Joule Library

The Joule library is another one of the University of Manchester’s installments dotted around. As a student of the social sciences, many of the books I need are located in the crazed town of the John Rylands on Oxford Road. Occasionally my searches do direct me to the joule, when everyone is hogging the books, amongst a lot of other things, at the main one.
My venture in the Joule actually came down to wanting inspiration from a thesis. The joule is home to a lot of the MA thesis’ if you ever want a sneaky preview of what a postgraduate piece of work could look like. It’s located in the Sackville building, a large building with lots of engineering and scientific and business based things I believe. The Joule is located on floor E, another example of the University’s friendly and meaningful signage.
I’ve grown to use this library in times when I just need to sit and write or read, I come here because of it’s friendly, inviting, light and airy spaces. It’s got more of a studious feel and unhectic like the John Rylands on Oxford. There’s always space and you don’t get the mass conversation creeping up at lunch time, tea time, when apparently loud conversations become acceptable. The computer cluster is often a talking zone, although not supposed to be, so I have to bring the laptop and sit in my own little cubby hole. It’s bad for sunny days, like today, when the sun is just shining through and reminding me what I’m missing. Also If you take inspiration and find a new book you may need, chances are for me it’s back down to the Rylands.
Overall I wish the Joule had all my books, or the Rylands had the design and aura of the Joule. Actually, that could result in the library becoming too much like my home.

So I headed down to the Joule library, to have a look at the bling, the gold, and the jewels, and it turns out they don’t have any jewels at all. They aren’t a Jewel Library at all. They have books. That’s all. Not even books and jewels, which would make it a Dual Library. Its not Dual and it doesn’t have Jewels.
Basically it’s a branch of The John Ryland’s University library. Rather than keeping all the books in one place, they occasionally annoy you by making you go to a different location to get your book. Supposedly these books are subject-​specific ones at subject-​specific libraries, but in my experience its almost completely random.
A nice place to work, but its irritating that the Joule Library has to exist in the first place. Plus, no jewels. I like jewels. They’re shiny.

This library is the lesser-​known of the two main University of Manchester libraries and is of most use to the students based on the former UMIST campus (now North Campus). It is located on floor E of the former Vimto factory — the Sackville Street Building. The layout of the building is confusing, but there are plenty of friendly engineering students on hand, should you get lost.
As an arts student based on South Campus I came to this library surprisingly frequently. I often found that books which I needed had all been taken out at the John Rylands University Library, but that there were numerous copies available at the Joule Library. Obviously this depends on which subjects you study, as the library mainly focuses on Maths, Science and Engineering books as well as subjects such as Linguistics, which they used to teach at UMIST. Alongside the books and study areas, there are 55 networked PCs, three photocopiers and a microfilm printer. They also offer several food-​friendly areas, so that you can scoff down your brain food and guzzle energy drinks whilst cramming for exams.
Although this library is not as large or traditional as the JRUL I find the atmosphere much calmer, there is usually no trouble finding a place to study and no danger of getting lost in a labyrinth of corridors.