Lib Love

Happy Tuesday, Readers! I hope your week is going awesome so far, I know it’s a busy week this week for me. Lots of homework, you know?

And what better place to do my homework than the library! It has recently become one of my favorite places to do homework, partly because there’s a little bit of every environment that I like to do my homework, but also because there are so many amazing resources that the library offers for FREE that are super easy to use and super accessible. So this week’s blog is all about the Van Wylen Library!

We’ll go through the floors to start off. The first floor is home to the rowdier study area. This is mostly where people gather to do group projects, or study if they enjoy working with a bit of background noise. In addition to a more social working atmosphere, there is also the Cup and Chaucer coffee shop (which you can get your snack and drink at, for all you 7+ meal plan people), the Klooster Writing Center, the Research and Circulation Desks, and desktop computers that you have printing access to.

A bit about the resources I just mentioned: the Klooster Writing Center is a place where you can take your papers for any class in any stage of the writing process and they will help you brainstorm ideas, give you suggestions on how to make your paper better, or even help you come up with a thesis. It’s a great place that everyone should utilize – I don’t use it nearly enough! Similarly, the Research desk is in the lobby of the first floor to help students do research for papers and classes. There are students there that are equipped to help you at any stage of the research process, and there are librarians here that can help you dig deeper in your research as well.

Moving on, the second floor of the library is similar to the first – a bit less social than the first floor, but still very open to group projects. The second floor is my favorite floor because it has Media Services and the TechLab. Media Services has helped me print, laminate, scan, and basically do everything under the sun, including buy colored paper for a project. They also let students check out laptops, cameras and voice recorders for class. It’s the best and I love them. TechLab can help if students need help with certain software programs. It’s so convenient!

Then we get to the third and fourth floors of the library, as well as the basement with the Rare Books Room. These floors are the quiet floors, and students usually go to these floor when they need to focus and get things done (like crank out two papers like I had to do last week). I like it up there because there are individual cubbies and I feel like I can really focus on what I need to do. Sometimes it’s lonely, but you do what you need to do. These floor don’t have any resources like the first and second floors, but they have ENDLESS books that are all at your disposal.

The library has over 370,000 volumes, and 50,000 electronic journals that are all available for students to use whenever they want. I know I just used all of these resources that I mentioned for a research paper I was doing and honestly, it was the best research paper I’ve written EVER. I love the lib.

Just so everyone knows their hours: Monday-Thursday they are open from 8 a.m. – midnight, Friday: 8 a.m. – 6 p.m., Saturday: 10 a.m. – 6 p.m., and Sunday: 12 p.m. – midnight. I just recently started using the library to it’s full potential, and didn’t realize that it wasn’t open 24/7. I’m a Junior. YEESH.

So now that you know about the library, go ahead and start using it! It’s become my second home, so let me know when you all are there – I could use a friend sometime when I’m locked away in a cubby on the third floor. 🙂

Until next time, Readers. Stay classy!