All the worst things about the Edinburgh Uni library

It's the time of year again when the George Square Main Library turns into the second home for most Edinburgh students. The place is rammed, everybody is stressing out, and when these two things start to work together, everything about the library gets a lot more annoying.

There are only a few copies of primary texts available in the library

It's a nightmare when all the copies of a crucial book you need for an essay have been taken out of the library by other students. It’s more manageable if the book is in the HUB Reserve, but if it’s on Standard Loan, there’s no chance you’re going to cross paths with that book before the deadline. All the copies will have been snapped up by your fellow course mates, who don’t plan on returning them until the library send a sassy email to let them know they’re about to get fined.

The HUB Reserve and its three hour loan rule sucks

Three hours is not nearly enough to use the books that are stored in the HUB, and if you go a minute over you start getting charged two pence. Also, it's so much faff to even return the book when all you're going to do is immediately take it out again.

The library only let you enter without your student card five times in a year

When on the go in the morning, in a mad rush to get a good seat in the library for the day of revision ahead of you, it’s easy to forget a little thing like your student card – especially when two jackets have already been worn that same week. Surely the uni can’t expect us to keep track of where our student cards are at all times. Let’s face it, if it's been left in the flat, it’s not worth making the hefty twenty minute walk back to go and get it. That’s forty minutes of valuable essay-writing time wasted.

Hardly any of the desk plugs work

This is heartbreaking when the library is really busy. After you've finally found a free seat, the worst feeling in the world is when you go to plug your laptop in, and nothing happens. The amount of time you now spend in the library is dictated by the amount of battery your laptop has. An alternative option is to wander around, laptop and plug aloft, desperately trying each and every plug you come across – making you seem like a madman.

The lift etiquette of some students is seriously questionable

There's nothing worse than when you're trying to glide your way swiftly up to the fourth floor to be joined by a chancer who hops in at the last minute, only to take the lift up a single floor. This kind of behaviour slows everyone down. There's an unwritten rule that if you're going to third or above, you can take the lift, but even using it to get up to third is pushing it.

What do you mean it's out of order? I need to get to the 4th floor

Some courses get £50 in in print credit each year

This is sick if you're a medic or a geographer – but if you don't happen to study a course where they deem printing THIS important, but still like to read off paper, it’s pretty annoying. Regularly finding yourself going to print off an article to realise once you’re standing over the printer that you don’t have enough pennies on your account to print off six pages really isn’t the one.

There aren't enough spaces where you're allowed to eat

The library have a rule that you're only allowed to eat food inside the library lobby and the library café, meaning that if you want to have a sneaky munch on a snack whilst ploughing through a reading, and you're not on the ground floor, then you have to technically 'break the rules'. The thing is though, when you decide to take a lunch break, it's highly likely there'll be nowhere for you to take a seat in either of the designated places, so you'll have to sit outside in the cold as you eating a bang average sandwich brought in from home.

The library café is just shit

The ridiculously inflated price of food and drink at the library café clearly doesn't put most people off – judging by the size of the queue at peak times. Factor in the time spent standing in a snake of shivering, caffeine-deprived students before getting to the counter and waiting five minutes for them to heat up a £4 panini, and you've basically wasted what could have been a perfectly good revision break by just standing around.

Queueing out the door for a bang average panini

Some of chairs at the desks are broken

When it's peak exam season, and you get to the library, finding a seat is a mission in itself. For a brief moment, you feel like you've struck gold, as you stroll over to a desk which isn't being guarded by a measly notebook. As you get closer, you’re presented with a broken chair. If you sit on it you'll feel like you’re back in Year 5 and someone’s pulled it from beneath you, as you slowly plummet towards the ground in embarrassment.

Some of the library desks don't even have chairs

A broken chair is very annoying, but a missing chair on the other hand is a whole different ball game. You'll occasionally see people making a pathetic attempt to squeeze onto the same desk as their mate so they can do 'group work'. These people are the worst.

People think they can reserve a desk with just a pencil

There's nothing worse than prowling three different floors to find a seat only to discover fifteen desks 'reserved' with lone pencils, orange peels, and maybe a sheet of graph paper. It makes you wonder why you even bothered to leave your bed at all.

If you have a big enough bottle of Evian, you can reserve seats apparently

The library wardens

It may be their job to make sure students are adhering to library etiquette, but is there actually any need to be so loud? Why does redistributing books onto shelves require us to come equipped with ear defenders when we just want to study in peace? Sorry to interrupt your mothers' meeting Jill, but it's not like we've got revision to be doing or anything.

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