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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (May 4, 1989)
The Battalion LIFE ti ivith ora i, it ting ? as if I [her an't nti- are isis- ited I. DSO- lini and Id it sto vith ired II is the ting ighi ilook- , the doin! men- meet- Bank tople. state- lition I they ration re : re- >ther ft to over 3 in- irofn need ouse : was ture, loca- Thursday, May 4,1989 Student antics enliven library during finals Sandy Hurta, a junior who works at the circulation desk in the Evans library, looks over returned books she must check in. By Katsy Pittman FEATURE WRITER It’s that time again. Mild-man nered students who ordinarily wouldn’t consider putting a book in a non-shelving area are once more going crazy at Sterling C. Evans Li brary. Yes, exams are here and A&M students are back to relieving stress in bizarre ways. Perhaps none are as strange as the mysterious “Toe Biter,” who terror ized the library several years ago. His victims were unsuspecting stu dents who removed their shoes as they relaxed while studying. “T.B.” would then silently crawl under desks and nibble their toes before they could run away. He was never apprehended. Dr. David Chapman, an associate archivest at A&M, joked about the situation. “We think he died of athlete’s foot of the throat,” Chapman said. Whether disappearance of “T.B.” should be credited to graduation or oral fungal diseases, the library staff may never know. But they’ve had other deviants to deal with since. Several flashers have been re ported over the years. One of them- surprised female librarians on seve ral occasions as he streaked through a walkway in the back of the library. He later was apprehended by a fe male security guard and has not made an appearance at the library since. Stefanie Ravet, a senior account ing major from Pearland, says she witnessed an unusual study break earlier this semester. It occurred when she and a friend were studying late one night near a couple who was hidden by a large study carrel. “All of a sudden we heard this gig gling,” says Ravet. Apparently, the couple was relieving exam stress in a rather intimate way. Not all the criminal mischief has been quite so entertaining. Dr. Chapman says many students have been breaking into the archives divi sion of the library for years. Some do it as a prank. Some do it to steal things. As far as pranks go, library jokes apparently have taken a lot of time and effort. Jokes have included the removal and stacking of all the ceiling tiles in the archives. Another joke consisted of removing the door locks and put ting them in backwards, effectivly locking in the library workers from the outside. Are you thinking of pulling a few pranks on the library staff? It’s a risky business. “We take a dim view of those who break the rules,” says Dr. Chapman. “We prosecute to the full extent of the law.” Chapman says two students were apprehended breaking into the li brary last year, right before exams. They were thrown in jail over the weekend, missing their exams in the process. There apparently is a lot of emphasis on “criminal” in criminal mischief. But not all study breaks are quite so illegal. Some are just annoying. Most library visitors are familiar with the group of girls whose idea of an “all-nighter” is a library slumber party complete with pillows and popcorn. Dr. Irene Hoadley, the director of Evans library since 1974, says the slumber parties are a common oc currence at Final exam time. But the parties are not encouraged. In fact, “bouncers” are now being used in the library, and the concept is work ing. Library workers aren’t the only ones who do not tolerate late-night study revelers. It’s not uncommon for students who are trying to study to reach the breaking point when neighboring “studiers” get too loud. The noisy of fenders often are told to go enter tain themselves in a playground in stead of the library. This will usually be followed by a cacophony of ap plause, then utter silence — at least until the next offenders come along. One kind of fight is not quite so noisy. This is the fight for any avail able couch space on which to take a nap during exams. The best place to review these nappers is on the second floor be tween the main stairwell and the stu dent lounge. Encased behind a glass wall, anyone going for a quick snack can view the envied spot on the “C” shaped couches, which comfortably sleep three. During exams, this number is often doubled. If these things go on in the public view, one can only imagine what goes on in the 400 study cubicles, re served for graduate students and faculty members. Dr. Hoadley says at least one graduate has been caught actually living in a cubicle. This student was sleeping on couch cushions in his cubicle at night and showering *in the gym by day — a pretty cheap deal if you can get away with it. But when you do get caught, it’s goodbye library, hello au thorities. So where does one go to do some peaceful studying? If there are any truly peaceful spots in the library, those who know about them aren’t talking. Some of the better places for studying are be hind the LRD on the 6th floor, be hind the stacks on the first floor, and as far away from the group study areas as one can get. Another quiet area a few students go to is the Templeton Collection on the third and fourth floors in the back of the library. The books may be gone, but the bookcases are still there. Thus, each student has their own individual bookcase to cram into. So there is hope for those who wish for a little successful studying over the exam period. If you can avoid the gigglers, the sleepers, and the toe biters, there is a place some where in the six floors of Evans li brary for you. Special library departments offer unusual information By Don Kopf FEATURE WRITER Sterling C. Evans Library is well known as a place of study and re search for Texas A&M students, but there is more information at the li brary than many people realize. Most students know about the stacks of books on each floor, but few people know about the special departments hidden in various cor ners of the library. These obscure departments hold much information that cannot be found elsewhere in the library. For example, if you were looking for a street map of downtown Berlin or suburban Moscow, the stacks would not be much help. The map room would be a better place to search. Located on the second floor of Sterling C. Evans Library, the map room has nearly every kind of world map. There are soil survey maps of the earth, aeronautical-navigation maps, street maps of every town and city in America, vegetation maps of every country in the world and satel lite photographs of continents. But the map room has more than land maps. There are bathymetric maps of the ocean floor, commem orative Texas sesquicentennial maps and, at one time, maps of the A&M utility tunnels. Another department not well- known by most students is the ar chives department. Located in the old library building on the south end of Sterling C. Evans Library, the ar chives contain records that have ad ministrative or legal importance to the University. The archives have a copy of every A&M yearbook (the first one was produced in 1903), as well as issues of The Battalion dating See Library/Page 13 Photo by Scott D. Weaver Photo by Scott D. Weaver Hundreds of books are returned to the Sterling C. Evans Library each day. The books in this stack towering behind the circulation desk were all returned on Wed., May 3. • Jeff Millard refiles maps in the Sterling C. Evans Library map room, which is located on the library’s second floor. The map room con tains nearly every type of world map.