Montreal may not be a top spot for the tourist to visit, but it is famous among students national and international. There are 11 universities, 14 cegeps, four private varsities, and many small schools. For students, it's important to know some awesome places that they can pick as silent spots to study in a busy city. Books lending and sharing may have seen a decline, but footfalls in the libraries of Montréal have only risen. Classic and ancient buildings, best in architecture, are redesigned into city’s libraries, which serve as top attractive spots for the students in Montreal. More than 10 million books are borrowed from some of the most famous libraries that people visit. In this write-up, we are talking about the top 10 best places to study in Montreal. Along with that, we have also mentioned some cafes in Montreal that people pick for reading, enjoying their coffee, and creating wonderful write-ups.
Spread in an area of 33,000 square meters with six levels, the Grande Bibliothèque is the largest national public library in Montreal, Quebec. The prudently designed building has a sitting capacity of more than 2,500. The library is so designed that it reflects the rich Quebec culture. Amazingly the Grande Bibliothèque has yellow birch lined rows in its reading halls inspired by the novel The Silent Rooms. With more than 3.5 million books, to video games, vinyls, and museum passes can be borrowed by the patrons from this library in Montreal. Not all that the members can avail passes to museums such as Centre d’histoire de Montréal, the McCord Museum, and the Stewart Museum.
No sooner, the library opened in Montreal in 1899; there were more than 700 members who went hungry to borrow some of the 2,000 books it shelved. This is one of Quebec’s first library, and now it contains around 170,000 books, films and other works of literature. The library building is designed as a Victorian style with red bricks. Its roof is gabled, and the tower is peaked. Over the years, this building in Montreal has expanded, adding a dollhouse-like children’s library and a postcard house that stacks more than 40,000 postcards.
Located in the Beaux-Arts-style Gilles Hocquart building, this library in Montreal is beautifully designed, making it picture-perfect with more than 8.5 million being clicked. Its white spiral staircase, columned balconies, and wrought iron filigree are a treat to the senses visiting the library. With more than 15,000 reference works, 100 periodical titles, and 20,000 microfilms, BAnQ Vieux-Montréal is a favourite one for the historian, bibliophiles, genealogists, and lawyers as well. Some of the finest collected works in this library in Montreal date back to the 17th century.
Housing some of the most important architectural collections in the world, this museum and research centre in Montreal has a known history of featuring works and events of starchitects and scholars such as Frank Gehry, Sylvia Lavin, and Nasser Rabbat. Located in the palatial Shaughnessy mansion owned by a railway baron, the archives in the Canadian Centre for Architecture Study Room shelves daguerreotypes to building treatises and drawings from the fifteenth century. The centre is Wi-Fi enabled with large and airy windows allowing bright daylight. The rows of the library are split level giving ample space to study. If you want to borrow some of the works stored in the centre, you will have to make an appointment.
Serving the west-side community of Montreal for more than 35 years, this public library has a complex of art galleries, photo labs, theatres, and more. It is within the Mansion de la Culture Côte-des-Neiges. It is a wonderfully decorated library filled with plant life under a green roof, making it among the top 10 places to study in Montreal. Its selves contain some of the best thrillers and detective books of the Scandinavian time that blend with the smooth cheery-wood architectural works.
Consisting of more than 40,000 books, mostly English, this library in Montreal is in a 100-year-old heritage building that warmly welcomes guests to its homely atmosphere. This community library houses seed library collection as well that can be borrowed. Seeds and saplings of beans, peas, tomatoes can be procured from this environment-friendly place. Amid the books, the guest finds this place as refreshing for reading with plants flourishing in the shelves due to abundant light entering from its arched windows. Coffee and biscuits are served during the weekly Lunchtime Series, where authors of Montreal read and recite on topics of varied interests. Those who are looking for digital literacy and add computer skills to their knowledge can also sign up for this library in Montreal.
If you have a taste for music and books, this library of Montreal is a perfect heaven for you. This church-turned-library pays tribute to the author who put Mile End on the map with the novels such as Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz and Barney’s Version. This Montreal’s library is state-of-the-art with its wooden roof beams, arched stained glass windows architectural features of 1910 structure stacking books in French, English, Chinese, and Spanish. For those with interest in music, this library recently joined the band of public libraries that loans musical instruments to such as guitars, xylophones, and other musical instruments.
Birks Reading Room is one of the tiniest libraries in McGill University campus located on the second floor of Birks Building in Montreal. It’s a perfect place to study with no shoe policy, which eliminates the tiptoeing sound on the hardwood floors. Formerly known as Religious Studies Library, it holds more than 20,000 monographs on theological topics devoted to religions in Asia such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sikhism.
The library opened 40 years ago in Montreal and offers programs for children such as storytimes, weekly hide-and-seek games, and other hands-on activities. For the grownups, Fake News Info session and custom bookmark that tells facts and fictions are arranged. Interestingly this place became famous as Quebec’s first singer-songwriter died during the building's tenure as Institute of Radium. The building in Montreal was originally a city hall for the former municipality of Maisonneuve that played a monumental role in the history of the HoMa neighbourhood. Now it’s undergoing expansion with more seating capacity being added along with a coffee shop and a rooftop garden.
Along with the libraries, there are great cafes that students find as the right place in Montreal to prepare for their finals and complete their assignments. Take a look:
If strong Wi-fi signal and equally strong coffee are all you need to prepare hard for your semester exam, this is a perfect hide for you in Montreal. It’s a silent micro-brew cafe that sources its coffee beans from the certified farmers.
It's a cafe near a metro station that offers fantastic food and coffee. For your reading needs, you will find a quiet table in this cafe in Montreal since it's off the beaten path.
It is famous for being one of Montreal's first dedicated chai bars. It offers an amazing range of options for tea lovers. Not only the tea is fantastic here, but they also have snacks such as salads, sandwiches, and macaroons. You can enjoy studying in quiet while watching the Prince Arthur traffic through its huge windows, making it one among the 10 best places to study in Montreal.
