The above quote is from Phyllis Kollmer Santry (Class of 1966). Read the full memory below:

When the Rock first opened there was a lounge chair on the second floor in the corner window, overlooking Van Wickle Gates. One of my classmates, whose name escapes me, used to sit there every night. It was fun and sort of comforting to walk over to the Rock to study after dinner and see him sitting up there—watching over the campus.

The above quote is from Alan (Class of 1996). Read the full memory below:

I wrote a poem while I was in Freshman at Brown called “Rock”:

Slowly into the room of empty space
Softly I hear the place of the lonely souls
It’s solitude which I feel
It’s isolation that I sense
Everyone is squeezed in this space
Squeezed into their own innerspace

The space where each of them belongs to
The expanse where they have been longing for
It’s perhaps their spiritual home
A sector one can retreat to
Not to hide away from reality
Only to get away from the hypocrisy of the world
The illusions of the friendly spirits
The malice behind all the smiling faces
Reality is no longer real
It’s only a mirage,
A deception filled up with enmity
It’s a fallacy,
A delusion where everyone is lost in the name of materialism
They don’t seem to know
They don’t seem to think
The meaning of life is only a simple thing
Is that one should love for himself,
Not for money, but quietly, forcefully and utterly.

Providence, USA
Oct 1993

Another incident I would like to share is that I was studying/reading lying on the comfortable couchchair on the basement of the Rock. It was so comfortable that I fell asleep and woke up at 3:30 a.m. (the door was locked at 2 a.m.). I ended up spending the night here.

The above quote is from Sheila Hogg (Class of 1996). Read the full memory below:

Interlibrary Moan: B Level houses some of my favorite books on language and literature. I was there after a long day of work looking for something and I headed upstairs with my finds. While passing through the door to the stairwell I heard a long, low groan. From where was this unearthly sound? I stepped closer to a double door and the moans got louder. The moaner heard me. The sound grew more intense and muffled words were coming through the crack in the door. I couldn’t tell what was being said. Grateful for the doors barring me from this moaner, I sprinted upstairs to inform the Circulation staff to call Security. Something really scared me down there. It turned out to be someone who thought the Hay Tunnel was an exit. Unfortunately, the doors lock you in at either end. I don’t know how long this poor soul was down in the dark tunnel. This was in the days before cellphones.

The above quote is from Melora Furman (Class of 1978). Read the full memory below:

I discovered my career at the Rockfeller Library—sort of. Late one evening, browsing through the stacks in a deserted section of the library, I found books about landscape architecture. That interest led to exploration of urban design, architecture, and eventually city planning. I’ve been a city planner, specializing in zoning and land use planning, for about 25 years now.

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.