Ellie Hawkins  Journal Staff

The library on college campuses can be one of the busiest buildings during the day. It is the place where people come to hangout between classes and for people to escape from loud distractions to study. For me, it is the place I always go to do my homework. There are many things I enjoy, but there are issues that need to be addressed as well.

73 Tremont Café is one of the places to eat on campus. Do not get me wrong they have mouthwatering salads and sandwiches, but what really gets to me is the way the café is set up. It is so hard to get a salad or sandwich because the lines are always long and the layout of the café makes it hard for people to move around when there are long lines of people everywhere.

I think that it would be more efficient if the double doors on the back wall by the condiment counter could be opened so that the line wrapped around the side of the wall instead of right through the middle of the café. This would allow the people who want sandwiches to get to that station easily and more efficiently.

The next level up is the main floor of the library. I think it is useful that the library has laptops that students can rent out. By doing this, it allows the student to go to whatever part of the library they want in order to work on their assignments. It also allows the students, who need to use a computer during the day, the choice not to bring a laptop to campus and have to lug it around all day. The free printing is always a plus, too. The one thing I wish Suffolk had on all their research computers is Microsoft Word. This would be more helpful for students so they can type notes and email them to themselves instead of having to write notes or print mass amounts of paper.

The top two levels of the four level café and library are study rooms and other open areas to study. I think these levels are valuable to the student body to use. The tables and desks that are provided have an immense amount of study room on them; I am glad they are big and bulky. It is also handy that all of the desks and tables have outlets built into them so one does not have to walk around trying to find a desk that is close to an outlet. In addition, it is enjoyable that much of the furniture in the library is new.

When I sit in the library I have noticed that there seems to be little study space. People have to sit on the floor to do their work if there are not enough tables or desks. I am curious to know if all of these books have been used in the past ten years. If not, maybe we can remove some of them to make space for more study areas.

Suffolk also has a great writing center located on the third floor; I have found the writing center helpful with my papers this semester. There are a good amount of people to choose from to help a student work on their papers. It is also helpful that their majors vary: some are journalism majors while others are majoring in English or sociology. This is a good way to match your type of paper up with someone that has a major that would benefit the most.

Lastly, the other issue I want to address is the volume of the library. The fourth floor is supposed to be the quiet floor, but some students come up to this floor to work on group projects. To me, this just means that the library needs to be expanded in some way. If students cannot find seating on another floor when they are working on a group project, that is a big sign that there needs to be more room added.

The library is a great place to study at Suffolk University and I have always found it helpful when I needed to study, but with these improvements or slight modifications, I believe that the library will be even better than it is now.