The Edinburgh Tab’s official critical analysis of your favourite library floor

At some point or another during your studies at Edinburgh, you will be forced to brave the tropical climate of the library. Whether you have three end-of-terms due, or your stingy flatmate won’t let you put the heating on at home, this is your only choice. To pass through the pearly gates of the library’s high security entrance, you must first be judged by the smokers out front, and you’ll wish you’d worn a scarf as skinny as the other girls, or a gilet as puffy as the other boys.

Ground floor

We all have to start somewhere, and this is where most students begin their friendship with the library. It is the only floor of all six where you can really talk, making it the least intimidating of them all, and is also the only one with an incredibly quick exit route, for when you can no longer stand the impending sense of ‘doing work’. The ground floor is excellent for quick printer usage, with a surprisingly high success rate of finding a seat.

If you have a toxic relationship with your workload and don’t want the commitment that comes with studying on the other floors, then the ground floor is the girl for you.

First floor

Either you have never been to the library before and are too scared to keep going up the stairs, or you’re only here for an awkward period between lectures and can’t be bothered to find anywhere better.

Whilst the first floor does receive some real slander, lack of a view, a bit basic, not high up enough to be cool, it is perhaps the most underrated. If you want to nip in and out, be it for a ciggie or a seven pound coffee from the library café, then you only have to get down one flight of stairs, no waiting twenty minutes for the lift here!

Second floor

Humble and discreet, the second floor has nothing to boast about, but certainly is nothing to scoff at either. Almost always, this level is for when you’ve made it up two flights of stairs (how long did you stand at the lift and wait before you decided to just walk?) and said, “sod it, this will do”. Good effort either way.

Third floor

I am not going to humour the idea that this is anyone’s favourite floor. Who is genuinely reserving seats?

Fourth floor

Oh, the fourth floor. So much can be said about her! If this is your favourite floor, you’re here to see, and to be seen, it’s less of a library and more of a catwalk. Nobody has ever finished a piece of coursework on the fourth floor because we’re all too busy eyeing up our future spouses.

Even though this is arguably the most social of the six floors, anybody who tells you that this is ‘the chatty floor’ is wrong, if you try to break the silence by cracking a joke with your mate, you will be death-stared into never coming back.

During exam season, you’re more likely to be struck by lightning than find a seat on fourth. It is basically unheard of before eight pm.

Fifth floor

You’d think that popularity would start tapering off on this floor (it’s up five flights of stairs, the ‘social’ floor has been and gone, and it’s sweltering in here!) but no. Good luck finding a seat here, too, because there’s an unbelievable amount of desks occupied by single bananas, charging cables, and water bottles, for hours at a time, while their owners have buggered off for lunch, leaving us seatless.

Sixth floor

This floor doesn’t really count because it’s not all open for bog-standard study. It’s not quite as glamorous as it should be considering the efforts to which you must go to get to this floor, but it does boast some interesting design choices. People on this floor are here for serious study, no convenient popping out for ciggies or a coffee, here.

The way they’ve got the heating on up here, you’d think the staff were punishing students for trying to study, or that the studious individuals in there were trying to sweat out good ideas.

Bonus round: Lower ground floor

That’s right, there’s an underground to the library. As much as I wish this were a Berlin-style techno bunker, it is not. It is however, surprisingly relaxed down there.

A tad less hectic than the other floors, lower ground gives a kind of tech-start up headquarters vibe. It’s well-organised, well-lit, and well ventilated, although sadly for us, it is also well-occupied most of the time. Exam season has us all down bad, so if you can’t find a seat elsewhere, don’t be afraid to consider the less emotionally and physically draining option downstairs.

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