
College Students Just Want Normal Libraries - minnca
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/10/college-students-dont-want-fancy-libraries/599455/
======
alexhutcheson
In my experience, most college students really just want a good space to work
and study, with a mix of quiet spaces and areas for group work. Undergraduates
rarely needed to access the physical books, since they're told to buy almost
all the books they need for each class anyway. In 4 years, I think the only
books I ever checked out were novels I was reading for pleasure, and I could
have easily gotten them from the city library instead.

From an average undergrad's perspective, the ideal "library" is probably
something more like a WeWork.

Grad students and researchers have different needs, though.

~~~
bobloblaw45
Oh goodness yes this.

I've never been able to study at home. I don't know what it is. But in
libraries I'm totally in the zone.

It's unfortunate because library hours are so limited. I'd love for there to
be a 24 hour library that always had enough seating.

I actually had an idea starting a private membership 24hr study space that
would serve primarily as a quiet study space for students. Tables, wifi,
strict rules on noise...essentially using the gym business model. But I'm
broke and know nothing about running a business but we can all dream.

~~~
devinplatt
At UC Davis the Sheilds library has a 24 hour room, and during finals week at
the entire library has extended hours.

I loved the 24 hour room back when I was a student. It was super quiet and was
so starkly ugly you had no business being there unless you were getting some
serious schoolwork done.

~~~
_raoulcousins
All I remember about that room was that it was nearly impossible to find a
seat during finals (about 12 years ago!). We used to drive to a 24 hour coffee
shop in Dixon instead. Nice to get a few miles away from Davis during finals,
but even that place was jam packed with students.

------
ineedasername
I think the biggest benefit of physical libraries, often overlooked by
students, are the professional reference librarians that staff them. I was a
competent researcher in college, but if I had difficulties, if the catalog
looked like it didn't hold anything I could use, I went to the reference desk,
and never was disappointed.

One particular project involved correlating & comparing prison funding &
criminal recidivism with education spending in the state I was in. Books held
nothing on this, and the government documents section massive, dense &
daunting. The reference librarian saved me many hours of work by getting me
directly to what I needed, and suggesting other resources as well.

The internet has made casual research extraordinarily easy, but it's like an
80/20 split. The average person can get 80% of the way there, but these
reference librarians are professionals in their field, with all the
connotations that being a "professional" comes with.

~~~
journalctl
And I think chances are, these reference librarians will have masters degrees!
They’re incredibly knowledgeable, and at least every librarian I’ve ever met
has been not only good at what they do, but incredibly passionate too. And if
anyone’s looking for ways technology and libraries intersect (besides
information storage/retrieval), I recommend the Library Freedom Project [1] (I
linked to Wikipedia because their main page seems to be blank.) It’s a program
that works with libraries to teach librarians about things like digital
privacy rights.

[1]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_Freedom_Project](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_Freedom_Project)

~~~
joe5150
it would be very hard to become a university librarian without a master’s
degree in library science, and a lot of subject librarians will have two
master’s degrees! librarians are a great time-saving tool if you have serious
research needs.

------
the_watcher
> “Google can bring you back 100,000 answers,” as the writer Neil Gaiman once
> said. “A librarian can bring you back the right one.”

I only did one year of law school, but taking this piece of advice (swap in
Lexis/WestLaw/Bloomberg for Google) was a _massive_ win. The librarians at the
law library were _so_ knowledgeable, and there was no rule against them using
prior experience with the exact question to help the student out. They could
also understand _why_ you wanted a particular source.

Example: "I'm looking for the most binding precedent for _random set of
issues_ , as well as the 10 most recent cases that discuss the issue at hand.
Also, are there any other sources or cases you know of that would be
particularly relevant to the issues I mentioned?"

Lexis: Can probably find most binding precedent if you're good at
navigating/filtering. Can definitely get you the 10 most recent cases, but
you'll have to read them all to judge how useful they are . Can definitely get
you other sources, but you'll have to do a general search and read through
pretty much everything to filter. This will probably take at least a day just
to collect everything and filter it to what's useful.

Law librarian: Might know the right precedent off the top of their head. If
not, is an expert in Lexis and can find it much faster than you. Same for
recent relevant cases. For other sources, not going to be able to get you a
comprehensive list, but likely immediately knows of 5-10 places that are
highly likely to be relevant. This will probably take 2 hours, max.

