It is a time not long ago, in a place quite like our own. Our hero, despite all her efforts to the contrary, has begun the research paper for her Core course the night before it is due. Racing through HOLLIS, she learns that all the books are checked out until 2001. Phone calls to friends in the class go unanswered; e-mails to her TF for an extension unheeded. In despair, she goes to her House library to contemplate life after failing a Core.

As she sits down, mocha in hand, in a ridiculously comfortable chair, she looks up at the wall and--Lo! and Behold! Three books on the topic she had thoughtlessly e-mailed in weeks before! Saved by the House library, she finishes her paper before Stein Club.

Needless to say, this story is false--not because it couldn't happen, but because it doesn't. No one goes to the House library for books. Maybe for the copier, maybe for videos in a few lucky Houses, maybe for a quiet place for type away at a term paper in the absence of a roommate's stereo. But House libraries aren't about books.

But if so, then what are House libraries for?

This is actually quite a contentious question and one that students, by influencing their House committees, House Masters and Undergraduate Council representatives to the University Library Committee, could affect. What should your library be--a personal treasure trove of books and reserve resources, or merely a comfy place to retire with your blockmates?

As it stands, 10 Houses have libraries--all (including Dudley) but those in the Quad, because "Hilles is the library for the three Houses," according to Patricia Gnazzo Pepper, masters' assistant at Currier House and manager of its reading room. House libraries have all kinds of books, from rare to super-commonplace, though they mostly address subjects in the humanities. (Nicola Trowbridge Cooney, the Eliot House librarian, said, "We have an oddly limited collection--the joke is we have everything from British history to British literature.")

Kirkland House has the only library even partially in HOLLIS, due to the efforts of Judith A. Warnement, who works as a professional librarian for Harvard and, in her spare time, for Kirkland. "7,000 of Kirkland's books are in HOLLIS and more are added every week," Warnement wrote in an e-mail message, noting the House proceeded with the idea with the Master's approval, the permission of the Harvard University Libraries--and a commitment to pay all expenses.

We may think of the House libraries as useless places to find books, but that may just be reflection of more diverse Harvard College course offerings than in the past, according to Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68. "There are fewer common reading lists for sophomore tutorials or the sort of survey courses that Harvard used to teach in greater numbers," Lewis wrote in an e-mail message.