When I was an undergrad, I thoroughly explored my college campus, in search of secluded places to study. I did find a cool library, the Kennedy Bioethics Library, in the Healy building. For whatever reason, I haven't really looked around Chicago for a similar spot, even though I've been here for five years. Last night, I was walking around campus without anything to do. I walked into the Seminary Co-op building, and decided to climb the stairs leading up the chapel. The chapel was closed, but down a paneled hallway, lined with portraits, I could see a spiral staircase and what looked like a library. I asked the girls working at the desk of the co-op what was upstairs. They said that it was the Div School library. Maybe a good place to get some thinking done?
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I discovered this library last year. I can't remember if you're allowed to check out books (presumably you are - but I wasn't there to check anything out) but you're definitely not allowed in there to study if you're not a div student. Now, I foolishly stopped and asked what the deal was before I went in. Had I walked in with complete confidence and spoken to no one, then perhaps no one would have said anything. But technically, we're not allowed in. It's not as intimate, but the Oriental Institute library is quite nice.
DG
Yeah, I waltzed in without talking to anyone.
I'll have to check out the Oriental Institute Library.
I went to a book sale at this library once, but it wasn't very good. The Seminary building as a whole has a pretty good feel to it, one that I never sufficiently appreciated when I lived in Hyde Park. When I walked around that one courtyard back there, for instance, I almost felt as if I were in a monastery in some far off exotic place. Almost.
I'm happy to find these libraries, even this late in grad school, because I never found a place on campus that I could really study in. Harper has that weird noise and is full of sleeping undergrads; the Classics Coffee shop is impossible to work in because you keep bumping into people and having conversations, and the Reg is like working in a hospital--though it has the best A/C in wintertime.
Summertime, I mean.
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