Barrington Library offers group study haven

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Updated: February 20, 2012 9:12AM

Noticing that the Barrington Area Library was filling to near capacity with Barrington High School students during finals weeks, the library administration decided to make special accommodations including a snack table and special study room.

With Cheetos, cookies, fruit and bottled water laid out for them in a meeting room, students gravitated to a dozen tables for study group cramming for this week’s finals.

Still, that seemed to do little for congestion in the rest of the library, as the main tables in the Adult Services section were also filled, as were side tables and tables in the upstairs Children Services section.

It’s all part of the library’s Study Break program, offering special services for local high school students through Thursday.

“We’re going through more food than we expected,” said Lizzy Klinnert, a librarian who suggested the program .

At times the study groups, however, looked more like high schoolers having fun.

“We like to call it collaborative studying,” said Bryan Dolan, senior, of Barrington. “You talk. You study.”

Indeed, all the students interviewed said the group study environment is helpful.

“If you have a question, you know someone who knows, so you can walk over and ask them,” said Marian Jostock, junior, of Barrington, on Tuesday studying mathematical functions for her algebra 2 class.

Dolan and fellow senior Connor Schmeling were studying physics on Tuesday, including oscillations, fluids, thermodynamics, reflections and refractions and ‘simple harmonic motion.’

“At home I’ll get sidetracked,” Schmeling said. “I’ll get tired, take a nap. You can’t take a nap at the library.”

A table of four students calling themselves “the calculus table” were helping each other.

“There are a lot of distractions at home,” said Varun Parekh, junior, of Barrington. “There are distractions here too but I’ll take people over technology anytime.”

A couple tables see their story might make the newspaper so they enthusiastically pose for a picture with teacher Carolyn Rose’s AP micro-economics text book. She offers extra credit to students with a picture of themselves with the book outside the classroom.

Despite what looks like high school students having fun at the library, they insist this new program is the best way to help them study.

“If you don’t think you are doing something right, you can ask someone,” said Lane Samata, junior of Barrington, studying American history at her table in the Study Break room.