Bringing Productivity Back to Butler

Image by Ramsey Scott

It is that wonderful time of year again. The leaves are falling and the air is crisp. Fall is here, and with it comes the beginning of competitive seating in Butler Library.

Competitive seating is the realization by hundreds of undergraduates that their days of frolicking in the September sunlight are over. The time has come to face the cold, harsh reality of October and shortening days. Once dreams of full-time partying have been crushed, the masses commence their trek toward Butler, the most glorious structure on campus.

After arriving with their Tasti and Westside Market salads, students precede to take over the library. Every single seat is occupied—including the ones at computers in the 24-hour rooms. Even worse, students save all remaining seats for their best friend, roommate, or current crush. As a result, by 8 p.m. almost every single seat is taken. Those who arrive later are forced to become wanderers for the night. They spend an hour or two in the Reference room or maybe on the fifth floor. However, once the bell rings at 10:45, they know they must go back to wandering and praying for a seat.
What causes this phenomenon? Why does everyone on this campus seem to believe that Butler is the ultimate source of productivity? There is the typical answer: “I go to Butler because I cannot concentrate in my room.” Then there is the classic freshman and sophomore sentiment: “I hate my roommate, and Butler is a reason to get away from him/her.” Let us not forget everyone’s all-time favorite excuse for a trip to the library: “I need to hide from everyone on this campus in order to get work done.” And last but not least, the new but soon-to-be-popular “I like the random selection of candy at Blue Java.”

These are all excellent reasons to justify a night in Butler. They demonstrate that Sour Patch Kids and hiding in room 209 are essential to getting work done, as well as keeping up that GPA. More importantly, they validate the existence of this phenomenon in the first place. As a result, it is OK for there to be no seats if everyone believes a good GPA means leaving one’s room for Butler. However, we have to ask if everyone in Butler is really using it as a productive place. Is everyone there really reading an entire book in one night, writing a paper in eight hours, or cramming for that 9 a.m. midterm? Is there a population of people that is causing this phenomenon to become unjustified?

Indeed, there is a portion of the Butler population that is unproductive and prevents those of us who truly want to work, as well as consume sugar-laden items, from getting a seat. By taking seats they do not use productively, this portion excludes those of us who are having a hard time getting through a problem set or coming up with a thesis. In these instances, it is completely natural to feel as though we have accomplished nothing. A truly unproductive individual is one who goes to Butler and IMs the person next to them the entire night. If this is not enough of an offense, they then start text-messaging that same person nonstop. Worst of all, they abandon their seat for two hours so that they can gossip with this same person outside. It is this portion of the Butler population that is causing a productive seat to become an unproductive one. With the lack of 24-hour rooms in the library, the time has come to fight back against people who abuse the privilege of being able to study in Butler, and it can only work if people go there because it is the center of productivity on this campus.

We can no longer allow those of us who really need to read, write, and cram to have to waste time looking for a seat, or worse, return to our rooms. The time has come to bring productivity back to Butler. Without this phenomenon, Butler is nothing but a library. It is competitive seating which allows Butler to become so much more. In fact, it almost becomes a state of mind. So please, help this phenomenon continue so that Butler never loses its place as the ultimate source of productivity at Columbia.

The author is a Barnard College senior majoring in history.