Traditionally libraries were academic ecstasy; perfect silence, contemplation, reflective study, end of essay epiphanies and the occasional oddly well educated tramp providing hope for the generation. Yet, authors are experiencing frustration as The British Library becomes overcrowded with undergraduates using the dark spaces between shelves as a breeding ground, and the walkways between desks as a catwalk. High profile writers and academics have voiced their frustration over queuing for a seat while a group of intolerably high pitched girls gossip about their latest bikini wax over a skinny latté. Ring any bells? The exam period is upon us, the library is brimming, the hold shelf is bursting at the seams and the mini-eggs have sold out, permanently. Depressingly, the library is the new social arena. Life has become a monotonous pattern of home, walk, library, vending machine, cigarette, coffee, walk, home, sleep, ad finitum. Fear not, this is not going to be yet another cliché list of everything that is wrong with Durham University Library because quite frankly I’m sick of talking about it and it’s never going to change so get over it.

This is not a slumber party
The library has a more important role in our lives; given that it is the place to be nowadays we must learn to adapt our lives to it, not vice versa. There is some serious fun to be had in the library, not to mention in the recesses of the fifth floor. The historian Lady Antonia Fraser claims that libraries have become more of a “social gathering” than a place for study and what is a social gathering without some serious fashion statements. It has become clear that if a fashion statement is to be made, it is to be made in the library, and there are some real gems this year. Since my first week at Durham the amount of people who have deemed it acceptable to wear pyjama bottoms anywhere else than in the confines of their own home has always astounded me. I still haven’t figured it out but I must be missing something because a day does not go by without some young, devastatingly pretty and artfully déshabillée blonde, a vision in checks and stripes. Like a moth to a flame; this week has been all about the bumble bee-come-Chanel jacket print style pyjamas I have been spying enviously, casually hanging off some Abercrombie and Fitch hopeful; dangerously tempting, of course, but still a resounding no.

Vince Noir
Do not fret; there is yet more fun to be had. I hate to add fuel to the fire, inflate his ego anymore, but any discussion of who’s wearing what in the library would be shamefully incomplete without that Noel Fielding look-alike. Whoever you may be; do you only have two outfits in your entire wardrobe? And is that your real hair? What were you thinking? The real Noel Fielding is amazing; mainly due to his innate ability to pull off horrendously tight red trousers and hair that, after five minutes of thinking, could never be done justice with words. But a cheap imitation that is just a waste of one, two, even three double takes is just painful and amusing. Even so, please don’t hang up that oversized leather jacket just yet because I do think there are a few more laughs to be had there. Tristram Hunt claims that students are “undermining” the function of libraries and the scholarly atmosphere. However, the library is most definitely not a place for study. I say, if you want to revise, go home.