Dartmoor landowners overturn right for students to leave their laptops to mark their space in the Forum Library

Jake Avery Music Editor

FOLLOWING a controversial challenge to wild camping in Dartmoor National Park spearheaded by its landowners, the rollout of a similar ban has taken hold of Exeter University’s library spaces. The Forum Library, once a haven for poached library spots with owners nowhere to be seen, has now been transformed into a miserable essay sweatshop teeming with working students.

No water bottle or bag is safe; every jumper and coat once used as a flag of ownership over the library desk spaces is now merely a sitting duck, waiting to be snatched by the newly employed security workers of the DPES (Desk Poaching Eradication Service), which has been sponsored by the successful Dartmoor landowners.

Naturally, the student body has decided to take action and rally against the ban. Neil Barlow, a third-year Engineering student, expressed his and many other students’ distraught reactions: “It’s simply not fair that I can’t reserve my library space anymore. Where am I supposed to continue studying once I’ve returned from my gym workout, shower, dinner, Netflix binge and online shopping session? It’s a travesty.”

Despite the mass outcry against the regulation, there are a number of students who champion it as a return to form for academic study spaces. New recruit of the DPES and second-year Geography student Lily Dunkeld makes a case for regulation: “We simply can’t have students thinking that they can block library spaces. As well as disrupting others learning, it promotes laziness and desecrates the idea of a library being a place for development and research.”

The issue has prompted a large debate on the state of study spaces across campus; whether the new regulation will prove effective is only a matter of time. It has, however, been observed by critics of the regulation that as a member of the DPES, Miss Dunkeld in fact gets to keep any possessions seized from the library whilst on patrol. When questioned about this new revelation, Dunkeld assured Exeposé that this had nothing to do with her stance on the matter, or her motivation to join the Service. It must be noted that as she hurriedly left, two university-branded scarves and North Face beanie fell out of her overflowing handbag.