Final papers are due, and no matter how long we work on them, they never seem to be long enough or have enough academic sources — if only Wikipedia counted as a peer-reviewed article. For some reason, certain books or articles aren’t available on any UC Berkeley databases, so we have to resort to old-fashioned books. Yes, the print kind. But Main Stacks, or any library on campus, is no walk in the park. Here are the #struggles we go through searching for the elusive book that is your personal Holy Grail.

1. Where do I look up books?

2. Do they even have the book I need?

3. Of course they do; they have about a million books here.

4. OskiCat is my savior. I’m going to write down the call number.

5. Why the hell is this call number so long?

6. What do all these letters and numbers mean?

7. Well, time to start the inevitable four-hour hunt for the 300-page book that I need to get literally one quote from so I have enough academic sources for my paper.

8. How do I move these shelves? I feel like I’m in a submarine moving all these levers.

9. I honestly don’t think any of the numbers or letters on these bookcases correspond to the call number.

10. Should I go talk to the circulation desk?

11. If I don’t, I’m going to be here the entire week.

12. They must think I am a total moron. I mean I am, but I don’t want to let that on.

13. They keep asking me if I understand what they’re saying. How do I break it to them that I’m not paying attention, and even if I were, I still wouldn’t understand a word they’re saying?

14. FINALLY they found my book.

15. I almost wish they didn’t find it, so I wouldn’t have to actually read through it.

16. I’m never getting a book from the library again.

Image Sources: Sharada Prasad under Creative Commons, gif 1, gif 2, gif 3, gif 4, gif 5, gif 6, gif 7, gif 8, gif 9, gif 10, gif 11, gif 12, gif 13, gif 14, gif 15, gif 16