~~~
cjsawyer
This almost feels like cheating. If school staff is helping this deeply, are
you actually learning how to research?

~~~
Kalium
Part of researching is learning to use the tools you have available.
Experienced researchers familiar with the domain are wonderful tools.

~~~
the_watcher
Exactly. Also, while not their only function, a part of the librarian job
description is to help people find the right resource as easily as possible.

------
Akinato
I feel like libraries should probably be compartmentalized more. A room for
the main catalogue of books, a room filled with outlets and empty tables for
studying and working, and a room with computers / empty desks with outlets for
those who need them + the printers.

I feel like libraries try to do too much all in the same space. The computer
people bug the 'study-ers' with their typing, clicking, and audio. The
printers are loud and disruptive. The desks are sprinkled throughout the
aisles of books, wherever space could be found -- which makes it harder to
navigate around to find the books you need. There's no need to be surrounded
by books once you've gotten the one you need.

They're forcing 3 entirely different sets of people into the same space. If
people are visiting with 3 different goals just separate the space according
to those goals. Have a dedicated and separate computer lab, a dedicated room
to rows and rows of books, and a dedicated room for studying -- with side
rooms for group studying.

~~~
andrewf
I suspect the study spaces are quieter embedded in the shelving areas, than
they would be if the same square footage was used to clump all the study space
together.

~~~
asdff
My old unis main library was a model. Massive grand reading room that was dead
silent (with felted chairs to keep them silent) and a statue of an angel
without a head to motivate you. Open collaborative areas. Computer labs in
separate wings.

It also had a dozen floors of stacks in a tower with little tables and
cubicles shoved in on the edges and near the elevator because as you said, the
shelving muffles noises.

------
scottlocklin
> a library that sometimes looks empty might be a tempting target for
> administrators trying to maximize the use of space on their campuses,

College Administrators are responsible for much of what is wrong with modern
college campuses. Virtually all the growth in expenses go to these dweebs, who
sit around dreaming up new ways of feathering their beds while producing a
generation of morons.

I used to use the local college business library quite a bit; they sent
literally all the books to storage and turned it into a glorified open office
plan. One among many reasons they'll never get another nickel from me.

~~~
asdff
Last year the administrators decided we needed a new wireless projector
interface across campus rather than the standard hdmi/dvi+box of dongles
present in every room.

No one is able to connect to it on the first try. Some laptops work via
airplay, others not at all. I haven't seen a windows user successfully connect
to the display (it involves connecting to a room specific wifi network,
connecting to an IP address, and typing in a constantly changing password).

Some laptops work in the morning when the prof tests the room and not in the
afternoon when the prof holds the class. The previous connected users screen
will remain frozen on the display and sometimes, when you connect your laptop,
it will move into a split screen configuration with the frozen display of the
last user taking up half the screen real estate.

And best of all is that IT got rid of all the wired connections because some
salesman told them that this was better than what has been working perfectly
for the last 15 years. It is now October and the situation is not any better
than during syllabus week and IT has absolutely no idea what to do.

~~~
scottlocklin
Last time they tried to get a buck from me: they were bragging about building
a "twitter like app" so students could ask lecturers questions without raising
their hands.

------
BlameKaneda
The library at my university had four floors and a basement. The higher the
floor the quieter you were supposed to be, so you were welcome to talk on the
ground floor but would get glares or carefully chosen words on the top floor.
I loved this system. If I wanted to work but didn't mind the chit chat then I
was fine on the ground floor, but if I needed to concentrate then I could
move.

I recall using a library book for research _once_. Other than that, I made use
of the public computers to work on projects that were stored on Google Drive.

~~~
heedlessly2
Sounds like the ugli at umich

~~~
moosingin3space
Fellow UMich grad here. Shapiro library (formal name for UgLi) was always a
great place to study because you had plenty of noise isolation from other
people, especially the upper floors.

