Please, Shut Up: Give Me Back My Library
Tina Nouri-Mahdavi ‘25
Visual by Josephine Garkisch
The Incident:
Oct. 8, 2024. Upstairs level of the Esther Raushenbush Library. A dim corner, the one closest to the bathrooms and study rooms. A window: a mosaic of a quintessential Bronxville home. A brown tudor-style home, its windows framed in white and its lawn perfectly manicured. Another: a sliver of the Early Childhood Center. Children walked past, hand in hand with their guardians, laughing and swaying their joined hands with every step. A ledge touching the narrow edge of the tables, underneath which rests the special collections room, a small enclave kept hidden from the rest of the library’s ground level.
My friends and I sat huddled around the table, our eyes never strayed from our respective screens. Across our small area, a girl sat alone. Around her were papers, her computer, and books. Whenever my eyes wandered from my screen, they stared at her. I couldn’t help it; other than the people at my table, she was the only thing in my eyeline. But she never noticed. Her focus was sharp, impenetrable.
It began with a few infrequent words. “Yes,” the girl below us. A pause, then, “No!” I realized she was on the telephone, the other side of her conversation hidden in the wires of her earbuds. Bothersome, sure. But I didn’t pay it any mind, tuning out her words in lieu of those on the screen before me.
Soon, though, the other side of the phone call broke out of its silence. Maybe the girl below unplugged her earbuds, maybe there hadn’t been anyone on the line in the first place. It didn’t even matter, though. Now, it was the girl below’s time to talk.
“It’s such a stupid class, the professor is so annoying and there’s so much reading,” she told her phone. “I haven’t even done any of it.”
The friend on the phone laughed.
It continued on that way, the girl in the special collections room below complained about the various aspects of this class she dislikes. It seemed that’s all she does: dislike. She was loud, oblivious to the expected conduct of her environment. She did not simply speak, she drawled.
A friend comes over to say a quick and silent hello, and before she leaves, she half yells, half whispers, to the girl below: “This is a library!”
Of course, the girl below didn’t hear. But my friends and I chuckle, and return to our work. But how could we? It went on (and on and on), for more than twenty minutes. Same projected voice, similarly empty words.
My friends left for class, the girl was still talking. I finished one reading and moved on to the next, the girl is still talking. Her cache of ridiculousness could not be emptied, it seemed.
I looked up, my hands clutched my head, trying to block out the girl’s recounting of her plans this weekend. I made eye contact with the girl across from me at the other table. I didn’t know her, she didn’t know me. Our paths will probably never cross again. She looked at me with an expression that clearly said, This girl, right? I nodded in agreement. Our eyes widened, smiles broke out on our faces, and for one second, just one second, I was grateful to this girl for acting as a thread between me and this stranger.
But not really. I threw my hands up, packed up my things, and moved to another part of the library, a quiet part. There, peace prevailed.
The Issue
It seems that, as a student body, we have forgotten the premise of the library. I am not blameless. I used to take calls, zooms, meetings and various other privacy-dependent commitments in the study rooms; rooms that, contrary to popular belief, are not soundproof. I’m sure many people have been annoyed by my booming voice echoing in the downstairs brick-lined group conference rooms. The incident above is not an isolated one; we are all, I believe, guilty of the same crime: we have forgotten the fundamental idea of The Library.
It is not just a building. It is not a house for books. It is not just a place where some people have class sometimes. It is a sacred space, dedicated to knowledge and the pursuit of it, a space where many of us create our best work, our best selves. The Library, with all its nooks and crannies, all secluded spaces, and undiscovered potential, may be the only place on campus where we can go to find out, through uninterrupted work, who it is we want to be once we leave it.
And we know this in the last few weeks of every semester, when time is of the essence to do our work and do it well. Isn’t that what we turn to the library for anyway? Isn’t that why we give it all our time and attention in those blurry conference season days? Quality work, work we’re proud of. Part of the issue is that we forget we can access The Library’s well of productivity at any time, regardless of how we treat it prior. We don’t grant it the space it needs to do its job when we don’t require it. We forget what The Library is there for until we come crawling back, begging for its quietude.
Like many of us, this obnoxious girl probably didn’t imagine The Library as a place of pure work; it was only a month into the semester. The Library, then, becomes a pitstop: thirty minutes in between classes, conferences, or work. Where else to go? The Barb is too popular, The Hub too unfamiliar; The Library fits the bill. The Library assumes an identity outside of its main premise. It becomes a replacement for the student spaces we are meant to use for purposes like taking phone calls or enjoying the freedom of conversation and laughter.
The issue is not this obnoxious girl (maybe it is just a little bit); it is me, it is you, it is all of us. We have forgotten the sanctity of The Library. We have forgotten to give it the care it needs year-round. We have forgotten The Library.
The Esther Raushenbush Library, I will say again, is not just a building, it is not just a place to store books, it is not what we have made it out to be in these past few years. We must remind ourselves of its gifts, its graces, and that if we ruin it in the early days of the semester, we can’t expect it to be what we want it to be by the end. Please, shut up. Give me back my library. Or, no: give The Library back its honor.