THE SWARTHMORE COLLEGE LIBRARY NEWSLETTER
SPRING 2005 Vol. 7, no. 2
Something for everyone - libraries at Swat by Melanie Maksin, Annette Newman, and Terry Heinrichs
They might not have realized it, but sometime during their first few weeks at Swarthmore, students made a pivotal decision that would shape the rest of their college career. They tucked themselves away in an especially cozy nook in McCabe. They claimed a listening station in Underhill. They added a few pieces to a jigsaw puzzle in Cornell. They gravitated toward one of Swarthmore’s libraries, and by making this choice, even if only in a reckless fit of first-semester impulsiveness, they charted their course for the next four years. Hello, eyeball-abrading orange carpet. Hello, earphone-muffled solitude. Hello, efficient-yet-vaguely-sinister compact shelving. Of course, this decision is usually influenced by a few factors – it’s not just that bizarre tugging sensation that occurred when walking too close to one of the libraries. It’s not surprising that denizens of McCabe are typically social sciences and humanities students, or that Underhill appeals to the musicallyinclined, or that Cornell is the refuge of engineers and scientists—for the sake of convenience, most students will work wherever the resources are, whether they need course reserves, reference materials, or moral support. But moving beyond the realm of the practical and darting into the territory of the highly subjective, it could be said that each of Swarthmore’s libraries has its own character, its own set of idiosyncrasies that are possibly maddening to some but endearing to others. Fortress McCabe It’s not McCabe’s fault that its name rhymes with “McCage” or “McCave,” but its severe, boxy exterior, its inadequate lighting, and its extremes of temperature don’t exactly help the humanities and social sciences library in the court of public opinion. Nevertheless, McCabe is considered the “intellectual center of
campus” by students polled by Andrea Wong ’02 in her Sociology/Anthropology thesis, “Swat in a Nut-Shelf: A Study of the Relationship between Libraries and their Communities.” Katia Lom ’06 likes McCabe because “I have a balance of being able to study quietly in my cubicle and socializing with my friends on the first floor when I need a study break. I like the sofa chairs and the red carpet too.” For studying, Jacob Wallace ’05, Yoshi Johnson ’07, and Ana Chiu ’06 like to use the carrels. Wallace likes the ones on the main floor “because of the ambience and the nice office chairs.” Chiu studies “on the first floor because it is the right mix of noise and quiet, and enough people are here so that I always bump into somebody I know.” Kristen Lee ’05 prefers to study at the big table next to the globe or in the window corners. Anjali Bhat ’07 prefers McCabe over the others because it’s “not as depressing as Cornell” and “people come to McCabe to talk as well as study.” Wallace thinks the common perception is that Cornell is “way more intense” than McCabe and “people who are in Cornell are much more focused.” Besides studying, these students use McCabe for reading newspapers and magazines, taking naps, talking and hanging out with friends, scanning pictures, making copies, and meeting with study groups. Underhill: Sotto voce The Daniel Underhill Music Library is like a really great band with a cult following—its fans appreciate that it won’t sell out, become too trendy, or begin to attract the McCabe-and-Cornellfleeing rabble. For Underhill users like Matthew Woodbury ’06, continued on page 2