This is the hardest review I will write…read more
Because it's my favorite place and to adequately pay tribute through a review is a daunting task. The resources and experiences developed me intellectually, artistically, and personally so, as clay must love a good potter's hand, I love it.
NU Library is the principle library of the Evanston campus with 6 floors, 4 wings, 4.6 million volumes, 2 computer labs, and inspiring views of the lake and skyline in the large windows. Some highlights are the Melville J. Herskovits Library, the largest Africana collection in existence, and the Charles Deering Library. The Deering Library is the original library, which holds the Government Publications Department, the Northwestern University Archives, the Music Library, the Map Collection, the Art and the Special Collections. Deering is gorgeous- really it looks like a old, ornate church.
I spent the bulk of four years at the library, I lived off-campus without much furniture, so it was more prudent to do most work here. We operate on the quarter system, so during finals weeks they are open 24/7, and it was popularly crowded with people cramming or typing term papers. This is not a joke, several times I've spent well over twenty-four hours straight huddled up over a computer or at a desk pouring over texts and notes. When I'd finally finish and leave spent, it was the strangest mix of elation, exhaustion, and anticlimatic pride; as though I trounced a formidable opponent in battle, but already missed that foe who I invested so much in.
One of the best memories- one day I absentmindedly decided to look up one of my favorite fiction writers, the late Sidney Sheldon. I found his shelf and tucked into one of his books was a handwritten letter. He related as a teen, he suffered from suicidal tendencies and he wrote that his father discovered his desire and said, "If you don't care about anything that happens to you and you've made up your mind to do it, well, there's always tomorrow." The next day, his father said the same thing, and so forth, until neither thought or mentioned it anymore. He went to Northwestern for a quarter, then enlisted in the military eventually fighting in WWII. He never attended a college after, instead becoming a successful author, but still loved NU. I put the priceless memorabilia back into his book for another to find.
Northwestern University Library really is a nursery. We come to it as seeds. I like to think the knowledge contained casts a light onto the student's passions, allows them to nurture and strengthen their personal resources, and bloom when they leave.
