Campus, News

CSULB Library offers asylum to finals week refugees

The dread has begun to creep in like ivy as finals draw near, and grades hang perilously in the balance.

It’s in these tense, uncertain times that red-eyed and bedraggled students are prone to strange and sometimes downright grotty behavior as they swarm the hive of activity during the semester’s end—the library.

“No electrical appliances, no shopping carts and no camping or squatting” are some of the rules listed at the entrance of every floor of California State University, Long Beach’s library.

“If it is listed on there, it has been done in the past,” library staff member Austin Lenzen said.

Camping?

Yes, in years past students have camped out in the library, Reserve, Media and Periodicals librarian Sandra Raquel said. “They bring sleeping bags, pillows—they’ve even made tents.”

napgraphicThat’s because staking out a spot in the library is serious business during finals week.

“My best friend and her classmates are all science majors, and they set up base in the basement,” senior English major Araceli Funes said. “They take turns napping under the tables and alternate when they go to class.”

Scout Sable, who is part of Red Bull’s field marketing team, and her co-worker Vianey Torres, a senior sociology major, will be doing their best to keep weary-eyed students from drowsing off. Throughout finals week, the pair will be walking around the library with Red Bull coolers strapped to their backs, handing out free energy drinks.

“I haven’t seen anything too crazy so far, just people sleeping at their desk mostly,” Sable said. “If we see that, we just leave a can for them near their head so it’s there when they wake up.”

Lenzen said that he heard students made a castle out of the empty aluminum cans a few semesters ago. “Anything not to study, basically.”

The combination of sleep-deprivation, frayed nerves and caffeine might be the reason for the shenanigans that take place in the bizarre, fluorescently lit world of afterhours study sessions.

Youtube videos from the past have documented instances of pajama-clad students breaking out in dance among tables stock full of coffee cups, junk food, crumpled paper and books at CSULB.

“It can be interesting,” Victor Velasco, an engineering major who staffs the help desk in the Spidell Center on the library’s first floor, said.

He recalls one occasion when students got into a fight over the free coffee the library serves at night during finals week. Though the biggest problem, he said, is people sprawling out in sleeping bags and taking up too much space.

To keep disruptions to a minimum and to make sure nobody’s completely moved into the library, the staff walks around periodically to keep the facility comfortable and true to its purpose.

Other rules on the sign include: “No moving of furniture that is bolted or restrained and no blocking aisles, pathways or doors.”

Unbolted furniture is fair game, however. Sunday morning, one student pulled together two leather armchairs into a makeshift bed in the library’s fifth floor. Monique Wood, a junior nursing student who was studying for finals, found it amusing and took a photo with her phone.

“He was just hanging out,” she said with a giggle.

The library will be open 24 hours per day through Friday at 5 p.m. to accommodate students as procrastinating begins to give way to frantic cramming— and compulsive napping.

Although the library has prohibited students from setting up forts and shantytowns, sleeping is not against the rules.

“We’re open for study,” Raquel said. “But if they are sleeping, we’re not going to bug them about it.”

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published.

Daily 49er newsletter

Instagram