Odegaard Undergraduate Library

Odegaard has always looked ugly from the outside. It’s a pretty awful brown brick contraption.
The new Odegaard (which is the only Odegaard I’ve ever known) looks much better from the inside, though. Its wide-​open floor plan and tons of natural light deserve credit. This is a model for how libraries should work in the modern age — giving people lots of room to study, plenty of computers, and a selection of the most popular books and movies.
I appreciate how they highlight books — they put them on a table by the reservation desk so you run into them on your way in or out, or when you go to the bathroom. This makes it easy to organically run into something interesting, at least sparking your curiosity.
The place does get pretty noisy; groups come here to «study.» People also mess around frequently; it seems like people are only working half the time.
Computer slots are also limited. Despite the gaming ban plenty of people still play online games like League of Legends and DoTA. This is totally inappropriate for a taxpayer-​funded resource, and I wish they’d take a more aggressive stance on kicking these people out. If they don’t need to study they should go home and not be allowed back in.
I’m giving Odegaard a relatively high score in large part because of the nostalgic memories I have of studying here. I remember pulling my only all-​nighter at the University of Washington here to finish a document. You can stay here all day and no one will lecture you. It’s a good place to zone out, or focus, or wander, or see your friends. Odegaard is everything you make it.

My rating might be misleading. I don’t like Odegaard nearly as much as I like what it has done for me. The old library was a mess; it smelled of urine and pizza while all the computers were occupied by losers playing League of Legends. It has since been remodeled and now looks much better. I am reviewing the library based on how it has helped me and what it’s like now, not how run down it was in the past.
Odegaard is the library you go to for studying, especially if you’re a commuter to UW like me and can’t make use of the dorms. While Suzzallo is much more beautiful and impressive, Odegaard is more practical and likely to have everything you need. This library suits all kinds of study styles; there is the bottom floor for group work, the top floor for individual silent study, and they also have private rooms that you can check out for a few hours for one or more persons.
The computers here at one point were completely overrun by selfish people playing Facebook Tetris, but that has thankfully been cut down thanks to new rules that disallow gaming on those computers during peak hours. I’ve had to personally kick off a guy busy in an intense session of League of Legends just so I could print something. It was getting ridiculous and I would have lost all hope for this library if they hadn’t addressed that.
Speaking of printing, it was like eleven cents per page or something while I was a student there. When you print something from the public computers here, it doesn’t get printed out automatically; it gets stored in the queue and you have to swipe your Husky Card, find your document in the queue (it should be near the top as long as you’re quick), and pay that money out of your student account. Of course, they also have staplers and hole punchers nearby.
I really appreciate some of the subtler parts of the library. The bathrooms are regularly maintained. The scanners are useful for doing exactly what they’re supposed to. There is a miniature version of the University Bookstore selling mainly supplies. Kane Hall has vending machines dispensing milk and the By George Café has food in case you get hungry and don’t feel like turning to the Ave. The wireless internet connection here is fast and consistent. The books are handy when you need them.
I have spent countless hours in this library, including pulling several all-​nighters here writing papers that were due in a few hours. Just being back here brings back many memories, most of which were good because I did well in school and there’s no doubt that all that work paid off in the end. The road may have been bumpy at times, but Odegaard helped me successfully reach the end. I doubt Suzzallo or any other public library could have done the same for me.