McHenry Library

One of the most beautiful libraries on campus. There’s a bunch of tables to study at most of which have outlets so you don’t have to worry about your devices running low on batteries This place can get packed during midterms and finals but if you come early, you’ll be able to claim a spot. They also have study rooms where you can reserve for yourself and a group of friends to study together and plus they also have quiet floors if the lobby gets too noisy.
Downside is that once you walk right into the library you lose reception. Maybe it’s a good thing so you don’t text or talk when you’re studying for important tests but it would be nice if you had reception.

Most beautiful library ever! Well, the most beautiful library I’ve been to. There is a ridiculous amount of tables to study at, most of which have outlets on the table so you don’t have to worry about your appliances dying while studying. This place can get packed during midterms and finals, but if you come early in the morning (around 9am), you’ll get a table for sure on those days. If it’s not midterms, finals, or summer, you don’t have to worry about it being packed.
I like that this place has a café attached. The café is overpriced, but it’s better than nothing, especially if you forgot to pack a lunch when you plan on studying there all day.
Downside: It’s located at the very center of campus with no buses that go to it so you always have to go on a journey to get to it, involving dirt paths and hills/​stairs.

Beautiful view from inside (huge windows), nice modern architecture, a cute café called Global village café, and last but not least, free public wifi! I needed this when visiting my professor dad and I know this is rare for university libraries.

I love how they have the newest computers.
I love how it’s soooooooooooo quiet.
I hate how it’s sort of in the middle of no where so when I leave at night… it’s like a dark and somewhat looking sketching path back for me to the Quarry… I mean it’s safe but I hate the dark.
I’m from College Ten, so the Science Library is definitely more convenient for me.
But it’s definitely a good place to study and write essays.

**meta-​edit** My review is so long I had to use the update feature to fit it all! So start here, and read the «original» post to finish up the review. Thanks!
So this is an experiment. I’m currently sitting in McHenry Library trying to write my 20 page research paper that determines whether I graduate college or not and I can’t seem to get myself to focus.
So, for anytime that I stop writing my paper to check facebook, I will instead write here about the history of McHenry Library and my experiences of it over the past 4 years. I hope that eventually I get so sick of writing about McHenry Library that I will go back to writing my paper.
Let’s do this!
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4pm-​The McHenry library recently celebrated 40 years of being around. They’ve celebrated by dedicating different parts of the library to people who have donated, and opening up the new Grateful Dead archive, called «Dead Central.» Ugh. This is boring, going back to my paper now.
I love McHenry. Other times I hate him. It’s a love-​hate relationship. Although he’s so much better than Mr. Sci & Eng. I remember my first year with McHenry my freshman year. He only opened himself up ¹⁄₃ of the way. The rest of his was behind a wall, wrapped up and under construction, waiting to be beautified. He was small and cramped. There was barely any place to study and the furniture was old. Lighting was dim, outlets sparse, and finals week was chaotic. Oh, and for being a library, it didn’t have many books.
I helped with his beautification process. I entered the library photo survey and won! I had to document the library via pictures and come in for an interview with ideas to make the expanded portion better for students. This is what I recommended:
–more lighting! (notice the installed lights over each table now?)
–more foot rests and reading space (hence the overabundance of reading chairs and leg rests)
–cool colors to brighten up the space, but not be overdone (pastel colors throughout the library and minimalist design)
So the next time you’re writing your paper and are grateful for table lights and foot rests, you can thank me (/​narcissism)
5pm-​Another problem with McHenry – as the sun sets, it just shines down on your table, making your eyes squint and your computer screen hard to read. Plus it’s hot as the windows don’t open, so you’re essentially sitting in a greenhouse full of books and kids. Oh god, I can’t see anything, and it’s making it the perfect excuse to not do my paper.
Want to hear a funny story? I was talking to a library employee one time, and he told me that there use to be a kid who would bring in a large umbrella and prop it up over one of the computers on the 2^nd floor so that he could work.
Ok, it wasn’t that funny, but at this point, anything is funny to me.
This library also has no cell phone service. I think they did that on purpose so people don’t procrastinate or talk on their phones, which is something I’m thankful for. However, it’s really unfortunate that I have to walk all the way outside just to see if my friend has texted me back yet. «Sorry paper, I’ll have to do you later, I have to check if anyone else has called me yet»

This is a library that actually makes UCSC feel like a college campus. McHenry is HUGE! I’m pretty sure I don’t know where anything is or can memorize where anything is in this place.
They recently built an extension and even their own café, so it is now a complete study center.
They have great study rooms where you can get together with your project groups or what not to get your studying going on, and they are really easy to reserve. Either by front desk or online.
The lobby area looks pretty nice too, doesn’t feel like a straight up library in the lobby, more like a chill/​study if you can type of thing, but it is pretty chill.
The only two bad things about this library is that unless you have an amazing phone, you lose reception RIGHT as you enter the building. I guess that’s a good thing though to keep you from texting so you can study. The other bad thing is that it is in the middle of nowhere… haha well it is a bit out of the way of your regular walk routine in UCSC I’m sure. Sci & Eng library is much more convenient but McHenry is definitely much nicer.
Study onnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!

I do love this library. I wrote countless papers on its long tables that look out from plate glass windows over towering redwoods. It’ s magical place. I’ve sat in there watching owls look down at me while I work. I feel like I could reach out and touch them. I feel extremely fortunate to have spent so much time here, and I look forward to spending more time here in the future.

The new wing of McHenry is awesome! Very spacious and great for studying. This was unlike the old McHenry (currently being renovated) with its dusty and musty smell, cramped quarters, and buzzing florescent light.

