[media-credit name=’BEN CLASSON/Herald photo’ align=’alignright’ width=’336′][/media-credit]
Nothing screams “alone time” like those masochistically cramped cages in the Memorial Library stacks. But for the sad and lonely college student who opts to favor productivity over the constant distractions and voyeurism of Helen C. White’s communal study areas, the stacks are ideal.
Memorial Library may not have the lively social atmosphere of other study areas, but you do have to flash a student ID to be granted access, making it feel more like an exclusive club than those other places where the common folk go to study. The dim lighting and rich potpourri of aging literature hint at the debonair atmosphere few students are really aware of.
And for the more adventurous studier, hunting down a book can involve multiple elevator rides as you try to figure out the building’s backwards system of dividing its stacks. This leads to meandering strolls through dark aisles that light up only when someone’s present. Given this labyrinthine structure, Memorial Library serves as the best place to set up your own scavenger hunts when you’ve got time to kill or academic research to do. You might even run into that ghost from the opening scene of “Ghostbusters,” who apparently resides in such eerie sites. If you do, don’t panic — any ghoul with the character to haunt so fine a bibliotheque must be all right.