Sydney Life

As you stand under the Clocktower at Sydney Uni, you are privy to a wonderful view. Ahead of you is the city of Sydney - you can even see Centrepoint. Behind you is the magnificent Quadrangle. And to your right is one of the ugliest, but most useful, buildings on campus.

Welcome to Fisher Library.

As a first year student, I dared not venture into the monolithic Fisher. It looked like a toaster, I'd heard rumours that it smelt horrible, and that the librarians were crazy as they hadn't seen the light of day for years.

Eventually, though, essay time came and I crushed my fears as I stepped through the doors of my future. Little did I know that, three years on, I'd be practically living on the third floor (I don't like stairs...)

A wonderful thing happened that day - I discovered how fantastic the library is. It's huge and scary, yep. But it's also packed to the brim with the best resources. There is an Audio-Visual room, Special Reserve (where books that are necessary for certain subjects are kept during semester - you can't borrow these for more than two hours), a Rare Book Library (with some really fascinating things), computer labs, group meeting rooms (for those ghastly tute presentations) and of course, the ubiquitous coffee stop outside.

Up until two weeks before the end of last semester, my friend Patty didn't realise that the library was divided into two parts. To save you from said blunder, here is the 4-1-1. Fisher has two sections: the Undergraduate Library and the Research Library. The Research Library is also known as Fisher Stacks, and is to the right of the Undergrad Library (which is pretty much everything else.) The main difference is that, if you borrow from Research, your loan time is extended. Both libraries basically have the same books, but the Research is meant for Postgrad students, mainly (though we undergrads can use it, too!)

I think one of the best things about our Library is that you can access journal articles online. This is a real bonus if you can't get into the Library to read an article for an essay or tute. The Library has a service where you can login and then have access to thousands of academic journals from all over the world. And if they don't happen to have access to something you're hankering for, they can generally order it. Voila!

If you're feeling a little overwhelmed by the thought of entering the wild halls of Fisher this semester, allay your fears with the thought of having your very own private tour!

Yep, that's right: the kind librarians (they're not crazy, don't fret) offer to take you through their kingdom, teaching you how to login to the library network, where to find call numbers and how to avoid nasty clashes with fellow students over books you both want. To find out more about these, go into Fisher at the start of semester, and look for the signs.

Have fun in Fisher, but beware, it is but one part of a chain of libraries at Sydney. I can't even begin to tell you about the rest...I shall leave that for another day...