The above quote is from Andy Shaindlin (Class of 1986). Read the full memory below:

In 1983-84 I worked in the mail room at the Rock, with full time staffers Jim Hannon and Dick Tortorella. They were really great guys to work with and to hang out with. One benefit of working the mail room was being the first person to unpackage and see the Library system’s “new” acquisitions—including handling rare and unusual books before the Special Collections experts even knew they had arrived. On occasion I would take home a new book and read it quickly, before it was catalogued by Acquisitions—but never anything rare, and never for more than a few days…

I was also only one of the only students who knew about the secret tunnel that connected the Rock with the John Hay…

The above quote is from Riaz Gllani (Class of 2009). Read the full memory below:

Studying for my first semester chemistry and math finals, drawing amino acids on the white board in the basement when prepping for my biochem test, leaving the Rock to walk across to green and sit on the steps for prayer, English 11 classes, finding an open desk in the stacks to bury myself and study for E&M.

The above quote is from Hannah (Class of 2012). Read the full memory below:

My mom is a librarian at a community college on the west coast, part of her job is managing inter-library loans. My roommate and I thought it would be fun to receive a book sent by her, but we had to make sure we requested something that could only come from her library. So we requested this (I assume, self-published) book about a man in my town who was important to the local lumber industry.

When our book “arrived”, it had the Brown / the Rock stamp on it, so I can only imagine they decided to purchase the book rather than ILL it from across the country. So now, somewhere in the depths of the Rock is everything anyone wanted to know about small town lumber business.

The above quote is from Louise Stanton (Class of 1972). Read the full memory below:

In the spring of 1967, I came to visit Pembroke College and tour the campus as a Junior in high school. Our visit started well, my mother noted, when we were lost in downtown Providence and asked a police man on a motorcycle how to get to Pembroke. “Here,” he said, “I’ll take you up there.” A motorcade arrival on my first visit.

It was spring break on campus, so few students were around, and we were the only family on the tour. When we approached the Rock, a student was coming down the steps and didn’t notice us. He crouched down and broke open an acorn and turned to the squirrel about ten feet away, also on the steps, and offered it the meat of the acorn.

The innocence, the generosity, the lack of pretense of that gesture—I decided right then, this was the school for me. Lucky girl, I got in off the waiting list, and got to go to the college on the very top of my list.

The above quote is from Delia Boylan (Class of 1988). Read the full memory below:

I think I logged more hours at the Rock than any of my friends during my four years at Brown. I studied there…I ate there…I slept there…I flirted there. By the time I was a Senior, I felt like the guy on Fantasy Island who greets the guests as they get off of the plane, handing out drinks. I had different destinations for different purposes. If I wanted to socialize, I went to the A level in that glassed in room. If I wanted to take a nap, I curled up in one of those large, comfy chairs facing the windows on the A level. And if i wanted to study, I’d go deep into the shelves, sometimes going down to the B level to escape anyone who might possibly know me. When I wrote my senior thesis, I spent a lot of time up on the main level, going through the card catalogue (remember those?) before the dawn of the internet.

I loved Brown and the Rock will always be an integral part of that experience.

The above quote is from Joy Javits (Class of 1970). Read the full memory below:

A few days before Spring Weekend, 1968, Kenny Dawson stole my shoe and ran down the hill, through the gate and down to the Rock and straight in the front door and hid from me in a bathroom! I hardly knew him, the roommate of Scott Burns, both of Sigma Nu, who was fixing us up for a first date for Spring Weekend. We were off to a playful start. I went with him to that Spring Weekend, featuring The Supremes, Janis Joplin and Dionne Warwick as organized by the incredible Ira Magaziner.

Kenny and I loved each other for two and half years and then fool that I am, I didn’t beg him to marry me. He was a beautiful man, he became a conscientious objector who worked for years doing menial work in a mental institution, and then became a Psychiatrist for troubled teenagers. We lost Kenny a few years ago. I can still see him racing way ahead of me, into the Rock.

Of course the Rock was a place I went at least three or four times a week to study. It was comfortable and well lit and warm and conducive both to studying until closing, and to dosing on a Saturday afternoon.

Also, Rockefeller, Nelson, was a great man. A very cultured, warm-hearted, if rich as Croesus man, with a love of the visual arts. He and my father would have made a great President and Vice President!

And I send a subscription of “The Sun Magazine,” a thoughtful magazine, published here in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, my new home, to the Rock which pleases me greatly. The New Curriculum (adopted in 1969!) produces people who are smart, ethical, open minded, out of the box thinkers. I am very proud to have attended Pembroke and Brown.

 

The above quote is from Alison Miller (Bodenstab) (Class of 2003). Read the full memory below:

Procrastinating and reading Literary Theory…kisses in the carrel…

The above quote is from Cathy Gersztenkorn (Class of 1972). Read the full memory below:

I remember spending too many hours, that I should have been studying, in the stacks, pulling down and enjoying books that were written in the 19th century and maybe even in the 18th century?

The above quote is from Eric Cohen (Class of 1979). Read the full memory below:

Every afternoon after classes, I would head over to the Rock, find the same carrel in the stack upstairs, read for about 15 minutes and then fall asleep on my books. After a 20-30 minute power nap, I would splash some water on my face and be good to go until closing time. I remember the quiet and solitude of working away at my carrel, and taking breaks and socializing in the hall. I remember the sweet feeling of release walking out into the night on my way back to my dorm, feeling satisfied that I had had a productive day.

The above quote is from Meg Hudson (Class of 2006). Read the full memory below:

I feel like, and often looked like, I moved into the Rock during my senior year but my real relationship with the Rock started my freshman year when I manage to get locked in on one particularly snowy night. I will never forget the utter ridiculousness of realizing that I had missed all the bells (though to be fair, I think in everyone’s hurry to get out during a snow storm the regular schedule, which I already knew by heart, was not strictly adhered to) and then had to decide whether to spend the night in the library or call the police to get me out. Slightly spooked and certainly confused I opted for the latter and after all the laughing trudged home to Perkins during one of the worst snow storms I saw in my time at Brown. After that I always had a great story to tell and took extra steps to make sure I was always out in plenty of time!