The fluorescent lights are placed in a circle-ish manner, drawing your eyes to the center of the ceiling. The ceilings are higher in the center and the lights hang low causing the viewer to believe that the ceiling is all one height. There’s an occasional hole cut out of the ceiling for a skylight, a meek attempt to trick the eye into thinking this isn’t a room completely taken over by the artificial. The room is always comfortably conditioned- never too cold in the spring, never too warm in the winter.

The library doesn’t seem to have that many books; it has more space for computers and tables and the books it does have seem to all be reference books. It’s not the kind of library where one can grab a novel to read for pleasure. Those who come to this library only use the computers and leave the books to collect dust. It is a library that is clearly in the technological age. It doesn’t have a distinct smell, just the staleness of any nondescript room without any specific character.
Each day the volumes of Farmer’s Almanac remain undisturbed, resting side by side without any missing from their designated spots. The computers show signs of multiple users from day to day. The wires rearranged, screens turned to face different angles, keyboards moved to more comfortable positions; their locations never quite right for the next person. The low hum of computer fans pierce the quiet, if one listens closely enough.

Depending on whether or not people are there, the library has two very distinct atmospheres. It is a dynamic part of the building, changing to whoever happens to be in it. When only the staff is there, the room is eerily quiet yet any background noises, such as the dry drone of the heater, are disturbing. It’s as though dead silence is the only appropriate sound. Anywhere else, this silence would be creepy and unnerving; but here, sound is unnerving. The space consists of mostly hard surfaces which just cause any sound made to reverberate across the space. Or at least that’s the impression made. Every disturbance of the silence is expected to echo, yet it doesn’t.

When there are classes in there, the library is transformed into a completely different area. The students started off quiet, whispering about the various parts of their assignment. The sound of 33 students typing away at 33 different keyboards slowly rising. Their voices slowing growing to a dull roar as they drift away from their topics and start talking to their friends. The sounds are distracting, making it hard to concentrate. The teacher rose and, as if she turned off a radio, the noise cut. The class pretending to be productive while conversations trailed off and the room never quite reaching the same level of silence experienced in the previous visit.

I feel as though that first day of silence was a fluke. How often is it that the library is completely empty in the middle of the school day? Would anyone believe such a thing? The library is always quiet, but never that quiet, never that unsettling. To be in a place so quiet, the lack of sound gave me a headache. It is a location capable of both disrupting sound and disconcerting silence.