Near my house is a really beautiful, fully functional, modern library. The sleek gray building looks like it was designed by some hot-shot international architecture firm. When you walk through the gigantic glass gate surrounding the entrance, a moving LED screen alerts you of news about the library and events around town. Then you enter the lobby, which, though fully staffed, rarely has any lines because you can check out books yourself on special machines. Most people are at computers here, surfing the internet or viewing the library's book collection.
The library would be very good, except for a certain group of people who use the library. They start lining up outside the gate sometime around 7am (the library opens at 9am, I'm not sure exactly what time they start lining up because I don't get up that early on weekends). By the time the doors open, there is a huge line which snakes around the plaza in front of the library.
Students lining up outside the library. This photo was taken at eight in the morning on a Sunday.
I'm talking about students, of course. Which is all well and good-- I have no problem with kids who want to do well on their exams and study. The problem is that by the time I get there (which is usually in the early afternoon) there are literally no seats left. Again, this wouldn't be a problem if the kids were actually studying. But at any given time fully half of the occupied seats are unattended. What most of them do is leave their books at the place, and then go off with their friends to eat/play/chat somewhere outside the library.
Of course, in the West this would never work as people would be afraid of having something stolen and would always be at the desk, save for a bathroom break. But here no one seems to bat an eye.
There is one secret place, though, which I discovered when I first had the problem of searching for a seat. While floors one to four are chock-full of students (and/or their school accessories), the fifth floor is empty like Siberia, with only one or two seats taken (out of about a hundred).
I went to this floor (which to me seemed like the promised land of studying) quite often, until one day one of the staff informed me that I was not allowed to take books from outside to study there. Though I'm not sure exactly what she said, I imagine it was something like this:
"Excuse me sir, do you know you are not supposed to bring outside books into this area of the library?"
[confused expression]"What?"
She replied: "Please take your bag and put it in one of the lockers over there," at which point I took my bag, ambled over to the lockers, fiddled with one of them, then came back to where I was sitting and resumed studying.
I don't really feel bad about doing this because I find it's ridiculous that they have hundreds of perfectly good seats downstairs which could be put to better use. I wish they could have some kind of rule where if they see a place with someone's things unattended for over half an hour, they just confiscate it and let someone else sit there. Till that happens though, I'm going to be sneaking into the hidden library paradise of the fifth floor.
A video tour of the lobby (I was stopped by a guard before I could go further)
