Sydney Life

Yes, the library is scary. There are actually several libraries within Sydney Uni, and they could probably take over a blog of their own* so I’ve decided to just tackle Fisher for now.

Fisher is the main library at Sydney Uni, and is located near the Quad and front lawns. Things you need to know....

Sections

Oh yes, there are sections. The Undergraduate section is on the left hand side as you are looking at it from the front, and the Research section is the tall tall tall building on the right. Fisher Research is a towering 9 stories high (you may hear some famous stories about level 9 but I’ll leave that to the Fisher-personal blog, or perhaps your own adventures to discover). There are also many different areas within these sections, eg the curriculum library and the audio visual library (and the rare book library) but I don’t pretend to be an expert.

How to find a book

Maybe the most important thing you need to know. You might think this is a simple task - it’s not!!

First, search for the book you’re looking for on the library homepage. There are computers all over the place just for searching for your books. You can seach by author, title, subject, etc. You can even do a trial run here. When you get a match, figure out the location (it might not even be in Fisher), write down the call number and most importantly see whether it’s there ("CHECK SHELF" is what you want to be seeing).

If you don’t know where the computer is telling you to go (probable), there are laminated Fisher maps on walls near computers that tell you the locations of books based on their call numbers. Nifty! Then it’s a simple (HA!) task of getting there, searching among rows and rows and rows of books for your one, and often climbing onto one of those scary stools that roll.

Special Reserve

Special Reserve is located on level 2 (by the way, just to confuse you, the floor you walk in on is Level 3, so down one level and you’re at level 2), and contains all the course readers and relevant textbooks for each subject. It’s really helpful for when you want to catch up on some readings during a break but don’t want to bring in the textbook. You can go there and borrow books for 2 hours and you have to keep the book within the library. If you go there 1 hour before the library closes, you can have the book overnight and you have to return it the next morning. Fines come in at a whopping $2.50 / hr! There are also photocopiers in Special Reserve, but also right next door is the photocopying room. Which brings me to...

Photocopying

The photocopying room is on level 2, right next door to Special Reserve (handy). You have to set up a photocopy card when you first start. There are machines for you to add money to a card (any card with a magnetic strip), then you go to a photocopying machine to set up a PIN then you’re ready to copy. If it all gets too confusing, ask one of the friendly staff. There are also those nifty automatic staplers so you can bundle all your notes together once they’re photocopied. Just don’t stick your fingers in, ouch!

Where to study

There are a lot of places to study in Fisher. During Semester 1 on the very infrequent times I went to study in Fisher, I went into Fisher research level 5 or 6 and sat at one of the desks up against the windows. However I soon found out that the main study hub in Fisher is UG (Undergraduate) level 4, where there are a zillion desks piled up with students studying their little hearts out...

Level 4 also has group discussion tables, and there are group discussion rooms as well. Level 1 also has a lot of tables like on level 4, but it’s far quieter (you could hear a pin drop). Along the window seats of level 4 there are power points for laptop users - if you don’t have a laptop PLEASE don’t sit there because it can get frustrating especially when you have an old battery that dies after 45 minutes (except mine got recalled and now I have a brand new one that lasts 6 hours - yay!). Other places I’ve recently discovered that have power points are some of the desks in Special Reserve and some empty desks around the computers in the access lab. This is a continually growing list, please add to it!

Etiquette

When I first saw the “TALKING NOT PERMITTED” sign on level 4 I was slightly frightened, and it took me a while to ease up. In the study areas obviously a bit of inter-table whispering is fine, or an excited thumbs up and hello (or whatever...) if you see someone you know, but it really annoys me when people talk loudly about things not even relating to study, or answer their phones loudly, etc. If your phone rings (hopefully it’s on silent!) the best thing to do is to quickly flee to a place away from the desks and answer it quietly.

Regarding food - as evidenced by the overflowing-with-lolly-and-chip-packet bins scattered throughout fisher, you can pretty much eat (even though there is a sign very close to the “TALKING NOT PERMITTED” one that indicates otherwise). Also, a lot of people bring coffees in (it gets pretty tempting with the coffee cart about 20m from the front doors of fisher) and I’m not sure if the people at the front desk are strict about this or not - I’ve never been told off, but that could be because I’m paranoid so I hide it and practically race in with my back faced to them.

*Upon looking through the Sydney Uni Blogs website, I stumbled across none other than a SYDNEY UNI LIBRARY BLOG. I promise I wrote this before I knew it existed, scary!!!

**This title IS from a song, from Arthur the tv show, and I’ve got the soundtrack to prove it!