The Super Silent Reading Room has Arrived! Shame it won’t last.

You know that when you are excited about a new place to read your life is officially over. The same over as when you realised that you haven’t bought any clothes since last April. Or when you run to the supermarket because you know the time in which the chicken would be reduced. Or when you a great deal of time buying tupperware boxes for your pre-made lunchs, and you try to make sure that it has lockable compartments so your food won’t fall out. BIG EPIC FAIL. Today with the new opening of the reading rooms by the Charles, and with Facebook speculating that apparently more than 400 people were apparently going to be there at 9am, I crammed absolutely everything-that-has-been-defined-as-a-book ever into a single bag and hit the hay wearing freshly-pressed pyjamas. God I felt pathetic.

When I arrived at the new converted reading rooms, the converted rooms being those yukky brown buildings behind that car park to the left of the pub that seem to blend into every background, I found that the building was a little but smaller inside than what I was expecting from the outside. Like a dodgy Tardis. For those who are all factsy and want to know the FACTS…. On the ground floor you’ve got roughly 40 seats available on the far back rooms, very similar to the crammed one they have situated near the North Room in the library, but far more spacious. It’s also got less of an annoying window view than North Room, which has a constant stream of people from Skins passing scratching their privates and eating Prawn Marie Rose sandwiches. The upstairs consist of group rooms, for at least 5 different sets of people, all nice and equally spacious, but just like all group space it seems as if you gotta and through your stuff there at 6am screaming MINE MINE MINE! I did that myself this morning. Not because I am a table leaving whore, I just left my stuff there to meet with a few friends outside to tell them where we were reading. I threw my things on, cackled, and then left the room, shut the door behind me and *click*

What?

*Click*

Pushes on door.

*Click Click Click*

The door had closed itself on its latch. And all my belongings were inside. Great.

The door had one of those pathetic pin codes door lock thingys left on the front. It must have been used by the previous owners, and it had fallen off it’s latch when I closed the door behind me. No matter, off to the porters I went. “A pin code? The building doesn’t have any pin codes inside” he replied. He then called the library, the current *owners* of the building who didn’t know that the room actually existed. Then the Norwegian Department was rung, the people who had used the building last. They stated that only one person of the current staff knows the code, and she was away viewing a house, and wouldn’t be back for aaaaaages, and doesn’t own a phone! Now I know what you’re thinking…. York has a Norwegian Department?

Whilst working in the next room I eavesdropped into engaging conversation between the Security Services on the phone who an hour later knew the number of the room but still couldn’t get the door to work again. “It’s the way you touch the buttons.” one guy said, trying to recollect a conversation with the person from the guy who now knew the code. “You hold the 5 whilst simultaneously holding the 2 and 4, and then wiggle the 1”. It didn’t work. They gave up, and came back half-an-hour later. Sadly, I don’t know how the room was eventually broken into, but I heard that this consisted a screwdriver and an inside window, and possibly a couple of swearwords.

It was all rather frustrating this Mildly Annoying Ethnicity and Justice Revision Delay from Hell, but I can’t really give a review of a place where something only was a mild inconvenience. I mean nobody bloody well died. The place however was still having its final touches, so there were certainly some other frustrating things to think about. For example:  1) I was able to hear more than three different types of drill going through three different types of walls. 2) Finding the toilets seem like those running scenes from the Crystal Maze 3) There wasn’t any way to indicate that the group rooms were being occupied by students, so whilst working somebody would always leer round their head and go “yo, hello… er…..yar yar yar… bye” and scarper off looking embarrassed. Okay fine, that does sound pretty petty, but I have to stipulate that this happened at least TEN to TWELVE times.

However there are BIG advantages to this place. For the meantime it feels as if it is one of those cool kid places that nobody knows about. The place is generally quiet, the chats in the downstairs rooms are minimal, the surroundings are lovely and the new chill space, with a coffee machine and sofas, are excellent. But that’s the problem. It’s just too quiet. The people today were starting to break the place it in like they do with their shoes whilst the great majority of the students are in the humanitarian hell of the library, and they don’t even know that it exists yet. It’s only going to be a matter of time before a SEA of students who really need to work along with those who don’t actually-need-to-be-there-at-all-but-still-do-anyway-just-to-annoy-you-such-as-talking-to-their-friends-loudly-whilst-you-don’t-give-a-shit peeps arrive. It won’t be long until you have to hear how Camilla likes Gregory but oh gawd yar… this work is difficult! How about a soy chai mocca chocca latte? It won’t be long until people are making out in the corner whilst you read about South Africa and Chechnya, and when it’s so busy you have to sit as close to a person as you can without feeling them up, then someone meticulously unfolds a brown sandwich filled with kettle crisps, fireworks and party poppers. It needs to stay silent. It needs a bit of solitude. Nobody who doesn’t need to be there should be there. Certainly, and without a doubt, this shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh………. factor needs to remain.

“What do you mean that Ive just told everyone that it exists?”