It’s Year Three, Term Two, Week Ten. Or, as I like to think of it: “Oh God Oh God Oh God.” Or as my lecturers like to call it: “Let’s give you ALL the assignments“. Long story short, I spend a lot of time in the library these days.
Once upon a fresherdom, the library was that building full of books I didn’t read. I kept it at arms length, well aware that the second and third years with real work to do could spot a fresher hogging a desk from a mile off. Fast forward to second year, where the good people at AP Housing thought we’d be able to write all of our essays on a desk the size of an ironing board, and the library quickly became my second home. This is when I met the Library Assholes.
Library Asshole [lai-brar-ee | ass-hoal] n. sg: A person whose presence and or activities in a library setting are irritating to other library goers. Diet: Key Texts and Facebook. Most active during exam season.
By not conforming to Library Etiquette, these people cement themselves as the worst people ever. There’s the obvious Library Assholes, the ones who confuse ‘Quiet Zones’ for a bloody canteen. Oh, you got your pizza delivered to the Silent Zone? Aren’t you just the quirkiest. You’d better Instagram that shit immediately.
As well as the obvious Library Assholes, a species so unforgivable we can only really pity them, there’s the subtle ones. The ones that are accidental. The empty desk being scowled at- when the piles of notes on top of it are in use, but the fella has just nipped to the loo. The girl so lost in her research that she doesn’t notice her phone frantically buzzing on the corner of the desk. Yesterday, my laptop loudly started playing “No Diggity”, and the mute button wouldn’t kick in until after the chorus. The shame.
So, this blog isn’t simply another passive aggressive release of frustration. It’s a plea, really. The world is full of Library Assholes. That’s because everyone is one, even you, even me. Sometimes it’s an accident, and you can feel the people around you stopping what they’re doing to write a Facebook status about you. So, let’s all judge less harshly. People make mistakes, sometimes they don’t realise they’ve been singing Taylor Swift out loud. Sometimes they really needed to play that level of Candy Crush.
Let’s all just live and let live. Unless you’re being one of those ostentatious sods, loudly having your lunch and treating the surrounding students to a rendition of “what happened to me last night”. If you’re one of them, well, you can just fuck off.
