I shocked my librarian parents when I revealed to them upon entering library school that:

1. With the exception of my B.A. paper, I had never done a paper at the U of C that could really be called a "research paper."

2. I was completely unaware of any library orientation sessions, bibliographic instruction classes, or other offerings of that nature at the U of C.

3. I was too intimidated EVER to ask a reference librarian a question.

4. One of the reasons I decided to go to library school is that I finally wanted to learn how to use the library!

Perhaps French Literature is not the most rigorous of majors at the U of C, but I took many core classes (required classes in other departments which gave each student a liberal arts education) and only recall checking reserve materials out of the library until my senior year. Was my avoidance of library materials a badge of pride, as others have mentioned? No. It was a badge of shame. I had librarians as parents, so I felt embarrassed that I didn't know how to find anything!

This was 1989-1993, when there was no Internet and we felt incredibly sophisticated for even having (Unix-based) email.

Oh, and by the way, I never studied at the Reg (The Regenstein Library, the main undergraduate library) -- it was too loud and social. I studied at Crerar, the sciences library where graduate students would shoot you looks of death if you spoke above a whisper. And yes, I snuck a water bottle in there every day.

Don't get me wrong: I loved the University of Chicago -- Doc Films, the dorms, the coffee shops, and other areas of intense intellectual stimulation that Mr. Thurman mentions. But clearly this great research institution had a great disconnect between the undergraduate faculty and the library -- or I would never have been able to get such high grades with so little true research.

Note: I spent my junior year abroad, in Paris. As I recall I did spend a good deal of time grappling with the closed-stack collections of several University of Paris libraries. They weren't user-friendly -- but I had to use them to do well!

-- Vera Giles, library student, San Jose State University (posted 11/19, 10:05 a.m., U.S. Eastern time)

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