<p>Columbia’s Butler Library!</p>
<p>Columbia’s Avery Library (the old part) is very nice. It has these catwalks for the mezzanine books that I always thought were very cool.</p>
<p>The Library at Santa Clara University is only a few years old and is state of the art, beautifully designed, and a great Learning Commons. Check it out.</p>
<p>I am so, so jealous of my cousin who was at Harvard when they got rid of the card catalogs at Widener and bought one. It’s huge and gorgeous. I never spent much time at Butler, but spent plenty of time in the musty Widener stacks shelving books and occasionally being distracted by what was on the shelves…</p>
<p>Mutti2012, I loved U of Chicago and was as torn as my son was when he was trying to decide between it and Tufts. He didn’t make the decision until the very last day.</p>
<p>This is a question I can answer & I wouldn’t have to go far!
Suzzallo at the UW!
[File:Suzzallo</a> Reading Room 04.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Suzzallo_Reading_Room_04.jpg]File:Suzzallo”>File:Suzzallo Reading Room 04.jpg - Wikipedia)</p>
![http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Suzzallo_Reading_Room_04.jpg]File:Suzzallo](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Suzzallo_Reading_Room_04.jpg%5DFile:Suzzallo){kind=link}
<p>Although I also like the thesis tower at the Reed College library
[Thesis</a> Tower, Reed Library II | Flickr - Photo Sharing!](<a href=“http://www.■■■■■■■■■■/photos/bartking/6140871304/]Thesis”>Thesis Tower, Reed Library II | Bart King | Flickr)
When you are a senior, you get your own thesis desk in the library.
[Thesis</a> Desk Madness - Voices from Reed](<a href=“http://blogs.reed.edu/reed_voices/2011/09/thesis-desk-madness.html]Thesis”>http://blogs.reed.edu/reed_voices/2011/09/thesis-desk-madness.html)
D was a science major, so she got an office.
But the library at Western Washington is nice too
[Campus</a> tour: Wilson Library | Western Today](<a href=“MPO228: Situs Daftar Judi Mpo Slot Gacor Terbaru dan Terpercaya”>MPO228: Situs Daftar Judi Mpo Slot Gacor Terbaru dan Terpercaya)</p>
<p>Mount Holyoke college has a beautiful library-- I visited a friend there a hundred years ago and still think of it. I love this thread, btw! I’d totally pick a school based on its library…and that might be a better way to do it than some! (D had a vegetarian friend who refused to consider any school that had a predatory animal as a mascot.)</p>
<p>That library at Yale is just amazing, jaw dropping, it just…glowed. Dd almost wanted to apply to Yale just to have the opportunity to walk into that building daily (if she got in, lol). Seriously.</p>
<p>[Princeton</a> Review Student Survey Ranks College Libraries](<a href=“http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2012/08/academic-libraries/princeton-review-student-survey-ranks-college-libraries/#_]Princeton”>http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2012/08/academic-libraries/princeton-review-student-survey-ranks-college-libraries/#_)</p>
<p>Oxford, or Trinity Dublin.</p>
<p>Glad to see the U-M Law Library made the list. I have pictures of it in every season which I rotate as my laptop wallpaper. Looking at it right now surrounded by fiery fall trees and pumpkins on the mossy steps. The golden light streaming through its stained glass windows on the snow in the quad on a wintry night is absolutely magical. As undergrads, DH and I would stand in that frozen,etheral space and feel transported. I’m convinced it wove a spell around us that has yet to be broken.</p>
<p>For the view from inside, Loyola of Chicago…a wall of glass looking out onto Lake Michigan.</p>
<p>Johns Hopkins.</p>
<p>Mathmom, I generally agree with you about brutalist architecture, but the Regenstein Library at Chicago, under actual use, works extremely well as an environment for the students who haunt it. And the Mansueto Library annex to it is absolutely breathtaking from the inside – instantly everyone’s favorite place in the world to be. Plus, you sort of have to love building an actual library to hold actual books in the 21st Century – something no one else is doing, and no one else may ever do again.</p>
<p>The University of Toronto library, on the other hand . . . . What a monstrosity! The best thing I can say about it is it’s so awful it almost makes it out the other end to kitsch.</p>
<p>No one has mentioned the NYU Library, and that is one of the most visually stunning college libraries I have seen. It almost made me want to pay for NYU.</p>
<p>A real hidden gem: The Szabo Ervin National Library in Budapest, a few blocks from the Hungarian national university. [Szabo</a> Ervin Library | Atlas Obscura | Curious and Wondrous Travel Destinations](<a href=“http://atlasobscura.com/place/szabo-ervin-library]Szabo”>http://atlasobscura.com/place/szabo-ervin-library)</p>
<p>(Of course, my heart still belongs to Sterling and Beinecke. Library architecture is NOT a silly reason to choose a college, it’s a fine one. Library quality used to be THE rational reason for choosing a college.)</p>