Tooling Places

"Give me something on campus life besides frat parties," my editor said to me. He added, sounding annoyingly like my parents: "Don't you guys ever study?"

So, in deference to my editor, I give you a list of some of the most popular places to study - or "tool," in campus parlance. I will award each location a number from 1 to 10 based on its productivity potential.

As in the old days, Baker Library still takes the prize for its variety of study environments. The '02 Room, on the west end of the ground floor, gets a mere 3. The last time I peeked into this pleasant red-rugged space, the entire collection of faces turned up to see if the newcomer was a member of the.opposite sex. It seems that the whole function of the room is to see and be seen. Unabashed scoping - part of social life on a coed campus.

Not much higher on the list is the Reserve Corridor in the basement, which I give a 5. Some people do try to work here, and the mood is often contagious. But once again, scoping often takes precedence over studying - hence the nickname Observe Corridor. Besides, I'm too distracted by Orozco's leering faces.

The Tower Room also gets a 5, but not for its human interruptions. Its warmth, distinguished atmosphere and stillness combine to leave one too much at peace. And thus asleep. I never go there when I have work to do, though the place is good for curling up with pleasure reading. Just this morning a friend told me she was heading to the Tower Room to work on her tan.

What?

"It's the only place on campus where you can get sun in the late winter and stay warm," she said. I'll leave that one alone.

There are still two options at Baker for those who have got to get the-information into their heads. The stacks themselves I give an 8. They are quiet, there are enough corners for almost everyone to have his own space, and the chairs are just uncomfortable enough to ward off drowsiness. But the dusty smell and the dark, often gloomy atmosphere lower the rating a bit.

Now for the ultimate: the classrooms and study rooms off to the side of the Tower Room. I give these a 9 for the solitude they afford the serious tooler. Once, to prepare for a dreaded calculus exam, I decided that I had to redo every homework problem for the entire term; I chose these study rooms to accomplish my mission. (The room worked well, but I didn't, unfortunately.)

Sanborn Library, adjoining Baker, gets a 7. Grabbing a chair takes advance planning; students stake out their chairs with coats and books in the morning, and return to them in the evening.

Sherman Art Library, also attached to Baker, gets a 9. Not many people know about the carrels alongside the stacks there, and the only distractions are the art books all around - good for study breaks.

The Top of the Hop is pleasant (I give it a 6), but whenever I go up there the stuents are sitting facing the window, their legs up on the rail, a book in their laps, staring blankly across the Green at Baker Tower .Last fall, at a book and author luncheon, Louise Erdrich '76 remembered the Top of the Hop as "the perfect place for the romantic student to think those melancholy and hopelessly lofty and embarrassingly pretentious thoughts, as students are inclined to think."

In the basement of the Hop there is the brand-new Paddock Music Library. I give it a generous 8. It is small but extremely well equipped, with a cluster of Macintosh computers, rows of brand-new audio-visual components, and a nice little study area. The only trick is to avoid getting run over by bookshelves on tracks that were installed to save space.

Another of the newer study areas is Rockefeller. Other students like it, but I have never been able to concentrate there. The furnishings are a bit too elegant for me; I'll give it a 7.

Last on the list is an area that will surprise everyone who remembers the building solely for the computer geeks who slink around its corridors: the basement of Kiewit. It is now a 24-hour Macintosh area, with individual partitions for each student. Around midterms or finals, the basement buzzes. This is where papers and projects get done, where you will find as many people working at four in the morning as at four the next afternoon (though the wee hours will turn up many more junk food wrappers and empty soda cans).

That's my list of places to study when my dorm room proves too distracting (and it will, unless it is late at night). But there are bound to be additions and changes every year. Why, just today someone told me how many nooks and crannies exist in the three new East Wheelock Street dorms for studying. I'll have to check them out ....

Jock McDonald '87, one of this magazine's twoWhitney Campbell Interns, admits that his ratings are "highly subjective and completely opento argument." His editor welcomes readers'equally subjective memories of their favoriteStudy areas.