The Library? A Social Venue?

I remember when I was at university and when I had to get work done or study for exams, I would go to the library. I'm sure a lot of you can relate to that.

From memory, the library at Massey University was open from 8.30am to 11pm and shorter hours on weekends.

Anyway, during the year, of course there were people using it but towards the end of the year, i.e. end of October and beginning of November, the library, especially in the evening was packed. Sometimes it was very difficult to find a seat and my favourite desk which I basically had a mortgage on during the year was frequently taken. (It annoyed me no end.)

One of the things I noticed about the library at the end of the academic year was actually how little study seemed to be done by the people taking over my seat on the top floor of the library in the far corner.

What were they doing? Why were they there? Why didn't they just go home?

Well, it was certainly a social thing for these people. Every five minutes groups seemed to be getting up from their seats and going outside and doing something. I don't know exactly what they were doing, probably going for a coffee or something. Although some people seemed to drink a lot of the stuff.

(Also, one guy from Malaysia told that he was going to pray. I thought he was joking because we had a difficult exam the next day but then I realised that he was actually telling the truth. He was going to some room, facing Mecca and he was praying.)

The point is, although throughout the year, the library was a "Mecca" for people like myself who would try and get away from people and sit in the corner and do my work. It was introvert paradise should we say.

At the end of the year it turned into "party central" and for people like myself it wasn't the comfortable place that we had created throughout the year.

I find it interesting how places that are there for the whole year and people ignore can suddenly become very popular. An example in my hometown is the horse racetrack. There are race meetings throughout the year which only a few people attend while the December 26th meeting every year is one of the social highlights of the year.

The library was certainly a focal point for the social activity of students at the end of the academic year. The good thing was that it wasn't like this at all although I might be mistaken. There might have been a corner that I didn't know about...