Special to The Rip
Grace Van Dyke Bird Library etiquette dictates that cell phones should be kept on vibrate or silent and that students must be considerate to others.
But it seems that many students do not take basic rules of library usage seriously. The ways that annoyed teachers, students and administrators deal with noise problems differ.
Deborah Carmona, library assistant said, “I shush people all the time.”
Carmona works at the circulation desk at the library. She said the noise is usually cell phones going off in the lobby by the front doors where people think they are not actually in the library. She also said sometimes people bring their children, and they don’t know the rules. She said that this semester has been better.
“Usually, it’s young guys that are just loud,” she said. “Sometimes it’s the ladies, too.”
Carmona said that the school police cadets usually spend two to three hours in the library. “It’s getting better,” she said.
Nancy Guidry, a reference librarian, said it is usually noisy in the morning. She works in the upstairs part of the library. She said she gets to work at about 9 a.m. when most of the tables are occupied. She said large groups are sometimes the problem.
“At around 1 or 2 in the afternoon” the noise goes down, she said.
Britani Allison, 19, journalism major, said, “It’s more quiet in the morning.” She gets to school around 8:30 a.m.
When comparing this semester to others, Guidry said, “It’s the most crowded it’s ever been.” She also said, “It’s the noisiest.”
Guidry said that students who are serious about studying usually look for a place in the back. She said it is usually the front section of the upstairs that is the noisiest. She said that the reference librarians are patrolling more often now. When they see a large group they suggest a group study room, which can be reserved “at the front desk with your Gades card.”
Those who are not really studying will usually disperse and leave while those serious about studying will either quiet down or get a study room.
“Students are rarely very disruptive,” she said. If they do get disruptive, then the librarians would ask the students to leave.
She said people nowadays are going to the library “to socialize and talk on their cell phones instead of coming to study.” Guidry describes “very disruptive” as being loud, shouting or using profanity.
Guidry said they rarely call security, but they have called them before. She called once when a student was swearing at her and would not cooperate. But that was eight years ago.
She mentioned that last semester there was a student who was throwing books around, and she had to call security.
She said she thinks that students appreciate the library and are willing to cooperate when asked to do so. She said the librarians walk around and communicate with each other saying things like this: “There’s a noisy student back there. Keep your eyes on that person.”
Even so, she said it is mostly students who complain about the noise. It is usually about a group being noisy or cell phones going off in the back of the library. She said the librarians spot noise more often because students hesitate to report noisiness. But she said the librarians appreciate it because they “can’t be in both places at once.”
Allison said this semester, “There are more people in the library, and they talk on the phone all loud.” She said she never has to complain because the librarians “usually hear them.” She doesn’t go to the back of the library because she doesn’t know what is back there.
Guidry says she wants students to feel comfortable in the library. But she would like to not have to police them as she does now.
She said the reason she thinks students are more disruptive nowadays is that they are unfamiliar with the expectations. She said many times it’s the older or returning students who complain because they grew up in a time when the library was respected.
“Students we have now see it as a place to socialize,” she explained. “They are used to using computers in their own home with a drink and a snack. They would like to have the same environment here. They don’t realize it impacts others. What they want is a comfortable situation.”
She said that the Library Etiquette page is available as a handout in the revolving rack in the upstairs library or online under “Service and Information” on the library’s web page. She said they sometimes just give them to disruptive students.
Guidry said that she went to a meeting of the American Library Association in Anaheim and that there she found out that in other colleges “Millennial’s library attendance has gone down.” But attendance in the Grace Van Dyke Bird Library has gone up “because students feel welcome, there is wireless internet, and it is a nice facility.” Millennials are people born in the 1980s, otherwise known as Generation Y.
Jesse Garcia, 40, a business administration major, said, “It’s OK most of the time, but it should be quiet.” He said he had been annoyed twice in the commons with phones going off. He said, “It’s better in the evening.”
Mark L. Graf, chief of the department of public safety, said that when they get a call from the library, it is usually an overview of what has happened. Then if the situation merits, they send an officer over.
He said officers are trained to deal with emergencies. First officers will try to calm down the student. If the situation does not cool down, they write a report.
Then the student would be taken to the dean of students’ office and would then be given the appropriate punishment. The result could be either suspension or being kicked out of the library. He said the first couple of weeks are usually the noisiest. He considers this semester to be normal.
Joseph Barry, 28, a music major, enrolled into Bakersfield College in 1998. He enrolled in the army in 2000, and this is his first year back. He said that he “could barely stand it” in the library when he was doing research for his midterms. He said he tries to go where it is most secluded. Compared to other libraries he’s been to, there is more noise at the BC library. He thinks it’s the maturity level. Many BC students are “just out of high school,” he said.
In the computer commons, employees have been told to call Bob Shimmin, the network technician, when things get rowdy. “That’s what he told us to do,” said a student employee in the commons.
Shimmin said that it’s “better this semester.” Even though he did mention that there have been two incidents in which school police had to be called this semester.
Complaints about the commons come from students in neighboring pods, the librarians and operators in the library.
“When school police come, they usually try to calm students down,” Shimmin says. “Usually we can calm them down. We ask them to leave or take a break.”
Shimmin said the biggest problems are the clustering of people in pods, which increases volume, viewing offensive material that may cause problems for neighboring students and loud music that is loud even with headphones.
Danilo Castro is a student in BC’s JRNL B2 Beginning Reporting class.