The above quote is from Sarah Flack (Class of 1985). Read the full memory below:

I loved the sunny main floor reading room for the magazines and newspapers from other countries. I would read Paris Match to learn French, and I was able to get a few Russian-language newspapers for my German great-aunt. She wanted to brush up on her wartime Russian but it was 1986 and hard to find such things.

The above quote is from Jim Glass (Class of 1977). Read the full memory below:

I was a German major and studied Swedish for two semesters when it was offered my junior year. During this time I had also become friends with a Swedish student who was attending Brown. One evening at the Rock I was writing an essay in Swedish and using one of the library’s Swedish-English dictionaries that I had checked out. My Swedish friend and I met on a break and as refreshment he offered me “snus”, the Swedish version of snuff, to put under my lip. Not being a smoker and feeling adventurous I tried the snus. I do remember feeling a tremendous nicotine rush and after that, I don’t remember a thing, except that in my nicotine haze I lost the dictionary somewhere in the bowels of the Rock and never was able to find and return it.

The above quote is from Lynn Taylor (Class of 1967). Read the full memory below:

When I arrived in the Fall of 1963, we still had to research and study in the narrow stacks and glass floors of the Hay (kind of romantic, really). I remember the joy of walking into the Rock and settling in to one of the luxurious reading chairs looking out over Providence and thinking, “Now this is a library!” Also had way better spaces for “lingering” and hoping that special guy might pass by and say hi.

Also (I don’t think I’m making this up), I believe they had already inscribed the Roman numerals of its completion into the front concrete (MCMLXIII) for the planned completion date of 1963, but when it ran late, had to add another I to get to 1964, rather than the more proper MCMLXIV! Doesn’t it still say MCMLXIIII?

The above quote is from Alison (Class of 1980). Read the full memory below:

I remember the blazing yellow forsythia bushes in the (very welcome) early spring. They could be seen through large windows in the lower level if I remember correctly.

The above quote is from Alison Withey (Class of 1980). Read the full memory below:

I remember the giant masses of flaming yellow forsythia blooms in brilliant sunlight—seen from windows on the lower floor under the entrance? Are the plants still there? They took your breath away. A welcome sign of spring.

The above quote is from Teresa Schwartz (Class of 2001). Read the full memory below:

I loved the carrels on the lower level—there was blessed solitude for intense study. Despite being in the basement, there are windows that look out upon a sunken garden. In the early spring, the forsythia would bloom a brilliant yellow. I was removed from the world, deep in the mind, awash in a beautiful yellow glow.

The above quote is from Anne Goodale Kemerer (Class of 1979). Read the full memory below:

My biggest memory of the Rock is not the interior, but the fact that the forsythia planted out front were always the first harbinger of spring on campus. I particularly remember after the awful blizzard of ’78, passing the Rock one day and seeing the first forsythia buds, and being absolutely filled with joy that spring was here!

The above quote is from Janet Levin Hawk (Class of 1967). Read the full memory below:

Dave and I were freshmen the year Brown celebrated its Bicentennial and we were proud of the shiny, expensive new “Rock.” Much of our time together over the next four years was spent in study dates—in reading rooms or back-to-back carrels in the stacks. Mid-evening, we allowed ourselves a break for refreshment and a short game of pool in Faunce House.

Somewhere, deep in the belly of the Rock, I believe there is even a mouldering undergraduate thesis with my name on it!

We Pembrokers were not permitted to wear trousers, pants—or God forbid—jeans on the Brown campus. We felt daring, flaunting the system by running over to the library wearing our buttoned and belted raincoats over—our underwear!

During my sophomore year “pulling an all nighter” was the cool, “in” thing to do. MIne ended with red eyes, a poorly written paper, and fainting on the steps of the Rock the following morning. I remained unapologetically UN-cool for the rest of my time at Brown.

Fond memories as Dave and I approach our 50th reunion in 2017—and our 50th anniversary as well!

The above quote is from Nancy Weissman (Class of 1980). Read the full memory below:

In 1979, I was assigned a carrel on the third floor of the Rock where I researched and wrote my honors thesis on medieval Italian social history. A major benefit was being able to check books out to the carrel. Another was the view across Prospect Street to the Green behind Slater, which refreshed my mind when creativity stalled. Recently I returned, and could not be sure which was mine, despite the many, many times I wrote the carrel’s address on book request slips.

I much preferred the Rock to the Sci Li for study. The building’s larger footprint meant that there was a higher level of background noise, so I wasn’t easily distracted by the doors to the stairwells opening and closing, and only by that one silly student from the class of 1982 who clip clopped around the floor in her clogs, like a little hoover animal. Did she ever study? Graduate? at least she had a lot of friends to visit, which is decidedly part of being at the Rock.

The second floor reading room, overlooking the city, was the best place to read unassigned books, like fiction after exams were over. The swivel chairs by the windows were also excellent places to nap, usually unintentionally.

The above quote is from Mario J. Sturla (Class of 2003). Read the full memory below:

Spent the majority of my senior year researching, writing, and re-editing my senior honors history thesis entitled The Forgotten Colony: Spanish Colonial Challenges on the Island of Hispaniola. The Rock was my home and I did more learning at the Rock than probably any other location.