Usually it’s the territory of older generations to pass comment on how students shy away from work, sleep all day, drink all night and are generally nothing other than lazy. So, it was quite unexpected when the Guardian picked up on the unravelling debate in the London Review of Books regarding whether undergraduate students should be allowed access to the British Library last week.
The policy on the admittance of students was changed back in 2004, when the age for membership was dropped from 21 to 18, allowing for a wider engagement with younger members of society, and in particular, students. The success of this decision is reflected heavily in the figures which show that in 2012 alone the reading rooms in London and Yorkshire received over half a million visits.
But such an expansion is not welcomed by all. The argument against undergraduates being part of the library was first put forward in April by Inigo Thomas who complained of students ‘multitasking’ with technology, leaving flirty notes on each other’s desks and cramming for exams rather than ‘researching’. This was further empathised with by James Obelkevich, who wrote in to the LRB to agree with Thomas, stating: “It isn’t a library that’s kind to serious readers. Letting in undergraduates means that every spring the reading rooms are swamped with intruders who aren’t doing research at all but merely swotting course textbooks before exams – and annoying readers (and library staff) with their adolescent antics.”
Sweeping generalisations such as these hark back to what can only be described as snobbery within the middle/upper class academic community.
Wandering around York’s library, particularly around exam season, you’d have to be deaf not to hear a pin drop in certain areas, and as for ‘noting’, well, with the Spotted pages on Facebook, there’s simply no need. Although, even if there were floods of love letters littering the library desks, how that can possibly be classed as a distraction to anyone other than the people in question is beyond me.
On the topic of York University’s library, the argument that students have their own libraries, and therefore should not intrude on the British Library, also falls flat. Often it is the case that certain books are not always readily available, but on top of this, what about university vacations? Students may potentially live hours away from their ‘own’ university library, so if the British Library gives the opportunity for serious study, then why should it not be seized? Why should we, as undergraduates, be scrutinised for trying to further ourselves academically?
Arguably, there are different levels of research and so priority should be given to those working beyond an undergraduate level. However, every individual’s own work is of the most crucial importance to them personally and is at the root of helping them gain the future that they desire. It seems wrong to prioritise one person’s ambitions over another’s just because they’re older –otherwise how could current undergraduates ever reach that stage themselves?
The British Library website claims that it “serves business and industry, researchers, academics and students, in the UK and world-wide”. So, for individuals such as Thomas to try and restrict this is, essentially, nothing more than selfish. For, as Richard Davenport-Hines states in a letter to the LRB, it is not necessarily the students that are distracting so much as those trying to assert their library dominance; writing, “ I am occasionally distracted by the tut-tutting, indignant shushing and petulant slamming down of pencils by neurasthenics trying to enforce the silence of a padded cell.”
It’s unfair to tar all undergraduate students with the same brush of condemnation. There may be certain students who prove to be a distraction, but, as Davenport-Hines notes, there may equally be some researchers or academics who are the same. The British Library is one of the best collections available for research and academic study, so why shouldn’t it be used by those who want to further themselves in this way or simply have a quiet sanctum to work in? Students are placed in a polarised view, whereby they are either seen as layabouts, or, if they want to work, are deemed unworthy by even the academic elite. Since the British Library has been made available to students from the age of 18, it should be welcoming a new generation of thinkers, rather than shunning them on the grounds of snobbery and selfishness.