If you’ve recently been in Geisel Library near closing time, you might remember a musical surprise shocking you out of your studying stupor around 11:30 p.m. These AI-generated songs play over the library’s loudspeaker system to announce closing procedures each night. To quote the upbeat, jazzy jingle that played this past Wednesday:
“The library will close in 30 minutes / The lights and the elevators will be turned off in 20 minutes / Please begin to pack up your belongings and exit the building / Geisel Floor 2 East is open overnight for those with a valid UC San Diego ID / All others should exit the building by closing time.”
Geisel Library implemented the songs in early 2026. According to Dani Cook, UCSD associate university librarian for learning and user experience, the library user experience team used “various AI tools,” including Mureka, to set the library’s closing announcements to music. There are currently about a dozen songs in the library’s rotation, ranging from energetic pop tunes to slow and spooky ballads. Employees determine which tune to play when closing the library each night.
“As we close the Library each night, it’s often challenging to get users to pay attention to our closing messages and depart from the building,” Cook said in an email to The UCSD Guardian. “This challenge has increased as more individuals use noise-canceling headphones. The closing songs are intended to get people’s attention so they are aware of the Library’s closing procedures, and that our staff can safely and efficiently close the non-overnight spaces.”
On Wednesday, like most nights, Geisel Floor 2 East came alive with chatter about the song as soon as it finished playing.
To first-year student Disha Naik, the new songs are unnecessarily distracting compared to spoken closing announcements.
“They’re so loud, and they sound really obnoxious,” Naik said. “I would appreciate it if they stopped. I think it just stresses me out. Because I’m usually … trying to submit something, and that stupid song stresses me out even more.”
For students like second-years Benny Signer and Noah Weiss, the songs offer brief moments of fun and mystery in an otherwise stressful environment.
“I do want to know who is creating these songs,” Signer said. “[But] I kind of like the mystery of it all. It’s like an Easter egg.”
“It could be UCSD Darth Vader,” Weiss added. “It could be Carrot Man.”
But to students like third-year Roisin Gross, the evident use of AI in these songs is cause for concern.
“The songs that play at Geisel at closing are really contradictory to the values of the student body,” Gross said. “I think that there’s been a really strong movement within the student body in the last year against the use of AI where it is not needed, and when we use AI in a creative aspect, like music, we’re really creating a disheartening atmosphere for people who care about the arts.”
According to Cook, four undergraduate UCSD students have separately reached out to the library over the past two weeks about changing the way the songs are created. In response to these concerns, the library is looking into potential ways of changing the songs by Fall 2026.
“One suggestion is that we host a student contest to compose the songs,” Cook said. “We are looking into the feasibility of this idea.”
In the meantime, librarygoers will continue to hear the songs every night for the foreseeable future — for better or for worse.
