Oberlin Blogs

Favorite Place to Work

October 6, 2010

Will Mason ’10

Oberlin has four main libraries. Everyone reacts to them differently (talk to your doctor before trying Libraries) but generally here’s how I view them:

Art Library: Comic books! Photography books! Colorful happy things! I never go there.

Science Library: Where I go when I am utterly screwed, need to work rapidly and efficiently in a place that looks like the Fortress of Solitude, and desire the silent company of classmates who are also utterly screwed but trying to go to med school.

Mudd Library: Oberlin’s main library. I sit on the first floor, spend an hour doing 10 pages of inconsequential reading, and socialize with whoever walks by. For me it’s less a place to do work than it is a place to be seen working.

Conservatory Library: My main man. The perfect balance: quiet enough, and with enough nooks and crannies, that I can do work. But with enough foot traffic that I’ll see people, and stave off the despair of being a 5th-year graduating early applying to grad school putting together a senior recital trying to find a job and....oh god. Plus, there are plenty of distractions. About every imaginable cd, periodical, score, and a lot of interesting/weird/old books about music. (Some of the mid-20th century books about jazz are hilarious. Why was everything “hot” back then?)

The other day I took a break from working to snap a few photos.

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My stuff

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Books!

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Window to S. Professor Street on another sunny, warm Oberlin day...

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Part of the jazz section (“Hot Jazz and Jazz Dance” is a must-read...)

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Periodicals

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John, do you have a subscription? Is this, uhm, how all recorder players view themselves? No judgments or anything.

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Computers

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Scores of scores. (First floor)

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Scores upon scores! (Second floor)

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Oversize scores.

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Seriously, oversize. My size 12 foot included for reference.

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Yeah. Scores.

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Colorful! And also scores.

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Listening stations

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CDs, tapes, records, et cetera...

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