I'm sitting here typing this in my old university library. It's not the same. When I walked in I saw that they had changed around the reception area. Now instead of being stark and institutional there are chairs and lounges. It looks sleek...or at least as sleek as this library is ever going to look. I visited this library for the very first time a day or two after my arrival to university. I took a lesson on how to use the library and where to find books and where all of the other libraries were located. For someone who came from a small town it was a bit mind-blowing that this library didn't actually hold all of the books for the university. While it was the Arts and Humanities library and therefore one of the largest, it was just one of many. Throughout my years as a student and during my first job after university (the company I worked for was affiliated with the university) I visited them all. The medical library in the round building. The engineering library with it's beautiful wood paneling. The Islamic studies library with the round reading room (a favourite of mine). The religious studies library that had a stunning reading room, which if I remember correctly had really weird hours. The law library that actually had lights on the tables like you see in the movies. That one was a favourite of mine being a short walk away from my apartment. I could be there in five minutes if traffic was light enough to allow me to jaywalk. Everyone I worked with hated the education library because it involved walking up a very steep hill.

It was in university that I learned the fine art of photocopying. When there is only one copy of a book available for a class of over 200 students and you can only take it out for 2 hours at a time you learn how to copy things quickly. You also learn which photocopiers that you don't want to use under any circumstances. Then there was the copy card karma. I've lost more copy cards than I can count. But it all balanced out because on more than one occasion I found abandoned copy cards with $15-20 on them (we took our copying seriously).

It's weird to see to much my library has advanced. It seems they now expect everyone to have a laptop with them. I was one of those laptopless students. How I longed for one. In order to get a paper done I'd have to haul about half the library home with me. There were times when I'd max out the number of books I could have checked out and used to get my friends to check out books for me. Right now it's near the end of finals. The library is fairly empty but there are a few people here cramming in some last minute exam prep and polishing up those late pages. A few eager students are getting jump on their summer courses. I had planned to hop onto the campus wireless network here but it turns out they don't accept alumni passwords. Phooey. It looks like I'll be heading to an off campus cafe to actually post this.

If you were to add up all the time I've spent in this building I'm sure it would turn out to be months. I fully admit that it's not as long as a friend of mine did. He spent so much time here that I gave up on ever trying to call him. I'd just go visit him in the library and if he wasn't at his corral I'd leave him a note tucked inside one of his research books. He usually found it. In his speech at his wedding reception he made jokes about how he and his wife were on a first name basis with the library's security guards.

Since I left this city I haven't really had any reason to come back and visit the library. It's been nice to be back here. There's something very odd about sitting here and writing on my laptop. It's so very familiar, the same setting, the same smell, the same noises. But now I'm the one with the laptop clicking away, spitting out words on my keyboard like I have a paper due at 5. It almost makes me feel like I never left.

Contributing Editor Sassymonky also blogs at Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.