Low Level Confusion

Every exam period, the first level smoking room of Lamont Library becomes a highbrow version of a pig sty. The sudden appearance of back copies of examinations transforms what is normally a quiet sanctum for the contemplation of good books and smoke-rings into a paper-littered mess, with exam books strewn everywhere.

Since perusing back exams gives students that certain measure of confidence that goes with experience, an accessible backlog of tests is a practical idea. But after a few days of manhandling during the reading period, they become hopelessly jumbled. Unless the exam crammer is very lucky or takes some obscure course, he can spend more time finding the test he wants than he needs to look it over. The one he wants is either stolen or on the floor or stuffed into some other year's bound exam volume.

No one will go out of his way to keep the files in order when he is busy cramming. Librarian Philip McNiff says that one proposal, putting the exams on closed reserve, would involve too much red tape and tie up too many library aides to be workable. However, Lamont could post the more popular exams in the display cases on the first level, where more than one person could look at them at one time, and where the exam thief couldn't touch them. The other exams should be individually mounted on cardboard, so the student who wants one of them doesn't have to hog a bookful. In these ways, Lamont can bring some order out of the chaos without asking the impossible of human nature.