Last Wednesday I unintentionally embarked on a campus library tour. As mentioned earlier I have several papers due and decided to get a leg up on the competition by checking out my books early i.e. look up for books that I wouldn't have to needlessly buy. Plus, I get to check them out for the whole semester! So, even if they are of no use to be scholarly, I am able to pursue them at my leisure- that includes all Thanksgiving long! Um, however long that is.
I started out at what I thought was the be-all-end-all library, called Leavey. It is the newest library and based on its size alone I thought that it would house all the volumes for which I was looking.
Appearance can be deceiving, as I soon found out. Though it is by far one of the biggest buildings, at least at first glance, on campus, it only had two of the books that I was interested in. It does however, have a rather impressive amount of labs and quiet study sessions. I have designated this my favorite study area with outlets for my new best friend, Macbook.
It turns out most of the books that I wanted are at VKC, named after somebody rich and famous, well, famous to USC. VKC is a very period-specific building. It practically screams 1970's architecture, which is like the old quote about pornography, "I-know-it-when-I-see-it" kind of style.
Not that I have anything against 1970's architecture. In fact, I find it quite comforting, as half of Wisconsin's built environment is still encased in 70's architecture. So in a way, those salmon-orange-y colored bricks and beige concrete trim remind me of my childhood.
I felt like a kid in a candy store hitting the VKC bookstacks- half of my amazon.com wishlist was on those shelves! I admit I went a little overboard, but better too much than too little, right?
It is a little odd that they have taken off all of the bookjackets at Leavey and VKC. If a book is softcover obviously they are not going to rip off the cover. Perhaps this is to discourage students' from using Publisher Weekly's review of book X for their report? Though I doubt you can write a whole paper based on the phrase "an inspiring work, I couldn't put it down". . .
I did check out a book at Doheney (see below) that had a book jacket, but they cut out a spot on the bookjacket's spine in order for a person to be able to see the Dewey Decimal label on the actual book itself- motivation = ?!
Then, I realized that one more book, which was essential to my research was at Doheney, one of the buildings that made me want to come here. If you've never been to USC, you must, for the architecture alone. Whoever was in charge of approving the architecture here must have had a thing for medieval-inspired architecture and I begrudge him or her not.
It is a beautiful, well-manicured campus and should be darn-it! considering how much I am shelling out! The old student union building now pharmacy/ticket office/and other stuff building, the President's office/cafe/again other stuff building, Mudd Hall, and Doheney are all testaments to gorgeous medieval style/revival-? architecture. If you ignore the girls in their tiny tank tops and guys on skateboards you'd almost think, in some areas, that you had wandered onto the set of a Brother Cadfael TV movie. OK, there aren't any monks or nuns wandering around on a daily basis, but you get the point.
There is one weird thing about Doheney though, and that's the way the books are stored.
Doheney is huge and looks like it should be at a monastery so one would think that the entire inside would look like a monastery too. Once you manage to heave open the oppressively heavy doors one enters a gorgeous atrium -? narthex-? area. There is a long stately counter where one checks out books and hallways on either side that look almost wide enough to play a decent game of Frisbee in. But once you go behind the check-out counter, (I know weird already) things get a little odd.
Behind the check-out counter are where the vast majority of the books are kept. And this area is not as swank. In fact, it's downright utilitarian. The floor is that industrial smooth linoleum? tile? something. . . The bookstacks are the old school metal kind, with adjustable shelves and look a little rickety, as if they are going to cave under the weight of the books they hold. They are also crammed together so tightly that my friend, Jeannette, who is an interior designer, declared that they were not ADA-compliant. And I had to agree. A few aisles are open enough for a person in a wheelchair to go down, but I imagine that a very large person I would have a difficult navigating back there in many spots.
Also, the ceilings are freakishly low. There is no set ceiling height for nearly any interior, but these are barely 6 and a 1/2 feet. To add to that, there is a lot of exposed pipe and ductwork. Gazing upon this we both wondered how a classmate of mine, who is easily 6'3" would be able to walk around here safely without winding up with a major shiner.
In addition, there are electric tape, or some kind of more permanent tape markings, on the floor to sort of guide you where to go. I navigate via the Dewey Decimal system and have found the tape system as useful as the bread crumbs that Hansel and Gretel employed on their journey into parts unknown.
And to add to it, almost all of the bookstacks are below ground. I found this very confusing the first time I went there looking for my book and unable to find it on the initial level. I was told that I should consult the chart by the elevator. Turns out my book was on the 4th floor and I was on the "5th," which based on the elevation, would only be the second floor.
I know that the French don't count the ground level as the 1st floor, but this was a little ridiculous. Clearly, I was not consulted when they put in the elevator buttons.
I observed to Jeannette, when I showed her the library, that it would be ironic to be stuck on level 3 for example, i.e. two stories underground, during an earthquake, and to be crushed under a bookstack. Death by literature. A fitting end for a bibliophile.
My mom will probably find this remark unnecessarily morbid. But I try not to spend too much time in the subterranean levels for too long. Hopefully, at least, the whole building is up to earthquake code.
After visiting Leavey, VKC, and Doheny and lugging around about 75 lbs. in books I was wiped out. But I feel very smug looking at my teetering stacks of tomes that I am well equipped in my research. Added perk, one can have articles from journals, magazines, periodicals, etc., e-mailed to one's self or downloaded as a PDF. No more giving the copy machine half of my life savings! Death to tyranny!
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