Letters to the Editor

Published April 26, 2011

Letters to the editor are welcomed from UCC students and staff and will be printed as space permits. Letters which are sent electronically will be printed exactly as received while handwritten letters will be edited for any spelling and capitalization errors. Letters over 500 words may be too long to print. To be considered for printing, letters should avoid defamation and profanity and should follow UCC policies.

After 30 years (at least), the UCC library is still noisy

In a letter to The Mainstream, dated February 11, 1980, a student complained that the library felt oppressive to students because talking wasn’t allowed. He said, “Learning comes about by the exchange of ideas and everyone at one time or another needs to speak to someone in order for the learning process to take place. What many students disapprove of is the almost Gestapo-like actions of the library staff – hovering, waiting for someone to speak, and then zeroing in to execute the offenders. It’s about time for some reform and time to give students a chance to use the library.’

Please consider: there is nowhere else on campus for students to gather together to study in groups, work on projects, use a computer lab, punch holes, rehearse speeches, practice foreign language dialog, and argue about solutions to math problems. And there aren’t that many places to socialize, either. The library has as many services as possible to help students—from staplers (also noisy) to wireless printers to books and computers to helpful staff.

But what do we do about those students who laugh like Neanderthals and talk about last night’s fun to a pal three tables away? Someone complains: Why doesn’t the library staff go tell the offender to pipe down? The loud mouth is sitting with 5 other students—some with books open studying, some giggling. His pal three tables away is with three other students yakking about Snooki. To get to the loud mouth, the library staff member walks past 6 engineering students deep in discussion when one of them cracks a joke and they all burst out laughing. The staff member pauses, but then bears down on the original goofball, passing by two women with their nutrition books wide open but loudly gabbing about the cute baby pictures one of them just posted to Flickr. The staff member tiptoes past the dude with the headphones who is oblivious to everything as he reads his Norton Shakespeare, squeezes around the table with three noisy ASUCC officers (planning a student event or rating local pizza or both), stumbles over a guitar on the floor, weaves around a math study group arguing loudly about donuts, and finally reaches the original standout loudmouth.

“Hey, keep it down!” says the staff member. The loudmouth typically responds like this: “Yeah, Leslie, keep it down!” he says pointing at someone else at the table. But he quiets down. Now the staff member winds his/her way back to the line forming at the front desk: past the now quiet table of the goofball’s friends, around the table of engineering students studying quietly until another one cracks a joke, past the women now studying nutrition, says hello to the ASUCC officers, and smiles at the Shakespeare dude, a role model for perfect library use. And once the staff member makes it back to the front desk a cell phone rings and someone is talking loudly and it turns out to be the Shakespeare dude. Someone comes to the desk and complains.

In another Mainstream article from 1993 titled “Shhh! Library Being Used as Social Hall, Not Study Hall!”, reference librarian Lois Soulia says, “Students come to visit and talk. . . Our dilemma is that we can enforce a no-talking rule, but that would mean a lot of students would be asked it leave the library and that’s not what we’re here for.” Soulia said that students must choose what kind of a library they want. “Students must decide whether or not they want to forgo their social hour and have a quiet library. If students want a quiet library, they need to police themselves.” If you think someone is being particularly noisy, try asking them politely to quiet down. They may not even realize how loud they’re being.

The article, “A Noisy Library is Nothing New” in the April 1999 issue of The Mainstream stated that “another point to consider is that the library is a place to be used by the students. Gate counts now show that library usage is probably at an all time high. To try and run students off would seem to be defeating the purpose.” Since that article ran 12 years ago, gate count numbers have probably doubled. And average Monday or Wednesday could have more than 1,600 people coming into the library throughout the day.

Not everybody thinks the library is too noisy. According to the results of the library’s customer service survey conducted in 2010, the exact same number of people said they enjoyed the quiet as those who complained about noise. Some people even praised the noise, saying things like “The white noise helps me study” and “I like how it’s not perfectly quiet.”

Two other items:

1) Did you know that there are study carrels around the walls in the back of the library where the book shelves are located? The library staff will enforce quiet in this area. Students go to this “zone” when they want it quiet. No cell phones, no conversations allowed. Whenever the big room is full, there is always seating available in this quiet zone.

2) Hundreds of people use the library everyday, especially between 9:30 am and 2:30 pm. If you find the library to be too noisy, try coming in the early morning (we open at 7:30am) or in the evenings (we are open until 9:00pm 4 nights a week). At those times of day, the library is much quieter.

The big open room is often full and noisy. Most students must like it that way. Otherwise, why have they been talking loudly for 31 years?

—Amy Cornia,
Library Assistant

—David Hutchison,
Director of Library Services

Recyclables

My name is Doug Miller and I have been a student at UCC for two years being full time including the summer terms.

My concern weighs on the shoulders of my peers as well as the faculty on the UCC campus. It seems there are several plastic bottles and cans, (recyclables) filling up the garbage cans around campus because there are only a few recycling receptacles for plastic bottles or cans available on campus to dispose these unwanted recyclables. Students carrying heavy books will throw recyclables in garbage bins if receptacles for recyclables are not close and convenient. It is our belief that hundreds of dollars are being improperly wasted every term. It is our proposal that the student council place receptacles for these recyclables outside of every building on campus to insure that these funds are no longer wasted. The money received from these recyclables could be used for so many needs on campus, for students, that it seems unethical to let this waste continue a day longer. The money received within the first week should be able to pay for said receptacles and therefore cost should not play a factor in this action. As far as the funding recovered from the recyclables, I am confident the student council will spend the funding accordingly based on the highest of needs priorities. Thank you for your cooperation in this economically challenged matter.

Respectfully,
Douglas Miller
—UCC Student
—UCC Library Lab Aid
—UCC F.A. Studio Attendant

Gamers in student lounge

I have noticed a developing trend in the student lounge. There seems to be a large number of students who wish to play games in the lounge, unfortunately they choose to do so spread out through out the area. They are yelling to communicate or “talking rather loudly.” Since the lounge is a student lounge many students prefer the relaxed atmospere of the lounge to study -- since we are students, we are generally doing that.
I believe there needs to be an area just for these students who choose to unwind or otherwise play video games. They get caught up in them and seem to need their own space! This way the student who wishes to use the student lounge can and the gamers who wish to play can without disrupting the rest of the population.
—Anonymous