# It's a library, shut the fuck up! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 24, 2008, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-library-shut-the-fuck-up/464934 "2008-09-24T03:04:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![vetbridge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b5e925/32.png) [@vetbridge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vetbridge)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-library-shut-the-fuck-up/464934/21 "2008-09-24T16:51:02Z")
> [@Rhubarb](#): > > Actually, you can put lipstick on a pig, it just won’t make you want to kiss it. _But_ the thing people fail to consider is that the type of person who attempts to modify a pig’s appearance through application of makeup already have decided they wanna get it on with the pig, and are merely “dolling her up”. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-library-shut-the-fuck-up/464934/22 "2008-09-24T16:57:51Z")
My local library became a ‘Media Center’ which apparently means parents and librarians no longer even try to keep children and teenagers quiet, the result being that the Library is the last place I’d ever want to go and read. ---
**Author:** ![Santo\_Rugger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e95f7d/32.png) [@Santo\_Rugger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Santo_Rugger)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-library-shut-the-fuck-up/464934/23 "2008-09-24T17:39:46Z")
I think it’s quite funny that the OP made it clear they knew they were in the cafe, they knew a certain amount of noise was expected, and they knew they had the option to leave, and yet people are still joining the thread to point that out\*. The rant is because the person was annoying as fuck, not _just_ because they were in the library. I wonder if the responses would be the same if the OP had excluded the fact that the cafe was in the library. What if it had happened in a coffee shop? While you were on a date at a restaurant? Sitting in a cubicle at work and the person was standing in the ‘hallway’? ETA: \*And not in a (subjectively) humorous way, like I did. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Algher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Algher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algher)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-library-shut-the-fuck-up/464934/24 "2008-09-24T17:45:52Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Racist! > I mean, sexist! (Alaskanist?) > Generally speaking the coffee house part of a library is specifically **not** a study area or quiet area, and there’s usually signage to the effect. The stacks are usually your best bet for peace and quiet. No, the stacks are for sex, the carrols (carols? whatever those mini desk things are called) are for studying, and the overstuffed chairs are for sleeping. Yeesh. Kids these days. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-library-shut-the-fuck-up/464934/25 "2008-09-24T17:46:26Z")
> [@Santo\_Rugger](#): > > The rant is because the person was annoying as fuck, not _just_ because they were in the library. I wonder if the responses would be the same if the OP had excluded the fact that the cafe was in the library. What if it had happened in a coffee shop? While you were on a date at a restaurant? Sitting in a cubicle at work and the person was standing in the ‘hallway’? Good Rant: The OP wanted a quiet place to write his paper. Bad Rant: He chose a noisy cafe. Good Rant: Noisy people sit down next to the OP. Bad Rant: OP doesn’t move or react in any way to let the people know they are bothering him. Good Rant: The noisy people were noisy for a log time. Bad Rant: Instead of moving, OP writes his OP five feet from where noisy people are being noisy. Good Rant: It’s a library, shut the fuck up! Bad Rant: I went to a noisy place looking for quiet and people are being noisy. What fucking rude bastards! See how that works? This is a “Bad Rant”. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-library-shut-the-fuck-up/464934/26 "2008-09-24T17:47:20Z")
> [@Santo\_Rugger](#): > > The rant is because the person was annoying as fuck, not _just_ because they were in the library. I wonder if the responses would be the same if the OP had excluded the fact that the cafe was in the library. What if it had happened in a coffee shop? Well, the title certainly suggests some relationship between the location and the expectation of silence. If someone wrote an OP titled “It’s a Starbucks, shut the fuck up!” I think there’d be even more people here pointing out that talking is in fact permitted at Starbucks. The OP doesn’t even indicate that the girl was being unusually noisy (he described her as “blabbing” and “chatting”, not “shouting” or “bellowing”), just that she was close to him and talked for a long time. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-library-shut-the-fuck-up/464934/27 "2008-09-24T19:03:20Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > My local library became a ‘Media Center’ which apparently means parents and librarians no longer even try to keep children and teenagers quiet, the result being that the Library is the last place I’d ever want to go and read. That’s what I thought this rant was going to be about. Every time I have tried to spend a little quiet time in a library reading (I was waiting for my car to be fixed), there are moms in there with screaming babies and kids (that, as you’ve pointed out, they don’t even try to shush). Our local libraries are apparently daycares. I just get my books and get the hell out now. Hey, you know what else? Cellphones have this really cool feature called “Vibrate!” I know! You can still receive calls, but everyone doesn’t have to hear your phone ring. You know what else you can do? You can not take calls for the half hour you’re in the library, or take your calls to an area where people aren’t quietly reading and studying. Well, trying to read and study, in between screeching children. ---