On North Campus, CS majors had two major study spaces: the Beyster computer
lab/atrium, and the Duderstadt Library. Course staff would provide office
hours in Beyster, and if you wanted to study in a more collaborative
environment, that was the place to be. Duderstadt had a mix of collaborative
spaces (in closed rooms) and quiet workspaces (the benches near the stacks). I
studied in both locations, depending on my needs at the time. Was a pretty
effective setup.

------
DC-3
I'm a CS student in the UK and one of my favorite parts of my university is
its library. I will sometimes go in there between lectures, just to browse the
shelves aimlessly and enjoy the peace and quiet. In the past I have found
myself perusing books of haiku and the like - things unrelated to my course
which I would be unlikely to encounter online or anywhere else in any non-
superficial way. I certainly don't want it to become a trendy makerspace or
ideas lab or anything of that nature.

------
bryanrasmussen
the thing I love most about really big high quality university libraries is
the ability to go find a place somewhere in the back of the stacks, and then
to walk around finding a collection of a dozen books that sound interesting of
themes you like but are not necessarily conversant with.

then browse those books for the next 5+ hours. Really used to get the gears of
the brain moving. Of course this was also before the internet and before
having any money and after 5 hours I was lightheaded, starving, and not
necessarily sure what I was going to eat - but in a good way for me.

~~~
pretendscholar
Intermittent fasting before it was cool

------
JimmyRuska
Some school libraries don't even have the required course textbooks. A
community college I went to did have 1 or 2 copies of required course text
books, you just couldn't check them out of the library. 4 year university did
not even have them, making sure you paid for a personal copy of your course
books from the university book store. It seemed really strange a library
wouldn't have the books students needed most.

~~~
minikites
Textbooks go out of date too quickly to meaningfully contribute to a
collection. This is (of course) by the design of publishers to wring as much
money out of students as possible.

~~~
meej
Also, it would require faculty members to actually tell the library what
textbooks they're using each term. One might be surprised at how rarely and
inconsistently this happens.

~~~
noodlesUK
At our university, you are required to submit a reading list when the course
is ratified, and each year after that. Students complaining that the library
didn’t have the books would come back to bite you as the lecturer did not
telling the library which books to have.

------
jdsnape
I used to go and work at our City's Cathedral library: access was free to
students, it was in an awesome building about 700 years old and most
importantly didn't have WiFi so there was no distraction :)

It was also cold - I find most libraries to be warm and stuffy which makes me
drowsy and unable to concentrate.

~~~
mavhc
Originally libraries were cold because fire and books don't mix well, and they
needed massive windows because fire was the only other way to light them.

------
sudosteph
The college I attended has an interesting dynamic in this area. The way the
university is laid out, there is a historical "main" campus with a very
traditional library, and a much newer "engineering campus" with a very new and
modern library. Both buildings are massive and used extensively, but I
definitely preferred the modern one - even if some features of it were kinda
cheesy (the massive basement with a book-fetching robot being one that was
cool in theory - but not often used).

The traditional library had about 10 stories of "book stacks" with quiet areas
to study and lots of tables. Unfortunately, each floor only had one conference
room and there was a lot of competition for room reservations. The downstairs
common area was mostly workstations, and student services, some places to eat
too. I liked this library for my first few years of studying, but I felt like
it was really hard to collaborate here.

The new library has a ridiculous number of conference rooms which is amazing.
Lots of white boards that move around, more variety in seating options, some
rooms equipped with specialized stuff (music studios, VR dev spaces, 3d
printing), and the layout just feels more optimized (there is a dedicated
quiet area upstairs that has beautiful views and tons of space too). The wifi
and outlet situation is also better at the new one. The biggest downside is
honestly that it's so "different" it becomes a tour destination for random
people, which can be a distractions.

All that said, the number one draw for me to both libraries: 24-hour access.
Being able to work through the night without interruptions is what made
libraries so important to my college experience. I actually really miss that,
and I miss that one library in particular.

