The library odyssey: in search of the perfect study spot
Many of us can trace our history as students through the libraries we frequent. The idea of the perfect library holds the promise of a better you: more hard-working, more focused, more creative - if only you could find the place where you could be this version of yourself. But the environments where we are most productive are often a surprise.
When choosing which college to apply to at Cambridge University, I based my decision on the cosiest, most inspiring library I’d ever seen: a window two stories tall, inviting armchairs and bookcases lining it on both sides, a long table with softly-glowing lamps, and students in black turtlenecks hunched over thick volumes. I couldn’t wait to partake of this studiousness. But the first time I went, I fell asleep; and the second time; and the third. I ended up spending more time snoozing in those armchairs than reading. After a great deal of embarrassment and cursing myself for laziness, I found the unexpected culprit of my fatigue: for all its vaulted ceilings and single-glazed nineteenth-century windows, the room was egregiously overheated. Far from becoming my study Mecca, it was a place I would have to avoid for the rest of my time in Cambridge. My search for the perfect library continued.
One of the biggest disappointments in my life was the Radcliffe Camera, the rotund landmark of the University of Oxford. I’d had it as my screensaver for a year beforehand, drawing inspiration from its academic glamour. Alas, when I finally gained access and settled down to do some reading, it turned out that the domed circular structure created an acoustics that amplified every sniffle across its three floors, making it impossible to concentrate. Nor is it helpful to have too much choice: the breathtaking selection of attractive libraries in a place like Oxford made me struggle to focus in any. How can you be sure, at any given moment, that there isn’t an even more picturesque spot you could be occupying? Wherever you happen to be, there is always the possibility that the view of the proverbial spires is more exhilarating from across the quad.
Alas, the search for the perfect library is cursed. We expect it to transform our character and fulfil our ambitions for us, so of course no place can measure up. Since we don’t project such longing onto run-of-the-mill libraries, we are able to use them for their intended purpose: to work relatively undisturbed.
Looking back, the libraries where I’ve worked the hardest were overwhelmingly the ones that lacked a distinct aesthetic appeal. Such as the tiny municipal library of the East Sussex town in which I did my A-levels: it was housed in a supermarket complex and visited mostly by pensioners in search of the local papers. Or the concrete beast that is the main library at Manchester University: inside, it was all musty carpets and squeaky escalators, and crowds of students in tracksuit bottoms at desks littered with half-eaten packets of crisps. Not what you would call scholastic chic, but I loved that it stayed open all night during exam season, and the sense it gave you of being in a kind of parallel dimension when you settled in for the evening, knowing you had committed yourself to working until the first morning bus could take you home.
This is probably why my most intensive study sessions (writing up a dissertation, or putting together an essay I found difficult) have not been in libraries at all, but at home. When you really intend to get stuff done, ornament falls by the wayside, and you sit at the kitchen table in your pyjamas and suddenly you are finally working. There are no people to impress or compare yourself to, no seats to choose, and no higher imaginary self to embody. Plus it’s your kitchen, so the kettle is within arm’s reach.
Where do you like to study? Let me know.