A place that promotes quiet study?

Author: Maia Hollinger

One of my favorite methods of procrastination in the new library entails envisioning its creator, the genius who confused the word "library" with the word "party." Now, I love a good party just as much as the next person and I have embraced the social scene that is the library, which is why I am deeply perplexed and disappointed by these new library "QUIET" signs.

They are dull, and ugly, and they use words like "patrons," "ye," and "master." And you thought the other posters were scandalous? Not to mention stupid riddles about a thousand silences. Were our library truly a facility for academic pursuit, they wouldn't spell the word town "towne." Shouldn't I be writing my history paper instead of trying to figure out what a knight holding a bushel of roses has to do with my patronage, let alone my silence? Why is there Japanese calligraphy in the background? Do you expect me to be able to read it because I go to Middlebury? Or are you trying to be trendy? Both of which are offensive.

I suppose the posters themselves are innocuous enough, but then there is that stark foreboding reproach at the bottom written in all caps that attempts to intimidate me into silence: "LIBRARY PATRONS PREFER AN ATMOSPHERE THAT PROMOTES QUIET STUDY." It's practically yelling at me. It's kind of ironic that the quiet poster is yelling at me. These signs make me uncomfortable.

Gone is the Lichtenstein pop art. Gone, gone, gone are the primary colors, wit and the underlying misogynistic messages I secretly enjoyed so much. The cartoon signs that pretended to tell us to be quiet knowing full well that that is impossible. Didn't some kid win an iPod last year for creating those signs? For being so completely appropriate in his aesthetic portrayal of feigned silence? Those posters may have suggested that we be quiet, but they were so "PARTY."

And what is our library if not a party? Everything from the acoustics, to the lounge chairs, to the windows that double as mirrors at night, all of which are punctuated by a huge, overbearing, monolithic, YELLOW mural that just screams DANCE!

Screw Saturday night glow parties in McCullough let's throw it down in the library. Three floors of crazy partying, mirrored walls and chairs that morph into beds…boo yah.

The sincere tone of these posters is in direct contrast to the environment we have intrinsically created. I can't help feeling like they are trying to make us do something we're not - study. I'm sorry, but that's just not going to happen when I can get a soy-latte crackaccino from the café, check my e-mail, and rent the last season of "Lost".

By asking us to be quiet through pop art, we'll smile knowing its never going to happen. But when you ask me to do so through an ugly Photoshop assemblage with misspelled words yelling at me in all caps, I'm a little insulted, because you seem to be taking it seriously, and we all know the library is a party.