Mugar Memorial Library

It’s an old, quaint building that has it’s unique sense of charm. There is a bunch of study areas for all sorts of studiers. There’s the PAL Study Lounge on the third floor where students usually collaborate and get kind of loud. There are long tables, cubicles, couches, «cages» (which confuse me, but okay, if that helps you study) if you go farther up. They also have computers scattered all over the place for students to use. You gotta love it!
During finals period, the library is open 24 hours. BE CAREFUL THOUGH because it can get mad crowded and smelly… only because people stay there for long periods of time without showering and such.

As long as you avoid exam weeks — great place for quiet studying. Librarians and staff tend to be friendly and super helpful as well. Particularly enjoy studying in the music listening room on the second floor.

This is a university library… what do you want to hear?
It’s not particularly big or pretty. I wonder what happens during finals week – do they run out of space? The internet works just fine. There are plenty of electrical outlets to plug into.
There are lots of books, as one might expect. The gendered bathrooms are on alternate floors, so if you’re a lady on the second floor, ask someone to watch your belongings when you have to shlep down to the first floor.
The library itself is open late, but the food court in the student union next door closes early – super frustrating if you’re burning the 8pm oil. Your options are basically: Nud Pob Thai. And that’s it. Bless that family’s hearts for staying open late to feed the hungry academic.

Mugar Library — Nothing impressive, nothing special, just another library.
FYI…u don’t need to be a BU student to work here

They have made some major improvements, and have worked to solve the lack of computers problem… I am sure they will continue to get better and better.
However, as of now I still choose the public library.

What I love about university libraries is that you’re given months to read a book and return it, unlike the 2, 3 or 4 weeks at BPL or Brookline Library. This means I’m able to feed my book addiction with dozens of books at a time from this library, reading them as I am able.
Mugar isn’t my favorite library, but I enjoy walking around it on occasion to see what’s to see. I generally love libraries, even the ugly ones, because they harbor lots of treasures where you wouldn’t think to look. I could, however, live without the dying plants in the stairwells, and I find the student cages on the upper floors somewhat disconcerting as well.
In the summer, this library is quiet and serene, without the hectic rush of undergrads scrambling to find a computer on the first floor. Like all of BU, it’s better when the (undergrad) students are not around.
This library is great for its functionality. And I can return my books here or at Sci-​Eng, a library I am more likely to frequent given the nature of my studies at BU.

Mugar is no longer the complete hellhole that Drew S. described. This is attributable in part to the fact that its interior has been dramatically revamped in recent years. This revamping included the installation of 189 energy-​saving Thin Client computers located on the 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd floors – floors that have in turn been recarpeted. Those improvements mean that I haven’t had a problem finding an open computer when I’ve needed one – nor is the new carpet so ugly that it inspires me to invoke the inexpressibility topos in a futile attempt to describe nausea-​inducing colors. It’s a damn good thing too, because the lighting has been improved – all the better to see things with.
Whatever one may think of the improved functionality and improved user-​friendliness of the interior spaces, for better or worse the exterior is and always has been architecturally significant – a possibly dubious distinction when we are talking about US buildings dating to the (19)60s. It’s no secret that architectural significance in said context often implies that anyone who is not an architect is going to want the thing razed. In this case, «the thing» is a triumvirate of buildings: along with the George Sherman Union and the 18-​story Law Tower, Mugar makes up Jose Lluis Sert’s architectural cluster along this side of the Charles (look across to Cambridge and you might be able to glimpse Harvard’s Peabody Terrace, likely Sert’s masterpiece). People speak of these «Brutalist» buildings with as much vitriol as Mayor Menino launches at the Corbusian-​inspired City Hall and I.M. Pei’s adjacent plaza. My recommendation for how to cope with having to look at these buildings if you are among the haters: drink more liquor at the BU Pub a mere block or so away. Leave sobriety to the architecture students who see such buildings as pilgrimage sites (and who, when drunk, observe that Sert’s concrete facades quote the modern gothic of the surrounding campus buildings in all sorts of subtle and possibly unexpected ways – the man was brilliant at this sort of incorporation when he wanted to be). If, however, these buildings really don’t do it for you and you want a more generally palatable version of 60s library architecture, check out Louis Kahn’s Exeter Academy masterwork. More recent antidotes: ABA and Rawn’s gorgeous and glassy renovation of Brunt and Howe’s 1887 Romanesque Revival Cambridge Public Library; and Pei’s JFK Library and Museum.
Speaking again of drinks (as always), visitors to Mugar are in fact allowed to take drinks in, as long as the drinks are in enclosed containers – so drink away.
Where Drew S.‘s review still holds true is in its observations regarding the printing system wherein with each document you print, an extra cover sheet is stapled on – it is a total waste of paper. WTF? Additionally, the book selection really is not the most impressive in the land, although from time to time I do find a book in the BU system that doesn’t exist in Harvard’s and/​or the BPL’s. Last but not least, the library’s upper floors are rather dreary (all the cages for doctoral students really don’t help matters), but it’s not like the subterranean stacks at Widener are any less so, and it’s not like visitors are even allowed into the stacks of the BPL research library (McKim thought readers should instead be able to request and then wait for their books in more majestic spaces – but browsing has its merits). All of this is to say that if you happen to be a BU student, the library system will not be your downfall. (Caveat: unless you’re on a crapload of Effexor, avoid spending too many hours at a time in the 5^th floor stacks. Doing otherwise could very well land you in Circle 7, Ring 2.)