Library Ethnography Analysis

For my ethnography project I chose to study the life at the library located at Bryant University. A library is a key component in a culture, giving people a perfect environment to study, learn, work, and preserve important information from the past and the present. In order to maintain good grades in college, students have to dedicate a handful of their time to studying for each of their classes. Most college students prefer to study and do work in the library due to its quiet and peaceful atmosphere, compared to other places around campus that may seem to be more distracting. The library during the day can be a completely different atmosphere compared to a night. During the day, students tend to use it as a place to go during free time
to study for their upcoming class. When students go to the library during the evening, they tend to stay for long periods at a time to get a load of work completed. To get themselves focused and comfortable, they lay out their work and personalize the large table in which they chose to work at. Spending an hour in the library at night let me identify the norms of the students, and how they interact there compared to other places on campus. Although the library is generally known to be where people go to get most of their work done, most students still cannot escape from distractions, such as, cellphones, the internet, and the people in their surroundings.
At Bryant University, the library is a medium sized, two story building, located in the Bello Center.
On the first floor, students are allowed to do group work and talk if necessary, although they might receive dirty looks from the other students who are trying to concentrate. The second floor is strictly a “no talking” zone. When choosing where in the library I wanted to observe or an hour, I decided on the downstairs area where most people like to go. The area is surrounded by tall windows which gives a beautiful view of the fountain in the pond. There are many large tables in the middle all which have four seats as well as additional seating along the windows. The air was filled with the smell of new books and warm coffee. The environment was warm and quiet, besides the aching sound of constant coughing and sniffling due to the recent change of season. Mostly everybody in the room was wearing comfortable clothes such as sweats and all of the girls all had their hair up messily. Does being comfortable really improve their focus and make them work
harder?
As people passed outside, the eyes of the students in the library tended to follow them as a way of distracting themselves. Almost everyone in the room, at some point, would either be constantly checking their phones or would take a couple minute breaks from their work to check social media. A boy in a blue Nike shirt even asked his friend “Do you have a phone charger with you?” as if his cell phone was a crucial part of studying. The students who seemed stressed out tended to be constantly moving in their seat. Some of these gestures included the tapping of the feet, the biting of the writing utensil, and resting their hand on their forehead. As the hour went on, I could tell that the students were starting to get more and more distracted and looked even more exhausted by the expressions on their faces.

Clifford Geertz, an American anthropologist, was a key figure in the interpretivist approach, which is a conceptual framework that sees culture primarily as a symbolic system of deep meaning. Geertz believed that “Dedication to rigorous recording of field notes supports the process of thick description in which detailed affords deeper insights into the underlying meaning of words and actions.”(Guest 2014:48) Like Geertz, I took written field notes while observing the culture of the library. This gave me the ability to really concentrate on what was happening around me and on taking explicit notes. Geertz argues that such careful description of cultural activity is an essential part of understanding a culture. This made him extremely successful when doing a study on a Balinese Cockfight and the culture behind it. Do to my field notes and looking beneath the surface activities, I learned many significant and meaningful symbols used in my college library.
Throughout the hour I observed, I came to the conclusion that college students have difficulty time concentrating, even at a quiet place like the library.
A major reason why they get distracted too easily is due to their strong connection with their cellphones and the internet in general. We have grown up in a generation where technology is such a huge part of our lives and we feel the need to be constantly checking our phones and to always have it by our side. When searching the web while studying, it is extremely easy for students to find themselves on YouTube or even checking their Facebook’s which happens more often than not. Students like to be as comfortable as then can when they go to the library perhaps because they figure they will be there for a while and won’t be able to focus and hard if they are uncomfortable for any reason. The research of student behavior and work habits in libraries has been going on for years for ways libraries can be improved. Anthropologist’s Gina Hunter and Dane Ward explain, “As librarians and scholars attempt to document and understand these changes, ethnographic methods have proven insightful for gaining and in-depth look at students study habits, modes of research, and use of library facilities." Overtime there will become better ways for students to overcome being easily distracted and procrastinating. Anthropologists will continue to study this topic in hopes for
improvement.
Works Cited
Guest, Kenneth J. Cultural Anthropology: A Toolkit for a Global Age. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.
Hunter, Gina, and Dane Ward. "Students Research the Library: Using Student-led Ethnographic Research to Examine the Changing Role of Campus Libraries." Crln.acrl. N.p., 1 May 2011. Web. 29 Sept. 2014.