**Author:** ![Rack-a-Bones](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rack-a-Bones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rack-a-Bones)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-library-shut-the-fuck-up/464934/28 "2008-09-24T19:22:51Z")
> [@Santo\_Rugger](#): > > I think it’s quite funny that the OP made it clear they knew they were in the cafe, they knew a certain amount of noise was expected, and they knew they had the option to leave, and yet people are still joining the thread to point that out\*. > > The rant is because the person was annoying as fuck, not _just_ because they were in the library. I wonder if the responses would be the same if the OP had excluded the fact that the cafe was in the library. What if it had happened in a coffee shop? While you were on a date at a restaurant? Sitting in a cubicle at work and the person was standing in the ‘hallway’? Thank you. That is what I was coming here to say. [QUOTE=Lamia] Well, the title certainly suggests some relationship between the location and the expectation of silence. If someone wrote an OP titled “It’s a Starbucks, shut the fuck up!” I think there’d be even more people here pointing out that talking is in fact permitted at Starbucks. The OP doesn’t even indicate that the girl was being unusually noisy (he described her as “blabbing” and “chatting”, not “shouting” or “bellowing”), just that she was close to him and talked for a long time. [/QUOTE] _Talking_ is permitted but loudly blathering your ignorant/stupid/boring drivel is just rude. Maybe the post should have just been titled “Shut the fuck up.” This is really just a rant against loud talkers. Bonus points if they have an annoying voice. One thing that puts me in stab-o-vision mode right quick is some ass on the bus loudly blabbing into a cell phone or to another passenger about whatever. It always amazes me I can here some fucker 8 rows away yammering on about last night’s episode of [whatever is the current “hot” reality show to watch] yet I can’t hear the person next to me who is talking on their cell phone. Loud talkers… ugh. ---
**Author:** ![Will\_Repair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a698b9/32.png) [@Will\_Repair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Will_Repair)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-library-shut-the-fuck-up/464934/29 "2008-09-24T19:23:49Z")
I have two choices: Visit the nearest library that is actually a daycare center for unruly children or travel a half hour to a library where I can read. ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2008, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-library-shut-the-fuck-up/464934/30 "2008-09-24T22:26:50Z")
> [@BrotherCadfael](#): > > OK, that part gets me right here. Damn it all, this is a freakin’ LIBRARY, why do you have to have a “cafe section”? Why not a scrap metal recycling center section? A jet engine test facility section? A jackhammer concerto section? > > When I went to UVM, the Bailey library (Not the Bailey-Howe, this was before the Howe section was built) had no cafe section, no comfy armchairs, no Internet workstations, just plain damn books. > > Now get off my lawn! Heh. I will say that it’s nice to be able to get caffine in-house until 9PM. And, the cafe area is open for 24 hours (you can’t enter after midnight, but you can stay there if you’re already in), which is nice as well. I’ll tell you though, I’m returning to school after roughly 7-8 years off, and there have been enough major facilities changes in the interim (this cafe being one of them) to make _me_ tell all the other students to get off _my_ lawn! 🙂 > [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > Dude, you are the [del]son[/del] herald of Manwë, and mightier in arms than any other in Arda. You simply must stop restraining yourself. The Balrogs are laughing at you and everything. Yeah, well, in the Age of Men I tend to get a little gun shy. Thanks for the encouragement. 