(Mar 10/08) The head librarians recent push to make our library more congenial to learning has left me, a serious graduate student, without place to learn. When I am in the stacks retrieving books, why must I always have to step over napping students, or students attempting to become more intimate? When I try to work in the one of the study rooms, why must I always ask others to keep down the noise, to turn down the movie that is playing on their laptop, to stop talking on their cell phone? Why is it that students that want to go to the library to read books are no longer able because of all the distractions? The recent changes made to McMaster libraries are probably necessary, but the environment left in the wake of these changes is fostering is everything but learning.
Answered by: Vivian Lewis (Associate University Librarian, Teaching, Learning and Research)