Employees of Ralph Brown Draughon Library are getting ready for Christmas and encouraging students to do the same.
A large Christmas tree made of green books sits in the center of the room for people to see as they walk through the front entrance of the library on the second floor.
Behind the tree, on a wall by the staircase, the message on the "Ralph Asks" bulletin board encourages students to grab a colored index card, write a holiday wish and hang it on the red tinsel wrapping the book tree.
According Jayson Hill, director of communications and marketing for the library, the book tree is commonly done at libraries.
Hill said the tree is officially called a National Union Catalogue tree, made with 220 of the 754 volumes that make up the full NUC set.
According to Hill, the entire volume set weighs 3.5 tons, so the tree weighs in at approximately 1,700 pounds.
"(The catalogues) used to be the primary source for what was in the Library of Congress, but now all of that has gone online and it's searchable so no one uses the books anymore," Hill said. " The books are all exactly the same size and thickness, so they stack nicely, and they're always green."
Though the NUC tree was not the library employees' original idea, Hill said the holiday wish aspect of the tree was.
"This year we thought, since we need something on the tree to give it a little more decoration, let's use colored index cards, and we'll let people hang their holiday wishes on it," Hill said. "To give it a bit of color."
Hannah Grace Oberlies, senior in apparel design, works at the library's information desk, and said she has seen people observe the tree.
"People do stop and they look," Oberlies said. "You can tell that they like it. It's a really fun way to celebrate the holidays. I thought it was very creative. I love it. I hope we do it again."
She said she even considered hanging her own holiday wish on the tree.
"I would probably write that I wish my family's house would sell," Oberlies said. "That's probably the only thing I could possibly wish for."
Rebecca, senior in organismal biology pre-med, said she wishes to omit her last name.
Rebecca wrote her holiday wish with her boyfriend Scott Godchaux, senior in electrical and computer engineering.
Rebecca said she always passed the tree and thought it was a cute idea, so she made her wish to get accepted into medical school.
"I think it's a good way to de-stress," Rebecca said. "I know there are some funny ones up there that people enjoy reading. It's good to see people with similar goals."
Godchaux said he wrote a wish simply because his girlfriend did.
"[The tree] makes me feel very neutral," Godchaux said. "It's just there. I was like, 'Oh that's a fun stack of books,' and that's all I thought of it."
Godchaux said he wished for an end to unnecessary evil in the world.
Hill anticipates people will continue to hang their wishes until the break begins.
"We expect it to fill up by the end of finals," Hill said.
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