I’m taking a class at the local university, and I am, even as I write, in the library of same. I’m drinking my drink from my water bottle, surrounded by students who have their own drinks and one was even chowing down on a McDonalds meal.
Last fall, I was at a Community College library, and they even had a sign stating that drinks were permitted, as long as they were covered.
So, what gives? Since when is it permissible to put books at risk by having drinks spilled on them? What is the justification that the libraries used to make the change? I’m glad about it, but, I’m amazed at the change.
Thanks,
hh
It’s probably more a surrender than a justified change. You’d have to have a guard at the door frisking every student to keep the drinks out. Generally, if it won’t spill if it falls over, they let it go. Food and spilly drinks are right out, but it’s not easy to police the whole place.
This doesn’t just put the books at risk by possibly spilling soda on them, BTW. Food and drink attract buggies and vermin, which then damage the books and furnishings. Not to mention the lovely coffee spills in the carpet…
A lot of students are utterly clueless and will happily walk into the library with a brand-new fancy coffee drink with whipped cream all over it.
Why is it seemingly so much more common nowadays than in earlier decades for people to carry a drink with them wherever they go?
Probably because they’re now making a profit by selling drinks in a coffee-shop built into the library. I think it was Borders that first figured out that they gained more than they lost that way, and now everyone’s copying them.
Because they’re giving up, honestly. Plus, libraries are trying to be more welcoming to students who don’t understand what the library can do for them and therefore aren’t as likely to use it as they used to be.
The relaxation of the no-food-or-drink rules came first. After the rules had been relaxed for a while libraries figured out they could make a buck or two by selling the students coffee instead of making them bring their own.
The relaxation of the rules was gradual in most of the academic libraries I am familiar with. Allowing first water, then other drinks, then food.
As dangermom pointed out, it was “more a surrender than a justified change.”
At least partly driven by the change in culture on campuses towards students identifying themselves as paying consumers of the university’s services who can and should demand that they get what they want, not what the university decides they should have.
I don’t see how my concept applies to a university library, but maybe.
With the digital age, libraries are subject to the same type of pressures the USPS is these days. They are losing business and maybe loosening the restrictions makes sense to attract business. With school libraries, maybe its partly about accepting the ubiquitous nature of food and drink these days and working to police it rather than abolish it and have folks sneaking drinks in and spilling them.
Here, it appeared in book stores first: Hugendubel started sub-renting a small corner to a coffee shop, so people could drink a cup of coffee while reading the books. This drew more clients.
After this, the public libraries put up a coffee machine near the newspaper section.
In my university library, we don’t sell coffee, but we started allowing water in clear plastic bottles some semesters back because
a) we had seen that there was no big problem based on the experiences of the book stores and public libraries
b) many students wanted it. In summer it’s very hot and the students stay long hours in the library while working; in winter the air is dry from heating. Doctors recommend to drink a lot to avoid collapse and improve thinking.
Food and other drinks are still not allowed, but again, it varies by university - one university library apparently allows pizza because they are open up to midnight when students are cramming for exams.
The attitude of the libraries is that we are there for the users - not to attract more customers like a shop; but if only 5 people sit in the reading room, instead of 300, something is wrong. We offer not only books, but general services for students to learn and help with their studying. So if many users want drinks, we allow a bit. If many students want to learn in groups, we try and build small group study rooms. If the students want to study late at night, we hire additional helpers and extend opening hours. If students need more text books, we try to buy enough volumes. And so on.
We do have guarded entrances of course, so cofffee or soda stays outside (We need to guard the books, and check identity anyway).
And university libraries are usage libraries, not archive ones like LoC or British library.
So if the worst happens and a student spills (water/coffee) over a book, they will pay for the replacement and we will buy a new one.
Pure archive libraries, which can’t replace an out-of-print volume from 1956, have to be stricter.
In my experience, most students don’t often use university libraries to read university library books; they tend to just use the library as a convenient studying location. Why should the library care if you spill your drink on your laptop?
Asked my university library about this a while back.
People were getting drinks in there when it was banned and spilling them due to trying to conceal it, then not getting help to clean it up. Now, people are in the open about it, so messes happen less, and people are willing to admit that they just screwed up.
I think this is the real reason. I can’t remember the last time I actually touched a book in a library.
p ppp pp ppaaaaperrr… whats that?
Oh, so true. Most of the students I help say things like “I’ve never been in here before” or (better) “I’ve never been up to this floor before” (the one with most of the books). We exist to help them do their homework, we want nothing more for them to show up and allow us to help them, we can save them tons of time (because most of them think googling is the same thing as research and waste hours at it), and they mostly have no clue we are even here. Not for lack of effort or outreach mind you, but unless an instructor actually assigns a student to enter the library–which quite a few do–they just don’t do it.
When I was an undergrad, all beverages and food were barred from the library. By the time I went to graduate school, the library gave wide-bottom, covered mugs to all the students.
It’s a clear indicator that the moral fiber of this country has rapidly decayed, and that the anti-Christ has returned as a harbinger of the End Times. Obviously.
Back when I was going to college, over 30 years ago, there was a study lounge where drinks were allowed. I can’t remember if you had to bring in your own, or if there were soda machines. I do remember that vending machines were in every other building, and usually in several locations per building.
However, you weren’t allowed to drink anything in the library except for that one study lounge.
It possibly has a lot to do with the general fear of DEHYDRATION that seems to have gripped the western world over the past decade, to the extent that nobody will leave the house without carrying at least a quart of potable fluid with them.
I think people are also much less willing to drink from a water fountain these days. I certainly am. So if students are spending hours in the library, they “need” bottled water.
Absolutely. I cannot figure out why so many people have become convinced that they need 3-5 times as much liquid water as they actually do.
Going along with that, in what I suspect is a mutually-reinforcing cycle, is the overall level of rising prosperity. Even fairly poor people can afford to buy several bottles of water a week. My grandparents grew up during the Depression, and there was perhaps one time per year that they were thirsty enough to decide that it was worth buying something to drink before getting home.
I thought this was going to be about it being OK to have cocktails at the library and get hammered.
This seems like a big reason.
Libraries these days no longer have a monopoly on information. They’re competing for patrons with Starbucks and Borders.
They had to modernize, digitize, become more flexible and welcoming and lose the stuffy air or the younger crowd will just ignore them altogether.
In other words, what Zsofia said much more eloquently 