~~~
vinay427
Michigan? This seems to exactly describe that.

~~~
sudosteph
North Carolina State actually - Hunt Library in particular
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_B._Hunt_Jr._Library](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_B._Hunt_Jr._Library))

------
uwuhn
I'm not a student anymore, and I would love to have access to a decent library
where I could actually focus for hours at a time. Anyone have any
recommendations in SF? I'm happy to pay.

I've already checked out the private Mechanics' Institute library, and I
didn't like it. The best thing I've found so far is just going to fancy hotel
lobbies.

~~~
meej
I would expect any public university library to be open to the public.
Consider trying UCSF or SFSU.

[https://www.library.ucsf.edu/use/spaces/](https://www.library.ucsf.edu/use/spaces/)

[http://library.sfsu.edu/hours](http://library.sfsu.edu/hours)

~~~
uwuhn
Ahh one of those reservable group study rooms would be perfect. I wonder
what's the least I'd need to spend to get UCSF student status for access.
Probably not an option until I have an employer that has tuition reimbursement
as a benefit. In the meantime, I'll check out the other UCSF/SFSU libraries.
Do you have any recommendations?

~~~
meej
Libraries often limit use of group study rooms to groups, even with student
status you may not be able to use them individually. The spaces that indicate
they are open to the public and are categorized with the "considerate" noise
level would probably be much quieter than the hotel lobbies you're currently
using, and you can access them now, without student status.

------
werber
If I was a college student I'd just want them to focus their technology
spending on eliminating noise. The library for me was just an escape from the
constant stimulus of being on campus

------
cafard
"A 2016 survey of students at Webster University in Washington, D.C., also
illustrates limited use of digital resources, finding that just 18 percent of
students accessed e-books “frequently” or “very frequently,” compared with 42
percent who never used them."

I have lived in Washington, DC, for forty years, and until this had never
heard of Webster University. Given the size of Webster (about 2400, it says),
and the number of campuses, I wonder exactly how many students were surveyed.

~~~
boomboomsubban
1085 students, 226 staff.

------
honkycat
In college, IRC chat rooms with bots serving books from an FTP server were a
life saver. I don't think I bought 5 books throughout my entire college
career.

Me and my buddies also built a textbook scanner that saved us a ton of money.
( webcam x2 + buttons + easy page turning mechanism )

I always thought the price of college textbooks were ridiculous and put unfair
pressure on a broke college kid like me.

------
noodlesUK
One of the essential features of a university library as far as I’m concerned
is to actually have on hand a sufficient number of copies of the books
required for each course. This was done very well at my university in the UK,
but from what I’ve seen in the US, students are expected to buy (oftentimes
many) books for each of their courses. I have a problem with that in the days
of high tuition and bloated administration. Libraries should not be profit
centres.

A university library to me is a place which has access to academic material
such as journals and various scholarly databases, a good selection of relevant
books, a nice place to study, and very high speed internet.

I didn’t extensively use the library during my studies as most of our CS
course materials were available for free, but I did use the space a lot.
Additionally, whenever I encountered a book that I might want, the library
would process an interlibrary loan, or just buy the book. Purchase requests
were easy and fast.

~~~
chrisseaton
Courses at university in the UK (or at least mine, and at least when I did it)
don't really have textbooks. You are advised to read three or four books
during the course, but there isn't one single book that you absolutely must
have. Lectures had notes, and referred to those three or four books and you
could find relevant material in each, in basically any edition.

I think I bought maybe four text books during a four year degree, and those
were the ones I really liked and wanted to keep after I graduated. The rest
were just checked out of the library.

How come this isn't possible in the US? Why do you _need_ that one particular
textbook and a specific edition and nothing else is suitable? There's no
undergraduate subject I'm aware of so specific that there is only one book in
existence on the topic - many are suitable. What's the blocker?

~~~
leetcrew
> How come this isn't possible in the US?

depends on the course, major, and school. in my CS major you could pretty
easily get away with not purchasing the "required" textbook for most classes
unless they assigned problems directly out of the book. even then, professors
would often distribute PDF scans of the relevant problem pages. everything you
actually needed to know for the exam would almost always be included in the
monstrous PowerPoint lectures, so you could just study these if you didn't
need extra help understanding the material.

------
blackflame7000
The biggest problem I always had with the library at my alma matter (ucla),
was that thousands of square feet dedicated to books people rarely ever
touched while simultaneously failing to have even proportional amount of space
dedicated to desks. Furthermore, any furniture frequently doubled as people's
bed away from home.

