least a significant other after a fulfilling day at work. None of that groggy just-woke-up sense you get in Butler.

Gottesman Library at TC:  Gottesman is quiet. There are no screaming whispers. There is no need for Red, Yellow and Green zones of eating and drinking here: grown-ups study here. It is not, however, a hostile quiet.  No one glares at you when you unzip your backpack. We overheard a very few brief quiet conversations. Forgetting for a moment where we were, we looked around for people to roll our eyes with at these breakers of sacred library code, but eventually realized that everyone around us was actually focused, and then we felt kind of guilty. The library itself isn’t grand. There’s no marble and no stained glass windows, but there is a lot of light, lovely nursery-school-yellow walls, and burgundy wall-to-wall carpeting. There are several group study rooms with truly nap-worthy reclining swivel chairs. There are a few small cubicles, so you don’t have to worry about—dare we say it—other people actually sitting next to you. The views are decent, but not distractingly (i.e Low Library, South Lawn) glorious, and conducive to actually getting work done. Sure, Procrastination is procrastination anywhere: the elderly man seated behind us browsed Craiglist for violin lessons, Russian lessons, and some less savory endeavors. We wont deny that we still scrolled through our own Facebook pictures a few times, but, really, we got work done here.

NoCo Science and Engineering Library: The main floor of the library, accessible through the campus-level entrance, houses dozens of giant LCD screens in the new Digital Science Center— 30-inch screens for the Windows machines and 27-inch screens for the Mac Pros. Up two flights of stairs hides a sea of study carrels and tables, along with bathrooms, water fountains, and a big window overlooking the lower floor on the mezzanine. These carrels are smaller than the ones found in other libraries— just under three feet wide and two feet deep. Luckily, each has two power outlets, an Ethernet port, and a dual-bulb fluorescent light that looks like something you’d purchase at Walmart for your kitchen counter. The light-stained wood and bright, warm lighting makes us feel homey and safe.

The Math and Science Library: It is a tiny library, just one U-shaped room with 6 or 7 computers, around 10 fake wood (no oak!) reading tables and some 70’s-style purple rocking chairs. Bwog took a seat around a small round table in a brown cushioned chair that could be found in the basement of every reader’s grandparents. There is no swipe-in process at the Math Library, but everyone seemed to be a diligent-looking if rather serious math-or-science student: no impostors here.

And a few other gems: the East Asian library in Kent, the geology library on the 6th floor of Schermerhorn, and the music library on the 7th floor of Dodge.

Kinder via FPEA