Fun In Lamont

To most college students, social life is defined by debauchery: drunken football tailgates, “Anything But Clothes” parties, and meaningless one-night hookups. At Harvard, however, students complain that the outlets for those primal urges are limited. There are Final Clubs for the few who are suitably adept at drinking wine and eating cheese. There is a semi-secret Sorrento Square social organization that used to occasionally publish a so-called humor magazine for the few who can fit in the cookie-cutter shape of the publication’s officer core.

But for the majority of Harvardians without access to these institutions, a new forum has provided an unexpected space to unleash their suppressed desires: Lamont Library. With the advent of the library’s 24-hour schedule, Lamont has become—especially during the doldrums of reading and exam periods—a place of revelry more than a place of study.

The signs were apparent from the beginning. As the clock struck midnight on October 18, 1,500 undergraduates congregated in euphoric glee to celebrate Lamont’s extended hours. A chorus of cheers filled the cramped foyer as burritos flew through the air and starved, studious students leaped for the free Felipe’s. “Party in Lamont,” as the Undergraduate Council labeled the event, was designed as a once-in-a-lifetime event: a suspension of the library’s normally staid atmosphere in honor of students’ new opportunity to study without interruption from Sunday morning to Friday night.

To no one’s surprise, students have embraced this new schedule with overwhelming intensity. But to the dismay of a studious few and many of the library’s security guards, this intensity has not correlated in quiet reflection on Habermas and Drosophila genes; this intensity has been expressed in scenes of sheer outrageousness that rival even the best Harvard party.

There are the traditional acts of sexual promiscuity, as any browser of Craigslist can see. For the lucky few who do find a match, a lockable storage closet on the second floor has made the study break even easier. And when not used for DVD storage or stress release, the closet has been transformed by a dedicated group of Lamonters into a space for late-night cheese soirees.

But as papers and exams have compounded in recent weeks, these acts have escalated as student sanity has deteriorated. On Monday night, six students from the improv comedy troupe On Thin Ice huddled conspicuously in the corner of the Ginsberg Reading Room as 2 a.m. neared. With the room’s attention guaranteed, the students reverted 20 million years in the evolutionary process and started to scale the walls. In a matter of seconds, the six had climbed onto the fourth-floor balcony to the visible shock and frustration of a few students hidden behind piles of library books.

With that, the night had begun.

By 6 a.m., another group of students had shed their headphones and shirts in favor of computer speakers and a topless dance party. On top of the wooden tables usually reserved for laptops, Red Bulls, and bound books, the students moved awkwardly to techno for the short period before the “Anti-Fun Czar” (i.e., the late-late-night guard) entered with orange citation slips in hand.

As one student discovered on a 24-hour study binge in Lamont accompanied by Chinese takeout and innumerable frappucinos, the threatening slips have no actual power. Even though the guard warned her that “the next slip will be your last,” when she received that devastating third citation, she was not carted off in handcuffs, but rather scolded yet again for “violating library principles.”

While we understand “library principles” and appreciate the studious atmosphere that the library theoretically provides, we’re glad the library staff isn’t worrying too much about Lamont’s recent raucousness. On one night last week, a guard politely said, “Happy Birthday,” to a crew who had gathered with cake, music, and balloons in a first-floor nook to celebrate with a girl who would not leave Lamont under any circumstances. As long as students do not start burning books for 4 a.m. entertainment, then we feel that this conduct should remain unpunished.

Students here are studious enough, and the new Lamont has hopefully allowed for some of the busy bodies to break out of their strict, routine. As this year comes to a close and the experiment of 24-hour Lamont ends its first cycle, we once again want to thank Harvard College Library, University Hall, and the Undergraduate Council representatives who made this all possible, even if it the end result wasn’t exactly what they had in mind. We might be more tired and a little crazier, but studying has never been so fun. (And to those students who are still searching for the elusive quiet study space near the Yard: rumor has it that the Adams House Library is open really late, too.)