University Libraries

Feng Chia University Library. How student-i one can feel being back in the library with books surrounding you. Well, also how interesting it is to see the students sitting here and there, working hard for a future very different from their imagination. Then the pretty girls dressed in short skirts and high heels walking around with pretty textbooks folded under their arms... like those American teenage movies we all adore once or twice in our lives. You wonder what they are doing in a library. Actually, if you think about the one place most sociable and memorable in your university years, the library is hard to miss.

--- a travel back in time ---

When I was,.........

For as far as I can remember, the library has been a haven for me. Here, you find tranquality hard to find anywhere else. At home, there's hundreds of sounds, errands, distractions going on at every passing moment. In class there's your bestfriend dragging on about how horrible her relationship is, but how she doesn't want to get herself out of that misery, just yet. There are some people who do equations between fries bites in MacDonald, people who fill in lyrics and rhymes between coffee sips in Starbucks, and people who wonder around but still get good grades in the dark corners of the university (don't know why, they always give me the dark corner impression). But in a library, especially an university library, you always have something a bit more, hum... say... intellectual going on.

Back in the age of Ohio University, I was one of those... uncommon 5th grade guests. We're lucky at Ohio, you don't need a pass to get into the University Library. Actually, in most of the university library I've been to, you don't need a pass to get in. You can even get a library card if you are not in the library. Libraries are made to be used by people, not to be locked up. I remember how I'd always find this particular corner I loved the most in the library and go there empty pockets on a Saturday afternoon and just pick up a book. Sometimes I attempt the impossible of university level non-fictions, but normally I just roam around the young literature section. When you are young, you are reckless. I had the impression that if I persist in reading, I will eventually read all the book in the world. That mission have not been accomplished, and actually have been on halt for many years now. Perhaps another attempt can be made, you know, God said there's a second chance (or did he?).

Three years swam by, and I landed back home, discovering myself in a place where... there's... no... proper... libraries. My idea of a library had always been very organized books, very cozy sofa and couches, very quiet, very cold. You can kind of just scrunch in somewhere in the library, either on the floor or against a wall and cuddle all day and all night long. No one cuddles books here, apparently, or at least I don't know anyone who does other than me. So... I learned to stop.

A year passed and I find myself standing in front of a "real" library one afternoon. Or at least that's what I called the NTU Library after I got home and told my parents about it. I couldn't enter it, much to my dismay, and much to my surprise, but at least I could look at it from the outside. So... I decided I needed to go to NTU. I needed a library.

For the three years I stayed at NTU, the library continued to be a most visited location. Sometimes I skip classes to read in the library, sometimes just to write, sometimes just to relax. Sometimes I stay there until 4 in the morning, sometimes I go there at 6 in the morning. I don't actually live in the library yet, but it certainly was a place where youd find me most. There isn't the huge collections of books I was dreaming of, but there was enough for me, better than what I could find for years since my return from the States. Now, the NTU University Library is really something. I've never seen a library like it. I've seen a lot of libraries, and a lot of students in libraries, but never one like the NTU library. I've always had the impression that libraries were more for visits, however long and however short. They are places you run to for books between classes, place you go study in, place you find inspiration in, etc. The NTU Library... was actually a place... you could live in (Sincerely... you can accomplish a dream of living in books if you go to the NTU Library). Of course, I am not saying everywhere in the library, but on the basement of the library, where there's the sweet smell of wood and light yellow lights, is the studyhall. This study hall lived up to its name as it is always cramped with students from all departments and all grades. Aside from the fact that it looks sometimes a little bit like a very big "supermarket" of students... or... a factory of reports and papers... with rows and rows of wooden desks and lamps, it was quite a place to be in. So much of a nice place that quite often people refuse to leave it. Hence, there will be sits here and there where you will find desks filled with notes, with blankets, pillows, stacks of books, etc. all over the place. Now, that's something worth remembering. :P

My favorite library, however, is the library of humanitarians at the University of Helsinki. Well, it's also my favorite school so far in my studies. The degree of freedom, the madness of the students, all very appealing for me. This particular library sits towards the ends of the spread out school in the center of Helsinki. On the second floor of this library is the American / British Literature section, that's where you'd most likely find me. :) For about a semester's time I cramped up there quite often with the huge wooden table (again... wood) studying Hemingway (with lacking information, unfortunately~). I chose a tricky topic... between Hemingway's real-life and his fictional-life with just about a handful of information to work with. I chose to talk about Hemingway's character in a way different from most papers (trust me, not a good idea to go too innovative sometimes). In the library, there was always inspiration waiting. There was a windown that went from top of the building to the bottom, and sitting next to the window, you can see the streets below (no buildings are allowed to be talled than the trees in Helsinki, so you can see everything). Right outside is a tiny garden between Kaisaniemenk and Fabirinkatu (I think). A hourse stands on the garden next to a tree. Here you can see the change of the season, the people coming and passing... Sometimes it feels just like a fantasy world, sitting there, looking out the window, feeling the live all around you in a place as cold as Finland. You'd watch the students walking on the street and wondering what they are talking about. Are they wondering about their future? Are they indulged in a discussion about existentialism? Maybe about nazism? Maybe about morality? Maybe about culture? Maybe about how horrible the food is at the UniCafe? Maybe complaining about Finland and at the same time being extremely patriotic to the nation? Then you see the people all around you with stack of books, tediously reading through each one, copying down the parts they want, memorizing the important points. It's a beautiful library, small, but compacted and comfortable.

---

Sitting in the hard chair at the Feng Chai University Library, I find myself missing a really beautiful library. This library is really nice, nicely temperated, nicely built, but still missing that special something, that certain smell the perfect library has.

Still looking, for that perfect library somewhere to be...