Many people go to Paley’s 3rd floor to study in a quiet area. However the floor is getting noisy and noise everyday. People talking on the phones, chatting with their friends, eating meals on the table. And I do not see any body commenting or stopping them from doing so. I’ve personnally asked some of people to quiet. Can you keep 3rd floor quiet please? Where else do i have to to study quietly on the campus if the library is too loud?

Have you noticed that it’s difficult to find a truly quiet public place these days. People on cell phones on public transportation. People talking loudly in movie theatres. People listening to music so loudly you can hear it through their headphones. Noise in public places is a societal issue because in general people are less considerate of their fellow citizens than they used to be. Paley Library – in fact all libraries – are not immune from this problem. A library used to be equated with golden silence, but that is no longer the case.

We appreciate that you are sharing your concerns with us, and it’s great that you have attempted to solve the problem by asking others around you to be quiet. What we’ve heard from our library colleagues at other institutions is that the most effective resolution to noise in the library is when students self-police and police their fellow students. When asked to hold down the noise, most students will politely comply, though we know this is not always the case.

What we’re attempting to do about the noise challenge is to use a “zoning” approach. We have specified different areas of the Paley Library as quiet zones or group study (noise-tolerant) zones. For example, the first floor west is a group zone – and noise there is tolerated. However, the east side of the first floor is a quiet zone, and we expect students to study quietly there. The east side of the second level, on the other hand, is a noise-tolerant zone. So please make sure that you are studying in one of the quiet zones. It is possible students will not be aware of which zone they are in. So if you are in a dedicated quiet zone and other students are making noise please do remind them they are in a quiet zone – all these zones are clearly marked when you enter them.

If you find a group of students are being particularly noisy or a single student is speaking loudly into a cell phone, first consider pointing out to the offending party about the quiet zone location. If the student(s) continues to be noisy, please bring it to the attention of a staff member who will intervene. Please bear in mind that at some late hours or on weekends we may not have sufficient staffing to attend to every noise situation.