Detail from a day in the life of the Answer Wall . Image: Gary Wayne Gilbert for Boston College Magazine.
On February 2, 2017, students entering through the main doors of O’Neill Library might have noticed, hanging on a wall to their right near the stairs, a 2-x-3-foot whiteboard.
“Answer Wall,” a computer-generated sign above the board explained. “Ask your questions on a Post-it. The wall will answer,” and then, in finer print, “Good fences make good neighbors; the best walls bring people together. This wall welcomes questions of all kinds.”
A stub of a pencil rested in a tray at the base. On a shelf nearby, a Post-it feathered from a plastic dispenser, waiting to be plucked.
The first questions to appear on the board were practical, almost timid, in tone: I want to check out a book from the library but it says they don’t have it. Can I get it from a different library without going in person? And How much will it snow between 9-11 am!
But then, encouraged maybe by the responses that were typed on yellow Post-its addressed to “Dear, dear human(s)” and signed “A. Wall,” students, as they tend to do, began to question everything.
They pondered the peculiar (Is it cran or cray-on? Is a hot dog a sandwich?), the political (How can we smash the patriarchy? Can I openly express support for Trump?), matters of the heart (Do you think she’ll ever love me back?), and their own anxieties (Who will hire me? How can I overcome stage fright?).
They asked questions that could be answered only with other questions (What is the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow? Answer Wall: African or European?). They were serious (How should I come out to my parents? How can I find my true passion?), curious (How did pugs get squished faces?), playful (Will Mario and Princess Peach eventually be together?), timely (How should I spend my last few weeks as a senior at BC?), and timeless (What if I don’t know what I don’t know? What do we owe to each other?). In one semester, students asked more than 300 questions.
They asked questions that weren’t really questions, such as How much would it cost to have air conditioning installed in Walsh? #please and 不要回答, 不要回答, 不要回答 (Do not answer, Do not answer, Do not answer, in Chinese. Answer Wall: I will not answer. I will not answer. I will not answer). Students made statements (We love you Answer Wall) and wondered, How many collective people-hours go into answering these questions? Does the library have a special team to do it?(Answer Wall: Yes, I have a cadre of dedicated library helpers who assist me in broadcasting my answers to all your wonderful questions.)
Every question received an answer. What is? one student asked, and the Wall responded, Consider the Ship of Theseus, and described the first-century paradox: If, over time, a boat is restored by replacing every plank, every rope, and every bit of hardware, piece by piece, is it still the same boat? The Wall dispensed its own wisdom (Q: Will I ever find love? A: Have friends, be your weird self, do what you enjoy, and when someone makes your heart race, get to know them, and let them get to know you), and it referred students to the University’s Office of Residential Life, Office of International Students and Scholars, and Career Center. It encouraged students to read Plato’s Symposium, Dickens’s Great Expectations, The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, and other works, which, in April, were compiled into a lobby display titled “Answer Wall Recommended Reading.”
At the start of the summer, a new typed message appeared: “I’m taking it easy,” it read, “going on rambles . . . with some side visits to seawalls.” It responded to more than thirty summer questions, nonetheless.