How not to be a dick in the library

The worst thing is some of you in Stirling need this guide…

| UPDATED etiquette Guide library manners rules stirling student university

Students have to follow so many rules at Stirling. No swimming in the loch, meet your deadlines, don’t eat fragrant ethnic food on the library’s third floor.

But hopefully most people probably appreciate that last rule.

With exam season looming already, the Tab has prepared an essential guide to library etiquette.

Follow these rules and you might just become a good citizen of the library yet!

Don’t read loudly

This one is pretty basic. It doesn’t so much mean don’t read out loud, more like don’t slam your book on the desk like you’re trying to flatten a mouse in a cartoon.

Breakers of this rule may also flick through a book like they’re slapping a small cat, and in very rare cases they may even actually read out loud. In which case you’re well within your rights to recommend the Hungry Caterpillar to them.

Noisy book people are the worst

So next time you decide to read out loud, think about all the people who fought and died in two world wars so you could be alive today, because they didn’t go through all that just for you to read out loudly in libraries.

Never use a laptop at a computer desk

Somewhere in Africa a child is sitting in a hut with no computer at all. Because he can’t afford it? No. Because he spends all his time building your Apple Mac for you.

And meanwhile here in Stirling, you’re using your Mac and a computer simultaneously. Next time you do this, don’t just think of the students desperately trying to access Succeed, think about the children in Africa. For shame.

Don’t trap each other between the shelves

This is great fun even if it is a bit childish, so its understandable if you see first years doing this. But because many of the book shelves in the library move, you can trap people between them using the handles on the end.

Although, if you see someone who should be working on their dissertation instead engaging in these Indiana Jones style shenanigans, then you have every right to tut and shake your head disapprovingly.

Don’t do maths sums out loud

Recent figures say 58 per cent of students pass their GCSE in maths. Unfortunately, I was in the 36 per cent who didn’t. And yet I still don’t need to count out loud.

Use a pen and write it down- we don’t all need to know how many apples Roshunda bought from Shaniqua at the market.

Don’t have long phone conversations

Answering your phone in the library is a bad habit, like biting your nails or supporting UKIP.

You should never do it, but if the call is urgent you should ask them to call you back or adopt that odd Quasimodo-esque manoeuvre best known as part run, part walk, part crouch to the nearest exit.

They answered their phone.

Make sure your headphones actually block out music

This ones aimed mainly at Beats owners. It’s hard to tell if the owners just listen to music too loudly or the headphones are shite, but either way they need to be stopped. Headphones that don’t block out music are as pointless as low fat cheesecake.

I don’t know who you are, but I will look for you, I will find you, and I will remove your headphones

Don’t eat hot food

If there’s one thing that’s more distracting than someone talking, it’s someone eating hot (and therefore smelly) food.

In this situation you just can’t win- if someone is eating something that smells awful (e.g. yesterdays homemade egg sandwiches) then you’re distracted by a barrage of nostril offending stench that could rival the 2 month old milk one of your flatmates forgot to chuck out.

But if someone brings in pot noodle or even a warming chicken soup then you’re left feeling jealous and hungry.

Hot drinks are definitely an exception to the rule

And these smells spread faster than the monkey emoji, no sooner has someone opened their food than everyone has run to the shop for their own.

And just where does the madness end? Buffet tables in the study zone? Pizza hatches in the stairwell? Madness. Tasty, mind-changing madness.

Thank you shop, you’ve always been there for me through all the essays.