~~~
erwfdserwfds
The purpose of a library is not to have books people are sure to read, but to
have references people might need. A (good) library is necessarily a long-tail
institution.

The rarely touched book is a treasure. The study space a concession to the
modern student body that lacks any meaningful silent space.

The student sleeping in said study area is a gross oversight by the librarian
to ensure the sacrosanct space isn't violated (and, unfortunately for some of
those sleeping at the library, another housing failure in S. California :S)

~~~
tomkinstinch
Indeed; a good library is a long-tail institution. The Harvard Library system
has a large collection of books at the various on-campus libraries, but an
_immense_ catalog of infrequently accessed books at a "depository" warehouse
off-site. Scholars can request items from the Depository and receive them
within a day.

This split-storage model may a sensible solution for other universities going
forward: prime and expensive library buildings on-campus can be reserved for
quiet study areas and a few commonly-used books, with the main collection of
books retrievable from a nearby location where land is less expensive. It also
has the advantage of allowing books to be stored in the ideal climate for
their preservation.

Fun fact about the Harvard Depository: books are organized not by topic,
publication date, or anything resembling the Dewey decimal system, but rather
by a metric that makes sense for high-density: physical size. Books are stored
in barcoded boxes by height. Here is an artsy documentary, "Cold Storage,"
about the Depository:

[https://vimeo.com/116603551](https://vimeo.com/116603551)

or in interactive form:

[http://librarybeyondthebook.org/cold_storage/](http://librarybeyondthebook.org/cold_storage/)

~~~
asdff
Pretty much every library has an off campus facility for books. USC has a
warehouse on grand avenue. Not sure where UCLA's book repository is, but it is
definitely somewhere.

