Some students practically live in the library during finals week, but Grant Gilles, a sophomore at Brown University, literally did.
From December 12 until yesterday, Mr. Gilles never left the university’s science library, which is open 24-7 during weekends and the week of final exams. He stepped back into the daylight just in time to take his first exam.
“The library was really conducive to living,” Mr. Gilles said in an interview today. “I had my computer, so I could listen to music, I could do work, and I could use the Internet. And I watched TV online, which killed a lot of time.”
The stunt is proof that libraries these days have more amenities than ever, and that students live much of their social lives on computer networks. But that’s not the point Mr. Gilles was making. He filmed his exploits and plans to enter the resulting video in a contest to win first pick in Brown’s dormitory room draw. Last year’s winners created a video mockumentary of a fake a cappella group that performs naked. They called themselves “The Skintones.”
Mr. Gilles devised an elaborate system to make himself more comfortable during his camp out. He hid a suitcase full of clothes and toiletries in a vent on the third floor of the library. And he took over a study room in the basement, where he rolled out a gcircular mat and brought in board games and other amusements. As decoration, he built a five-foot barrier of stacked coffee cups.
“I was telling everyone as cover that it was a performance-art piece on the gluttony of Brown students,” he says. “That worked really well on the very self-loathing college campus that we’re all in.”
On Monday a librarian did approach him, and he gave his usual spiel. “It did not go well. He said, ‘Well it stinks, and it’s dirty.’” The librarian demanded that the coffee cups go and said that students were not allowed to take over study rooms for their own purposes. But after Mr. Gilles trashed the cups, he wasn’t approached by authorities again.
The student’s friends did show up, though, bringing him food from the cafeteria. He also bought snacks from a cafe cart in the library and washed up as best he could in the bathroom sinks.
Some nights, he wasn’t the only student there all night. Some students were so exhausted they would sleep for a few hours on the comfortable furniture and then resume studying.
As the week drew on he did attract increasing attention from students — either because of the smell, or because of a blog item on IvyGate about his experiment.
If Mr. Gilles wins the room-draw contest, he and some friends hope to score a room that was once a penthouse suite in a dormitory that used to be a hotel.
“It would be a lot nicer than living in the library,” he said.—Jeffrey R. Young