A library should be a quiet place of study. When that quality is taken away from a library, what is left? A building rendered useless except for the books that fill the shelves.

Recently, the Collins Library has become more of a social scene than a place to find students with their noses in books. The problem is not just clusters of students gathering to socialize, although that is a big contributor to the even larger problem of students preventing others from being able study successful.

It is extremely frustrating to students when they cannot study in an environment conducive to their learning.

“The library should be a place where people can feel productive in a studious environment,” senior Clint Chapman said.

Lots of distractions occur in the library, some more obvious than others. For instance, eating loud, crunchy food creates loud noises that not all people want to hear while they are working on a research paper or reading an assigned chapter from a class book.

“I strongly dislike when people do this,” freshman Maddy McGlade said.

Along the lines of loud distractions, phone calls can also impact a student’s study session. If the room is quiet and then someone’s phone rings and they answer, that will inevitably cause a distraction to the other students around them. The calls, however, are not the only disruption when it comes to cell phone use in the library.

“I think it’s especially rude when people don’t set their phones to vibrate, and you can hear every time they get a text message,” junior Luke Miltz said.

Another behavior in the library that affects other students’ ability to focus is when people play loud music and basically have themselves a party. It is perfectly acceptable to listen to music if the person listening is using headphones, but when music is played through a speaker everyone hears it, and some people struggle to focus with music in the background. As if playing music out loud is not bad enough, some people sing along to their music, only increasing the distraction.

There are other unnecessary distractions that plague our library. A prime example of this would be when people gather on one of the three floors for a purely social purpose. There are other places on campus where students can meet up to socialize, such as the Long Student Center.

People who start conversations in the library are not just inhibiting other people’s study time. They are also expressing a blatant disrespect for the people they are talking to. Most people go to the library to study and finish homework, so when someone interrupts that to have a conversation, they are putting their own social desires ahead of their fellow students’ education.