As I sit here and write my thesis… taking a break to figure out what to do next before moving onto my final chapter (WOOOOOOOT!)… There is so much that has happened since I last sat here! This place will always be a million times better in my «humble» opinion as opposed to the science library. maybe it is the old musty smell. or the fact that I get no cell reception in the basement and that helps me to concentrate (irony is that I am Unilocaling instead)… I have many found memories here…
This is where Jakob and I wrote «our real graduation speech» for the class of 2003 (OOOoooooooooooooooakes!).
This is where I spent HOURS upon HOURS does my psychology assignments and papers
This is where my friends HATED to go so that meant little or no distractions when I was an undergrad
This is where I could sit for hours on end and catch up on a month’s worth of reading while writing poetry
I have found memories of going all the way up to the top floor… and spending a few hours in the media lab watching those Spanish videos for my classes…
This is where today across from where I sit (newly updated and wireless friendly) are some of my high school seniors reading Beloved, annotating text, working on their AP papers/​assignments and totally ignoring the loud ass bio students who are talking about plants… they are super amused by people watching (as am I)…
Yes it is a pain because of all the construction. but I love the fact you can sneak in here. find a corner and literally go at whatever you are doing for hours on end… I miss this place. wish I could put some of it in my pocket and pull it out when I need some motivation…
It is nice to bring the next generation of college going students here to see what an all day crunch session is like in «the basement»
Quote of the day «So Ms. T is this where you kill us? I mean. its cement, partially underground and no one can hear our echoing screams»

Not a huge fan, but when there aren’t any other options where else is a student in the need of someplace quiet to go?
UCSC is maybe halfway done remodeling the building, but right now just the new addition is open. I was pretty excited when I heard it was finally open, expecting to walk in and be amazed by the architecture and inspired to study, but instead it’s just one large cold and over bearing place. I’ve spent most of my time in here down in MERC watching old videos for a music class, but the few times I ventured upstairs I couldn’t fight the itch to just get the hell out of there.
I also used to work here, for a bit my freshman year and in the old part of the building. I was in special collections, looking up books in a makeshift cubicle in the basement. I can’t see how people would enjoy coming here everyday, it just seems too depressing sometimes.
Other than my dislike for the building, there are also the house, which SUCK. and I’m sorry, but would it kill the university to keep one of it’s libraries open all night for students to work? The library closes at either 11 or 5 depending on the day, and can leave you a little frustrated when you’re halfway through that big project and have no where else to go to work on it.
The one thing the library really has going for it is it’s collection of books and other library materials. Even better is the inter-​library loan program, where you can borrow a book from any other UC for just about as long as you like. Helloooo architecture books from UCLA!

My friend had serious concerns about me and this library.
For one, I’m a snob. I’m a snob about coffee and about food, and shoes and purses and I’m probably a snob about a lot of other things, I’m just not aware of it yet.
Also, I’m not a student at UCSC. That means I bathe, don’t protest anything, have never hugged a tree, and sometimes I forget to recycle. I also have very little to do in an academic library because, although I am a student, I am recalcitrant and lazy.
For some reason, this Saturday I joined a few friends in their marathon 48-​hours of thesis research (or whatever it is they were doing). Despite being a great lover of books and libraries, I was bored as hell sitting there with all of them. I had planned to write but the quiet study floor was SO quiet, I felt guilty about how loud the keys are on my iBook. But on my way in, I’d passed the stacks of old periodicals, and remembered that there were a few JD Salinger short stories I wanted to read. I checked the titles and publication dates online, then browsed the stacks for the appropriate volumes. I didn’t bother searching for a call number because I wanted to explore. I found my books, and was content with those two Saturday Night Post volumes from 1943 and 1944, until I realised there was one more story I wanted to read, and that was in the New Yorker.
I checked the stacks for the May 1965 New Yorker. Not there, so I ran downstairs to the reference desk (which itself houses a small collection of Nancy Pearl librarian action figures) to find out what was going on. The volume I requested was in storage, but just as the librarian told me that, I remembered the Complete New Yorker on DVD, and asked if they had that. I was then directed to the basement, where the MERC (Media and Electronic Research Center) is located, in order to find Disc 3027.
As I clacked down the stairs and into the MERC office (seriously, I had no idea the place wasn’t going to have carpet) I told the cute little man clerk at the MERC what I needed, and he began to look for the disc. As I waited, I read the whiteboard next to the desk. It said «Disk 3027 is on Mac 15» and pointed it out to the clerk. We then looked through that computer, and it took him a while to find the app. I then found I also needed disk 4 to get my damn story. The clerk ended up finding the disks (which were in a big container that in no way resembled a CD or DVD case) and I got what I wanted. I saved the files as a PDF and emailed them to myself, then returned to the quiet floor to read them. Part of me still thinks that if I had never mentioned that I read the whiteboard, I might still be there looking for that thing.
Overall, I like the place. Electrical outlets are few and far between, which was a problem when I eventually relocated to the other side of the library to write. I sat near one of the windows and looked at the floors beneath, and for some reason I remembered the scene from the Twin Peaks pilot where Bobby is interrogated in the library, and how those kids never really went back to school after that, and… well, I got off track again. I love the décor and the smell and all the other innately libraryish things it has going for it, but oh, McHenry staff. Get some protein in your skinny vegan bodies and get that brain going, or lay off the pot. Whatever it is, please step it up a bit, or I’ll get kinda sad. I’m giving them lots of slack here because it was a Saturday and I’m one of those people that goes nuts if they can’t get info immediately.
One thing I learned that I really liked (though in no way can I benefit from it): you can now check out MacBooks for use within the library. I guess it’s not much different than booking time at a desktop to do your writing or whatever, but it’s good to know that if you need a reliable machine in a pinch, the library is there to help.