{"id":3546,"date":"2025-04-04T13:31:30","date_gmt":"2025-04-04T17:31:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/library\/?p=3546"},"modified":"2026-08-02T18:19:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T22:19:19","slug":"from-bu-today-why-is-everybody-talking-about-third-places-right-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/library\/2025\/04\/04\/from-bu-today-why-is-everybody-talking-about-third-places-right-now\/","title":{"rendered":"From BU Today: Why Is Everybody Talking About \u201cThird Places\u201d Right Now?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In exploring the concept of third place,<span>\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/articles\/2025\/what-are-third-places\/\">BU Today<\/a><span>\u00a0<\/span>spoke with BU librarians how the BU Libraries foster our role as a third place for the BU community.<\/p>\n<p>From<span>\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/articles\/2025\/what-are-third-places\/\">the article<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Libraries are a lot of things for a lot of people. They\u2019re home to study sessions and gossip sessions, chance encounters and habitual meetups, social events and quiet reflection. At Boston University\u2019s<span>\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/library\/mugar-memorial\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Mugar Memorial Library<\/a>, clubs meet, event spaces are rented, on-campus services offer pop-ups, students study individually and in groups, and people find quiet refuge, says<span>\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/library\/profile\/michelle-niebur\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Michelle Niebur<\/a>, BU\u2019s head of access services and library experience. It\u2019s free, available to anyone at BU, and open from 19 to 24 hours a day, depending on the season.<\/p>\n<p>In a lot of ways, Mugar fills in the cracks of campus life: it\u2019s not home, it\u2019s not work or class, it\u2019s the very definition of a growing cultural movement\u2014it\u2019s a third place.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;We recently had a station set up where students could write something they loved about the library on a slip of paper and make a chain,\u201d says<span>\u00a0<\/span><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/library\/profile\/kristina-bush\/\" target=\"_blank\">Kristina Bush<\/a>, library experience manager. \u201cWhat students said that they love about the library really speaks to envisioning the library as a third place\u2014many of the comments were about community, friendship, and \u2018the vibes.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/articles\/2025\/what-are-third-places\/\">Continue reading at BU Today<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In exploring the concept of third place,\u00a0BU Today\u00a0spoke with BU librarians how the BU Libraries foster our role as a third place for the BU community. From\u00a0the article: &#8220;Libraries are a lot of things for a lot of people. They\u2019re home to study sessions and gossip sessions, chance encounters and habitual meetups, social events and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4240,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[118,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3546"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4240"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3546"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3546\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3547,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3546\/revisions\/3547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}