You Can't Go Home Again, but you can still get lost in the stacks:

[captainsblog]

The month is ended; go in peace. I'm in better spirits now that a major undertaking is in the mail, Eleanor and I are both home, the animals are fed, and Dinner Jazz is on.

This afternoon was my first trip in awhile up to the Law Library at UB; my alumni privilege card, needed to get to any functions on their computers from research to just the catalog, expired in 2006. I've just found it more convenient in recent times to use the downtown court libraries here and in Rochester when I've needed stuff. 

Still, it's a nostalgiac experience. I was just reading the glossy Alumni Magazine (aka Donate To The Annual Fund Or We'll Kill This Dog), as it recounted one after another of the professors I remember, announcing their retirements or transfers to Emeritus status. It seemed a good day to read up there, so I waited for the obligatory 3 p.m. ticket blitz to pass and parked where I always used to. Now, though, two newer buildings were on the fields that used to be between the parking lots and the law school. Once in the building, where the law library takes up the center of the top six floors of the seven-story building, things were mostly how I remembered them.

Mostly.

The biggest message they wanted to convey, new from even four years ago? No cell phone use. Big STOP signs at the entrance, and these lovely Orwellian posters throughout the stacks:

  and

While these Verbotens! were new, I was even more struck by the one from my day they'd given up on. (No, not undergrads; we never could figure out a way to stop that onslaught.) It came as a bit of a shock, logging in with my spanking new codes, and seeing a dude one carrel over eating his entire freaking dinner in front of the monitor.  Any food substances, even coffee mugs, were the biggest no-no in my day, and for good reason. We had problems with tiny livestock, and not-so-tiny livestock, and as one who worked in near-deserted stacks late at night, I speak from experience here.  Apparently, though, the little guys don't particularly like to eat magnetic media, so I guess it's more okay.

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By far, though, the goofiest sign on premise was this one, posted next to the elevator that takes you to the stacks:



The MPRE is the Multistate Professional Responsiblity Exam, an evil multiple-choice test from the mind-fuckers who bring you the general Multistate Bar Exam, only entirely devoted to legal ethics. It became a bar admission requirement the year before I graduated, and unlike the rest of the exam, you can take it before graduation. (Full disclosure: I failed it on the first try, after not studying a lick for it; the lack of preparation was partly because the professor initially in charge of our ethics education found out during the course that he'd been denied tenure, had a hissy and quit mid-semester, leaving us to fend for ourselves.)

Consider, though, the significance of this requirement. Soon-to-be-lawyers are now needing to be photographed before sitting for an ethics exam, to prevent them from sending in ringers to take the test for them.

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Finally, this sight, on the remnant of the much-bigger field between the Law School and the car parks that's still there after they put up Jacobs and Park Halls:



I don't recall the geese hanging out on campus back in my time; I suspect it's because there are now upperclassmen apartments within pooping walking distance of the Academic Spine, giving them more om noms to hang around for.

It also explained why the pathways were a lot, um, greener than I remember them being.

ETA. I've no idea why that defaulted to "comments disabled." Hit me.

Comments

[firynze.livejournal.com]

Given the questionable ethics of at least one person I know who is a recently minted lawyer, I think that damn test is a load of BS anyway...

[bktheirregular]

The photo-on-the-application thing is new, or at least it wasn't in place back when I had to take the MPRE.

Maybe law school is becoming more cut-throat as the job openings dry up, or something? Especially for the day students who haven't been in the workplace before. (There was always that distinction, for me; the evening program was populated by people who worked for a living already, mostly, with a much different perspective on things...)