However, I wouldn't want the stacks in the main library (doheny) at usc
converted to study space. I think there are better rooms to gut for study
space, namely the random faculty offices they've shoved in every library. You
can build an office across the street from campus if you need the space. The
ceiling in the stacks is maybe 6.5' tall, it's musty and the HVAC is
deafening, and extends 6 stories down into the earth. I couldn't imagine a
more disheartening study environment, but there are some tables and chairs and
sad graduate students down there nonetheless.

~~~
blackflame7000
Stacks is exactly the place that came to mind when I was writing my comment.

------
bitwize
I used to love camping out in my college library. The old computer science
books were some of the most fun to leaf through. It may seem comical to a
methodologist of today, for whom Agile is the end of history and Object-
Oriented Design the pinnacle of human achievement, to read about Jackson
Structured Programming, but JSP was the cutting edge of enterprise development
in the 1980s and really helped a lot of people deal with tricky data flows in
a systematic abstract way.

Of course some notions from back then are still silly. One book described a
"software engineer of the 1990s" who sat in a lounge chair and described specs
out loud to a HAL-like AI, which transmuted them into flawless code. Kinda
like George Jetson and RUDI.

------
the_watcher
Personally, I want a traditional library with physical books, as well as ample
digital access. I did research in college involving attempting to find and
summarize every mention of a particular topic by a Congressperson during the
1970s. This meant I grabbed the (massive) books of Congressional minutes,
checked the indexes, and paged through them for weeks. I could have done this
in days with a digital archive.

At the same time, there was a lot that I preferred to read a physical copy of,
and I saved a ton of money by only buying books that weren't on reserve at the
library, meaning you could check them out, but only per visit. I also
definitely would prefer they remain as a spacious, quiet spaces for study.

------
devxpy
It took me some time to realize this, but now I wholeheartedly agree with the
argument that physical paper is better for reading.

Now I can only envision an ebook reader that's made up of a 1000 paper-thin
eink panels bound into a book that's A4 size.

------
specialist
We need more quiet spaces. Not everyone is an extrovert. And even us
extroverts occasionally need some head's down time.

When I become king, companies will also have library inspired quiet rooms,
like the graduate school library Even rustling sounds get stern looks. Eye
contact and other social interaction is frowned upon.

When I become king, we'll also have cafes for students and other laptop
campers. Food service and cashier towards the entrance. Library style big
rooms with big tables in the back. No public music. No conversations during
"dark" hours. No kids. No dogs.

------
vinay_ys
It is true that as a comp.sci student, I did most of my reading online. But
one of the best things about library for me was to get a tour of all the other
discipline books. See what students from other branches were studying and look
at their library books. This is definitely much richer experience than just
going crawling on the web. It was also a quiet place to study and prepare for
tests/exams. It was also the place where we got all our printing and
photocopying done. I don't see these needs going away no matter how much we
rely on our connected phones, tablets and laptops.

------
kevindong
My alma mater, Purdue, built a giant building that was simultaneously a
library, a collection of very large lecture halls/classrooms, and a study
space. Lining the exterior walls of the building were classrooms. And in
between, the majority of the building is essentially an open floor plan study
space with no separation between the floors (since the center of the building
is an enormous unenclosed staircase and large unenclosed stairwells lined
every wall). Consequently, the entire building (aside from the enclosed
"library space" and classrooms) was useless for quiet studying. My school shut
down 3-5 smaller libraries (all of which were super cozy and quiet, albeit
dated) and to form this new library building. The new building is much more
aesthetically pleasing, but it's a much worse study space in my opinion from
the traditional, drab university library.

Some photos: [https://www.jconline.com/picture-
gallery/news/college/2017/0...](https://www.jconline.com/picture-
gallery/news/college/2017/08/03/a-look-inside-the-wilmeth-active-learning-
center/104268478/)

[https://www.bsalifestructures.com/project/wilmeth-active-
lea...](https://www.bsalifestructures.com/project/wilmeth-active-learning-
center)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhX8kV1SbDs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhX8kV1SbDs)

------
idealstingray
I'm at a school where most classes have all of their materials online for
free. Usually a professor will post lecture notes and/or slides online and
recommend an optional reference textbook.

When I do need textbooks, I generally buy them instead of checking them out
from the library, and most of the reason is that the library isn't open 24
hours a day. 90% of the time I can get by with only using books for class
during the day, but if I end up having to pull an all-nighter to finish a
paper or a pset, or if I've been procrastinating and need to do the readings
for a class after midnight, I'm screwed. It's valuable to me to have the
mental overhead free, instead of needing to plan when I'll be able to access
the books I need. (As a bonus, it's a good start for building up a reference
library, and I can mark up my personal copies however I want, but these are
secondary reasons.)

I still use the library for studying, finding materials that I only need once
and don't want to buy, and checking out items like USB CD drives. (You can
also check out soldering irons and small power tools from our campus
libraries.) I also made frequent use of the piano in the music library when
studying music theory. But I'd probably use the library a lot more if it were
staffed between midnight and 6 am.

------
pattisapu
It is possibly the fondest memory I have of college life. Years wandering
through stacks, finding things I never would have seen otherwise, some of
which I hold on to still.

~~~
pattisapu
And one of the fondest memories of childhood. I grew up in a small Texas town
where I could check out things in grade school itself. While I had some
mishaps like checking out Jaws at 6 years old and having nightmares
thereafter, on the whole I think libraries are an uncontroversial good.

The size of the library matters less now.

What has been an issue lately is that the budget cuts do not hit the number of
staff or budget for books -- they just shorten the hours -- often, again, in
smaller Texas towns and no doubt elsewhere, cutting the hours down to as few
as 5 days a week, with hours as short as 9 am to 5 pm or even 4 pm, so that it
is often nearly impossible to get there after work or school.

------
yoz-y
Several people mention having to buy many books for the courses but do they
need to be bought new all the time? As in, does the school change the books
required for courses every year? Why not buy or pass them from senior students
down?

