The UTS Library

Date: 30/05/2013 (Thursday)
Time: 11:06 am
Location: UTS Library in Haymarket
Current mood: Bored and a little bit lonely. I want to go grab coffee with the girls (or at least a nice iced chocolate with whipped cream) but our timetables seem to be allergic to each other.

Usually on Thursdays after my morning lecture, I'd go have lunch with 2 other comms students but today I thought I'd duck down to the library and scan something for my radio recording assignment. That took about 15 minutes and I really can't be bothered wandering back up to the tower building to find my friends again. So here I am.

I've kind of forgotten how lonely it can get at uni, especially when you don't have someone to talk to during your breaks. At the same time, I like the feeling of having time to myself so it isn't all bad.

Let's talk about the UTS Library guys.

It's quite a nice library I suppose. I mean, I've always wanted to study in one of those old fashioned libraries with the mahogany tables and oversized armchairs but obviously UTS isn't the place to do that. (I imagine the USYD library to be like that though.) The UTS one has about 6 levels and it gets progressively quieter the higher you go up. I think I'm on level 3 right now so there are a few people murmuring but at least it doesn't sound like a cafeteria. I like sitting in this spot because it lets me stare out the glass windows onto the street below.

The furniture in this library resembles something you might find off the set of a sci-fi film. For example, the table in front of me isn't even a real table. It's more of a cylindrical metal block 1 m in diameter. The chair I'm sitting on is comfortable though. I kind of feel like I'm sinking backwards into it. If you go down to level 2, you'll find funny kidney shaped tables. I think they're supposed to encourage groupwork or something. I've been told that there are high backed chairs that you can pull together to form your own little cubby hole for group work (and other things) but I have yet to see them.

Here are a few random facts about the UTS library:

• You can eat and drink in here. Just not hot food - it distracts the other students. (But people do it anyway).
• If you're feeling tired, you can sleep under the stairs. In fact, it's encouraged. They even provide you with mattresses.
• It is very hard to locate books. The signs will point you in a particular direction but later on, you'll realize the book you were trying to find was at the other end of the room.
• I once went up to the highest level just to see what it was like and dude, it's so silent up there, it's like a tomb.
• There are toilets inside the library (not really that interesting because libraries always have toilets) but on the back of the doors of the toilet stalls, there are signs accompanied by diagrams telling people not to squat on the seat while doing their business.
• The shelves are ugly
• The self-service loan machines hate me. More specifically, they hate my library card. I once spent 10 minutes standing in front of one trying to get it to scan my card. I eventually had to give up because I was going to miss my train.

Oh well, seems like it's almost time for my tutorial. Bye everyone! I hope you enjoyed this really fascinating post about the UTS library. And if you have time, why not blog about your uni's one. We could do a whole series of campus comparisons.

P.S. Is there any way to disable the camera click sound on the Samsung Galaxy SIII? The settings don't have an option for me to turn it off so when I took those pictures of the library, I got a few strange looks from the people around me. Talk about embarrassing.