In the past, I’ve written on this blog about the Center for Academic Success (CAS), which is a great place to go for some peace and quiet as well as tutoring or academic counseling. But it’s on the first floor of Briggs, and that means it’s underground. So where can you go if you want a good studying environment, but you want some sunlight, too? The library, of course!
It’s a little cliché, but the Seeley G. Mudd Library (known mostly as “the Mudd”) really is a favorite spot for getting things done on campus. The four floors get progressively quieter as you go up. That means that the first floor is popular for study groups and tutoring sessions, and so is the second, which has a few rooms for larger groups. The third floor, though, is pretty much silent, and the fourth floor is where I go if I’ve screwed up and really procrastinated on something, so I need to banish all distractions. You really can hear a pin drop.
Beyond just being a place to study, though, the Mudd offers a lot of opportunities to actually learn. The staff holds regular presentations on everything from how to fact-check news articles to Michael Jackson’s Thriller. They also host events with Gaming Club and offer open hours for the archives (Level B), where you can view artifacts from Lawrence’s history, as well as that of the surrounding area. There’s a face mask of one of our former presidents. I’m not kidding—check it out.
Among its other attractions, the library has free tea on the first floor and offers snacks before and during finals week. There are puzzles and surveys, and sometimes there are interactive activities—for this year’s National Poetry Month, you can make your own black-out poetry and read what others have created. Outside, the Mudd hosts canine therapy at the end of spring term, where Lawrence faculty and staff can bring their dogs and students can come relieve some stress.
And of course the Mudd also has a lot of books. Not just the typical scholarly tomes, but music scores, DVDs, and CDs as well. The reference section has as many dictionaries as you could wish for—not only in English—and in all the other collections there are works in other languages too. For a history nerd like me, it’s a lot of fun to wander the stacks and look at the oldest books; for my art history project in the fall, I did research in books from the late 1800s, and for a linguistics class this term I looked at a dictionary printed in 1828.
There are even more unique items in the Mudd’s Lincoln Reading Room, which has a collection of books and materials related to Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War, and the Milwaukee-Downer Room, which has old and rare books. It also happens to look like it came right out of the Restricted Section of the Hogwarts library. And if you’ve had enough of books, then there’s also a 55-foot-long racing shell hanging from the ceiling. So take it from me, the Mudd is not your typical dusty library: it’s just plain cool.