It’s that time of the year again – The Proposal Paper. If you have taken Expository Writing 2 here at K-State, you know exactly what I am talking about. It’s the paper that you have to write for a specific audience, proposing a change or solution to a problem that you see currently in the organization/group/whatever. How do I know that it is that time of the year again? Because in the past 10 minutes of working at the Hale Library Help Desk, I have been asked 16 times why the 2nd Floor is so loud or if we have a Quiet Room here (that estimate may be a bit exaggerated). I LOVE helping students with papers and answering questions – it is my job after all. But I started thinking that maybe since I have been asked 234 times about a Study Room in the past 20 seconds (again, it may be an exaggeration), I might address the issue in an article for you.
Yes, on TV and in the movies, libraries are silent and full of librarians with hair in buns walking around shhing people. Not only is that stereotype a gross exaggeration, this is an academic research library where – now you might find this shocking – students come to study, do research, meet friends, and work in study groups. So, while we have students who want to sit and read or study quietly, we also have groups of students who need to be able to talk to each other – and this happens usually on the 2nd Floor, which is why upon entering Hale you are hit by a hum of noise including typing, talking, printing, elevators dinging, and phones ringing. What to do if you are one of the students who want to study quietly by yourself? Head to the 3rd Floor my friend. Up there we have designated the entire Mural Room a.k.a. The Great Room a.k.a. Harry Potter Room a.k.a. Room 304 to complete and utter silence. Well, except for breathing and page turning. We do allow those sounds. You could also walk around and check to see if some of the smaller study desks or cubby areas are free; though they are not designated as a quiet area, they are usually far enough away from the commotion, I mean group studying, to get some work done. Now, this all changes during Finals Week when we do in fact begin to designate other areas of Hale as Quiet Zones. So there’s your answer. You now know where to go to study and you have some more information for that Proposal Paper.* Now, what’s your next question for me?
* If you develop an excellent proposal and want to share it with us, please do. Send any library-related proposals to skearns@ksu.edu and I’ll pass them on! If we take your idea and use it, we’ll even tell the world about it in the Talking in the Library blog.
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