A number of days in the past, my faculty emailed us to let the scholars know that this yr, most of us ought to transfer out of our dorms by the top of March. Should you’re confused about why this might be the case, then you definitely in all probability are studying this in a time the place a pandemic is just not sweeping the globe. And that offers me hope. As a result of sadly, my senior yr—usually hailed at Barnard as a time of celebration, partying, and tutorial achievement— ended abruptly and below dire circumstances. As a result of COVID-19, we’re ending our lessons remotely, and the college has urged us to depart campus until we now have nowhere else to go.
The Gates of Barnard Faculty. Picture by Barnard Faculty.
Now at residence, it’s heartbreaking to appreciate that I’ll by no means return to campus as a scholar. This place, the place I cultivated information, met my life companion, and remodeled as an individual? By no means once more will or not it’s open to me in the identical method. As I mirrored on this, I noticed that the facet of school life I’ll miss most is our faculty library. Trying again, I really imagine that I wouldn’t have made it by way of faculty in any respect with out our library. Or, not less than in a lot worse form than I’m in now.
Financial Stability
I don’t come from wealth. Despite the fact that Barnard typically coated most of my tuition for monetary assist, I nonetheless wanted to pay for different bills. Housing, meal plans, books, residing bills—all of these issues began so as to add up. So, I got here to the place that had all the time been residence for me, irrespective of the place I lived: the library. In a joyous coincidence of provide and demand, they had been in search of a scholar employee and I desperately wanted a job.
Cue montage of me working at this library for the subsequent 4 years! The library allowed me to concurrently hone my librarian abilities and work on my coursework. It supplied me with the mandatory earnings that stored me from falling into any extra debt. It additionally provided me a household—workers, scholar employees, librarians—after I was removed from residence. However extra on that later.
Saving Me from the Wrath of the Textbook Trade
If there may be one stereotype that’s true, it’s the one about costly textbooks. In my first semester, textbooks had been ringing up at charges of 100 or extra on the faculty bookstore. Plus, these had been for required normal schooling lessons, so I used to be positive I’d by no means contact that Intro to Astronomy guide ever once more. Renting ended up being practically as costly as shopping for, and used copies had been barely low-cost. My saving grace? Borrowing from not simply our Barnard Library however from its community of a number of Ivy League establishments. If we didn’t have a replica of the textual content I wanted, there was a 95% likelihood that Harvard or Yale had it someplace. Then, it was mailed to me in a matter of days. Hallelujah!
Class ID: 45597
Class ID: 2822
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Quick ahead to me now. As a senior, I haven’t spent greater than 20 bucks on textbooks for years. If that weren’t superior sufficient, the Barnard Library really created a selected part for first-generation and low-income college students. Within the FLIP Library, they’ll borrow textbooks for all the semester, freed from cost.
Confronting Injustice
In April, Barnard’s Public Security officers forcibly pinned a Black scholar to the countertop on our library’s first ground. As a Black particular person myself who’s delicate to racial violence—particularly alone campus—I felt unsafe. Why had been the individuals who had been supposedly there to guard college students bodily harming us? Amidst turmoil, rage, and worry, the Barnard Library stood its floor as a spot of anti-oppression and justice. It hosted listening periods, requested its Black workers for concepts on easy methods to transfer ahead, and finally rewrote its neighborhood pointers. As a employee there, I felt heard and supported, the place at different spots on campus this wasn’t precisely the case.
Extra typically, my faculty library additionally labored to amplify marginalized voices each. Single. Day. From workshops on racial injustice to library reveals about trans authors, they all the time have one thing happening to help unheard voices. Their circulating assortment usually facilities BIPOC authors and works to undo a lifelong historical past of white supremacy within the college. And, after I formally modified my pronouns to they/them, the library workers instantly modified how they addressed me. This validation of my id was priceless.
Truthfully, I might go on and on in regards to the good that my faculty library did for an additional thousand phrases. Out of all of the establishments at Barnard, the library by no means failed me. So, that is an prolonged thanks to the workers and college students who make the Barnard Library nice. I want I might have stated a correct goodbye.
