Tisch Patio Survey

Look on any map of the Tufts campus and you'll notice one large, oddly-shaped building, fairly centrally located. This building is the Tisch Library, an expansive structure complete with natural sky-lighting, a rooftop garden, and a gorgeous rooftop view of the Boston skyline (surprisingly magnificent both during the day and at night, reminiscent of the Day and Night Pixar sketch).

The university has a long history of libraries; our first was housed in Ballou, then Eaton Library, and finally Wessell Library, around which Tisch was finally built (see: commemorative plaque to the right of the main doors). But perhaps the greatest feature of the library (more impressive than the "IM-a-librarian" feature which helped me do research over the summer or the 3rd-floor media library which lent me the Stargate movie at no cost) is its importance to student culture on campus, or rather, the importance of the Tisch Patio.

In the past few weeks alone, this heavily-populated spot outside the library has housed a number of student activities. What follows is a but a glimpse.

Students offering free compliments (and hugs, upon request) to the passer-by

Amnesty International's "Die-In" event on the day of Troy Davis's execution

A loose representation of the Smoothie Palooza for Argentina; a charity sale of real-fruit smoothies blended today outside the library

So be sure to stop by Tisch the next time you have some free time on campus. There's bound to be a friendly face handing out smiles, a political activist handing out fliers, or a humanitarian effort handing out smoothies. If not, you can always actually go inside, where they hand out...you know, books. If you still use those.