Shut up and look around!

For my journal entry I chose the trip to the library, here was my findings:

1. The columns in the west reading room composed of solid, unchanged concrete greatly contrast the rest of the room's sheik design. 
2. "BY MAKING THEM SPEAK;" "THE MOMENT FLEETING, AND;" "ALLAH, SAYS THAT MAN AND WOMAN." A sampling of the bold faced words found on the floor, pulled from many sources of books and worldly regions, Middle East, Europe, etc.
3. The wood trimming on the wall match the windows. 3 ft of window and a bar, the trimming on the opposite wall has 3 ft of siding then a separating piece of wood to the next. 
4. The room's lighting is symmetrical. There are the bar lights which appear to be in an indistinct pattern until you look to the other side, as well as the regular inlaid lights which go around and through the center of the elliptical roof. 
5. The PA systems are also symmetrical located exactly near similar lights on the opposite sides of the room.
6. Up at the computer stations on the floor above which overlooks the reading room you can see the shadow of the underside of the table as if a light source is being shined from directly behind them. It creates an intricate design of legs and wires. 
7. The grand window bows outward but is bolted to the concrete columns at every third window, does that do anything for the structural integrity?
8. There are two fire alarm notifiers one on each wall at the entrance to the room. I find it interesting that despite a lack of needing another they still continue the symmetry. 
9. The books on the particular shelf in the West Reading room are nearly all the same color to a shelf. A volume of turquoise books, red books, black books, magenta, etc.
10. Similar to the fire alarms there are fire extinguishers on both far ends of the room. 
11. Despite being horizontal (2D) the dots in the ceiling appear to be lined up at a slant, optical illusion. 
12. The glass on the walkway above is clear, but the glass that covers the actual walkway is frosted. 
13. From the lights' reflections on the ceiling panels it appears that they are concave toward the floor. 
14. There are four people in the orange chairs that go around the outside interior of the room who are slouched in their chairs reading something, as opposed to the rest who are sitting up and over their material at the end of the chair. The funny thing is the symmetry continues with where they are in the room. 
15. A girl just yawned for a good 15 seconds. 
16. This rooms overall size seems to unnecessarily big at first, but it's openness does seem to allow cluttered thoughts to float away to the top. 
17. A girl just took the brown armchair that opposed mine, it creates yet another symmetry with the table to my left as they have a couch that faces my table's couch and a chair that faces outside as mine faces inward toward the library. 
18. There is a commemoration to OSU Student Athletes for the room on the South wall, but not on the North wall, a break in the seemingly ceaseless symmetry.
19. The floor which has all of the book quotes is aesthetically pleasing but when it comes to moving a chair or if you're just sitting in a rolling chair can be distracting as you roll over the letters. 
20. There are 4 square lights at the room's entrance which again create symmetry. 
21. There are three sets of semicircles on the ceiling in a diamond pattern on the South, North and Center of the room. They appear to metal but not the stainless steal that the ceiling panels look to be. It contrasts them.
22. Of all the long bar lights that hang from the ceiling none of their chords are straight or taunt, they all have noticeable curvatures in their chords. 
23. On the central book shelf floors, the pieces which hold the glass to the floors alternate by floor. One floor they are found in an x shape the others two parallel lines. 
24. The chairs more inside the building are deeper hues, blood reds as opposed to the brown, pastel orange and light beige colors of the chairs in the West Reading Room. 
25. The majority of people in the room have some sort of beverage, but overall the majority of them have some sort of reusable bottle. 
26. Do those who tend to go elsewhere to study usually have reusable sources to drink from or disposable sources like coffee cups and water/gatorade bottles?
27. The rolling chairs in this room are like toned down versions of Aeron Chairs, as they contain an ergonomic back rest as well as bucket like seat that contour to a person's body. Unlike the Aeron they cannot adjust many of these features except the height of the chair. 
28. The foot rests appear to have prints with cursive written on them, but I can't seem to make out any of the words. They look like chicken scratch but for all that I know it could be in a different language (one of the words looks like fuo).
29. There are three placards which tell that the books on the shelves are Presidential Papers. 2 on the most inner (to the center of the room) bookshelf and most outer shelf on the right side and one on the the outermost left shelf. Not on the inner left shelf, again disrupting the symmetry of the room.
30. There appears to be an equal amount of people on both sides of the room, but the right side of the room seems heavier, (perhaps from the imbalance of small items such as #18 & 29 or because the right looks over mirror lake and many trees where as the left looks off to North campus and some white building off in the distance. 
31. The table I'm sitting at has many overlapping rings from a cup, they appear sticky. 
32. At first glance this room appears fairly clean, but I'm am SURROUNDED by crumbs and dirt between the letters on the floor. 
33. Of the people using laptops in the room, only 5 have something other than a Mac.
34. The windows at both sides of the room reflect the hanging lights and kind of mimic the image created when two mirrors are facing one another and you see on forever. It is obvious that they can't reflect that far especially in the daylight, but the excessive amounts of symmetry do create that illusion. 
35. There is a floor which is nearly empty of books on it's shelves which causes rows of repeating book holders which are there only to hold themselves up.
36. Should their name change with their current function? Are they art or just un-utilized pieces of metal?
37. A janitor just walked across the walkway a floor above with two trashcans, one red and one gray. Funny enough he was wearing a red and white striped shirt and a gray vest. 
38. The majority of people in this room look as though they need sleep, or are asleep (as is a couple on one of the couches and someone in the orange chairs.
39. None of the chairs in and around this room are made of the same material. The brown chairs are (pseudo leather), the beige rolling chairs are a plastic polymer, the orange are a kind of texturized beaded fabric, and the red appear to be suede.
40. I'm surprised there isn't something written in the red suede chairs' sides. If I were sitting in them, and were to get bored, which is highly possible I'd probably end of drawing something in the opposite grain as the rest of the chair. 
41. There are only one directory on each floor just left of the stair case (as there should be), again removing symmetry, but they again are on the right side.
42. If you're walking into the West Reading Room (facing west) all of the things I've talked about have been on the left, is this because people favor their right, and will typically go toward that, which also appears less cluttered (in the sense of the little things I've mentioned)? Or do people even notice? Or does their subconscious?
43. There are electrical outlets built into the floors, they stick out being black on the bronze floor. They on the other hand do not appear to be symmetrical.
44. The window seem to have a blueish green tinge to them. 
45. The concrete pillars/columns are smooth but have pock marks in the surface.
46. The central column/open space in the middle of the library reminds me of many hotels that use that, notably the Embassy Suites. 
47. Why are the stairs on one side of the building stone/granite, while they are glass on the other?
48. Amongst the bold letters in the floor there are (double) bold words in the very center horizontal axis that are descend alphabetically from the South side of the room to the North.
49. The armchairs (orange and brown) have tables with lacquered wood, opposing that, the beige chairs have tables which are metallic with the neutral colors of black and gray. Does this make the armchairs more inviting for reading and rolling chairs for studying?
50. The orange chairs have strange foot rest which are made of plastic with a concave curvature, they appear to be better for collecting dust and dirt in their shape than the human foot.

Well that's about all I've got for observations in this room. It only took 2 hours of meticulous looking, but hey sometimes it takes time to see what you are so blatantly surrounded by all the time.