The JCB Launches the “Night at the Library” Ambience Video!

Have you ever pulled up a video of a fireplace on your laptop to let it crackle in the background while you work? Or perhaps you’ve seen someone in a coffee shop do so? 

Over the past few years, many of us have discovered what have come to be called ambient or ambience videos. Content creators have generated digital settings with accompanying soundscapes that help viewers to focus on their work, relax, or just enjoy a new experience. Some feature cafés with rain-streaked windows and cats cozily curled up on chairs and the sounds of clinking glasses and the murmur of other guests. Others focus on natural settings or even fantasy worlds populated by magical creatures. 

Now the team at the JCB has collaborated with Erin Wells + Ryan McQuade to create an ambient experience that is both authentic and impossible.

Earlier this summer, the JCB team, Erin, and Ryan developed “A Night at the Library.” In keeping with the genre, the video features a relaxing soundtrack that highlights the rain falling outside of the Library and the fire in the fireplace, as well as animated details including a steaming mug of tea on the side table and the reflection of the fire on the floor.

If you’ve been to the JCB, you know that this is not a precise replica of the Reading Room, that we no longer use the fireplace, and that we do not allow food or beverages in that space while items from the Collection are on the tables. But there are lots of other elements -including the bust of John Carter Brown on the fireplace, the imposing lateral windows, and our gorgeous reading lamps- that many of you will remember from your time in the Library, or will experience when you visit.

We invite you to relax and enjoy this unique version of the John Carter Brown Library Reading Room from wherever you may be in the world and as often as you wish.