Library Tour Kickoff: Charles L. Brown Science and Engineering Library!

Recently, my friend Anne and I devised a plan to develop more regular, regimented writing schedules for ourselves.  Getting into a writing routine this fall is something we both needed and wanted.  She is a Professor of Spanish currently on sabbatical from her university to write an academic book examining Latin American film and literature.  I am a perpetually procrastinating Free Spirit with a lot of ideas and no discernible self-discipline.  We are both the perfect candidates for a structured-yet-fun new routine: Library Tour Fall 2014!  Our plan is to visit a different library every week and spend two hours there, simply writing.  Since we are in Charlottesville, home of the University of Virginia, the list of libraries within a short walk or drive is lengthy and impressive.  The university alone boasts over a dozen, and the local public library has several branches both in the city and in smaller neighboring communities.  Traveling to a new and different setting every week will be exciting and fun, but each destination will offer the same basic necessities: a quiet, comfortable space designed for scholastic and literary inspiration and two uninterrupted hours of time.  I will fill those two hours writing, working on my own projects.  Then in addition, I will update this blog and write you a little review about all of the libraries we have visited. Like Yelp for libraries: you're welcome.

For our first library of the tour, we chose the Charles L. Brown Science and Engineering Library.  I grew up in Charlottesville, and even though I didn't attend UVA, I am intimately familiar with many of the buildings on grounds and I sort of feel like I know where everything is.  Not true!  Not only had I never set foot in the Engineering Library before, I had no idea it was even a thing.  It is a thing, and it is actually an incredibly beautiful place.  The entryway is a huge, echoing lobby with pleasant natural light and murals of naked ancient Greek men painted on the immense walls, and a small coffee shop in the near left alcove.  It feels like a fancy airport, or the lobby of an art museum.  Once you pass through the lobby into the actual library part, it's more conventionally libraryish.  Long front desk, rows of carrels, clusters of chairs. Seated at a table with a view out the window, surrounded by 19-year-old future engineers, I wrote twelve handwritten pages.  I stayed on task, didn't check my phone, and I didn't cry.  The first stop of Library Tour was a huge success!