My school was maybe different because we didn't actually any books, we were
given printed support for class or just had to take notes during lectures.

~~~
alexhutcheson
Textbook publishers release new editions, at which point they stop selling the
old editions (so university bookstores can't easily stock old editions).
Instructors then pretty much have to assign new editions.

Students looking to save money can buy old editions or international editions
online, but then have to deal with page numbers, chapter order, and exercises
being different than the book used by the rest of the class.

Frustratingly, publishers do this even for topics like calculus, which has not
changed a lot since the last edition of the textbook!

------
dhruvkar
As an undergrad & grad about 10 years ago, I absolutely loved our university
library for working and studying solo (although rarely, if ever, did I need a
physical book).

But being surrounded by huge shelves of books, gave a sort of muffled/muted
ambience that was perfect and hard to find outside of a library. Coffee shops
are close, but they're either much noisier or empty therefore all too quiet.

College libraries were the sweet spot for deep work/study for me.

------
pkalinowski
Not sure if I should brag or be ashamed, but during my studies I visited
library once - to take paper confirming that I don’t owe them anything.

I guess that’s the beauty of IT

~~~
pnw_hazor
In the olden days as an undergrad I used the engineering library a little bit,
mostly for the periodical indices and study nooks.

The main ugrad library was for napping in between classes.

Later in law school, the only time I did anything with the library was a
onetime legal writing 'scavenger hunt' assignment that forced us to use
different resources. I studied in other libraries because they were more
convenient for me (less crowded)

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LeanderK
I don't agree. I have never used the university library as a library. But I
always work there because I can concentrate in libraries way better than in my
room. I can't see myself being this concentrated alone in my room, I get
distracted very easily. In fact, nearly everything I did for my studies, I've
done in the various libraries and nothing alone in my room.

Acknowledging this and building stuy-centers with real coworking-spaces for
group work/stuff, isolated rooms with whiteboards to discuss things and quite
study spaces complemented with a café in the basement to take a break would be
way better than all the new libraries being built by the universities.
Something cozy to read also be great. We have a library that's open for 24
hours a day, every day. I've found this very, very useful and would like to
the 24 hours aspect replicated elsewhere.

I have also never bought a single "real" textbook in my studies. The need to
buy these hugely overpriced books [1][2] has to disappear, which I think will
start the real decline of libraries used by the usual students.

[1] I don't mean books per se, just these massivly overpriced textbooks. The
ability to get a small physical copy for a few bucks is great, i always try to
get my stuff printed in the university printing-center or just buy the pre-
printed script. But some studies force students to buy certain books. This
needs to get adressed by the state, at least in germany.

[2] I would like to see a law that forces every professor paid by public money
to make their teaching material accessible for the public to read and to
modify, including making the source accessible. I don't get why this is not
the case right now.

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chiefalchemist
I'm going to guess that parents as well as alumni have a fondness for new
fancy libraries; kinda like having a great football or basketball team, but
different.

Such libraries might also help with recruiting new profs.

I'm not defending the added expense, only trying to explain it. Perhaps.

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xhkkffbf
Yes, I love the space of regular libraries but too much of the space is
devoted to old books. I like the romance and the smell, but if I can't find a
place to sit what good is that?

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PostPost
Part of the reason libraries are quiet is you have fewer people and a lot of
sound absorbing materials (that also happen to hold really important
information for the right people). Removing books and replacing them with more
seats will just make it an open office.

A library is supposed to house knowledge and make it accessible, not primarily
to give everyone a study spot. You can always check out a library book and
take it somewhere with more seats.

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Invictus0
This article does not jive with my experience whatsoever. I graduated from
school this year, and I paid for exactly 2 textbooks in my entire college
career. The rest were online pdfs. I also only checked out one book from the
library in college, everything else I read online. That's just me, but I also
don't observe a lot of my peers checking out books. Wish I could find the
survey showing 92% prefer print to digital text: that seems preposterous to
me.

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rc_kas
The first college to swear off all digital books will get first consideration
on my kids college application process.

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jimbob45
Digital books are fine. It's the terrible way they've been monetized that's
the problem. College textbooks simply aren't worth $150 anymore but the
publishers are desparately trying to hold onto that valuation.

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awat
100% and that’s before adding all the temporary access, unique codes, platform
specific access, etc rackets.

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applecrazy
Yeah, it's absolutely terrible. Sometimes it's 100 dollars for subpar online
software that you need to do homework, particularly in subjects such as
Biology and Chemistry. Absolutely frustrating

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sunstone
Books, desks and a comfortable place to nap.

