There I was, in the library sitting on the uncomfortable chair at the crummy desk looking out the dirty window. The air conditioner clanged loudly while I kept turning the lamp on and off to achieve the perfect lighting - all the while trying to finish my anthropology reading.
And yet, no success.
The library should be the ideal study space for all students. Sure, there are different noise levels, different seating options and desks of different shapes and sizes.
But these various options mean nothing when the noise levels are often ignored, the seats are uncomfortable, the chairs are covered in ripping fabric and the desks are scribbled on and dirty. Do you want to study in a place where wood is your seat, the lamp has profanity staring you in the face and people use a desk on the second floor as an office?
I don't.
Yet I do, every day, because I don't have a choice. Sure, I could go to the Green Center for the Performing Arts but it can get very noisy in "Bum Alley." Julian Science and Mathematics Center is fine, but when classes change it gets noisy. The Hub has food tempting you and people around at all hours of the day.
The announcement last week that Dave and Suzanne Hoover '67 gave a generous donation for the construction of a new dining hall was good to hear. However, it also draws attention to the fact that other buildings need improvements just as immediately.
Some students find themselves hitting the books anywhere besides the library. While Julian and the GCPA are study-like places, they were not built to handle the entire population of DePauw students.
Plans have been made for a new library by 2020, but that is just not soon enough.
In today's economy, students need to be top-notch before going out into the work-world, and in order to do that we must have the opportunity to study the best we can.
How are we expected to do that without at least a decent library? The library should be a top-priority and fixed as soon as possible. For many of us, it is where we spend the most of our time, more so than residential halls or the Hub.
For a place like DePauw, where studying is so important and one of the main activities of each student's day, you would think the library would be its crown jewel. Unfortunately, that is not the case.
After sitting through several tours of the library, what does one hear the guides point out? They mention the tree houses, the senior housing across the street and the fact that the library will order any book you want. On these tours, Julian gets more attention for studying than the library does.
As students, we deserve a good place to study that does not depress us more than homework already does. There is no need to try to imitate some correctional facility; the library should not be afraid to let the sunshine in and add some cheer to such a frequently used building.
I'm not asking for the next Taj Mahal, but I am asking for a nice place that makes the trip to the library more inviting than the current thought that you will enter a dark cave for the next couple of hours.
While a new dining hall is important, especially for freshman who dine there every day, the next building the administration needs to turn to for improvements is the library.
It is one of the most vital buildings on campus and requires a large amount of attention.
If DePauw wants to keep being an academically-rigorous and competetive university, it needs to show that as much as tell it. A beautiful library we can be proud of will do just that.
- Sausser is a freshman from Indianapolis Ind., with an undecided major.