🙂 > [@MoodIndigo1](#): > > Thanks, I love this. > > To the OP, your rant is actually pretty mild. One senses that you KNEW you could have chosen a better place to work, or that you were too lazy to pick up your stuff and move, or that you could have asked him to turn down the volume-- or shut up. This is more a rant against your own ineffectualness. Er, one doesn’t just _sense_ it, one _reads_ it in my OP. :dubious: The thing is, it was sort of like the fabled frog boiled alive as the water is turned up slowly. I kind of expected the conversation would be short, so I didn’t let it bug me at first, as conversation is totally allowed and expected where I was. Then, when it did start to bug me, I figured that it had been going on for so long that it would be over soon. Then it wasn’t. Then she started to say her goodbyes but kept talking for another 15+ minutes. > [@Lamia](#): > > If you were in the cafe area of a library then you should expect pretty much the same sort of behavior as in any other cafe. If the girl was being noisy then I’m sure it was annoying, just like a noisy patron at Starbucks would be annoying, but the cafe isn’t a quiet study area and it’s foolish to expect it to be one. Except that this specific space is explicitly for doing work. And part of sharing space respectfully is trying to keep the other patrons in mind who are in the space for its intended use. I mean, I get what you’re saying, but I think there’s a degree of self-awareness that one should strive for when sharing a room with other people, almost all of whom are working diligently and quietly, regardless of what the official rules of the room are. > [@Santo\_Rugger](#): > > The rant is because the person was annoying as fuck, not _just_ because they were in the library. This is it exactly. I know that unlike the rest of the library, this area (actually officially called the “cyber lounge”) is open for a bit more talking. However, then general tenor of the place is much softer than a ‘cafe’ that you’d walk into off of the street. The point wasn’t that she was breaking any rules, it’s that she was in a space with twenty or thirty other people, all of whom were doing work late at night, and she was pretty much the loudest person there. There were five or six people who were in earlier doing a group project and between the group they didn’t reach the level of disruption that this one girl did. > [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > Good Rant: The OP wanted a quiet place to write his paper. > Bad Rant: He chose a noisy cafe. > > Good Rant: Noisy people sit down next to the OP. > Bad Rant: OP doesn’t move or react in any way to let the people know they are bothering him. > > Good Rant: The noisy people were noisy for a log time. > Bad Rant: Instead of moving, OP writes his OP five feet from where noisy people are being noisy. > > Good Rant: It’s a library, shut the fuck up! > Bad Rant: I went to a noisy place looking for quiet and people are being noisy. What fucking rude bastards! > > See how that works? This is a “Bad Rant”. And it comes with a free Frogurt! That’s good. But the Frogurt is also cursed! That’s bad. ---
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2008, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-library-shut-the-fuck-up/464934/31 "2008-09-26T16:51:52Z")
> [@Rhubarb](#): > > Actually, you can put lipstick on a pig, it just won’t make you want to kiss it. Unless you already wanted to in the first place, in which case the lipstick thing is kinda squicky. Nothing [squicky about this !!!](http://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x61/dangas_fruity/Miss_Piggy_In_Pink_165218.gif). The area in those libraries, it’s messy at best. Larger chains like Borders and Barnes & Noble also have cafés and the noise is higher in there than the surrounding stacks (_s.i.c._). You pick your area. It’s not easy. Had you asked them to quiet it down a bit, it might have gotten unpleasant- and you were there to work and drink/eat. They came to do work of a different type it seems. Coffee to go perhaps? Or, as was said, move 10 feet away and see if that helps? Use foam ear plugs? Cartooniverse ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2008, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-library-shut-the-fuck-up/464934/32 "2008-09-26T18:25:28Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > Good Rant: The OP wanted a quiet place to write his paper. > Bad Rant: He chose a noisy cafe. Why does a cafe have to be noisy? Why is _everywhere I go_ noisy? Why does some loud-ass motherfucker have to be yakking and guffawing _all the time_? What the hell can possibly be so _ **god-damned funny** _? Why won’t that kid stop _screaming_? I can hear it clear across the store! Where the hell are her parents? For the love of _Christ_, why can’t everyone just _ **SHUT THE FUCK UP FOR TEN FUCKING MINUTES??!!?** _ ---
**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2008, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-library-shut-the-fuck-up/464934/33 "2008-09-26T18:31:53Z")
> [@Eonwe](#): > > you can’t put lipstick on a pig. Well, you can, but they don’t really have much by the way of lips. I’ve heard a nice silky camisole can be far more effective. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2008, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-library-shut-the-fuck-up/464934/34 "2008-09-26T18:33:06Z")
> [@VinylTurnip](#): > > Why does a cafe have to be noisy? Why is _everywhere I go_ noisy? > > Why does some loud-ass motherfucker have to be yakking and guffawing _all the time_? What the hell can possibly be so _ **god-damned funny** _? > > Why won’t that kid stop _screaming_? I can hear it clear across the store! Where the hell are her parents? > > For the love of _Christ_, why can’t everyone just _ **SHUT THE FUCK UP FOR TEN FUCKING MINUTES??!!?** _ Douglas Adams already explained that - if the lips stop moving, the brain might start working. ---
**Author:** ![anya\_marie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ebca7d/32.png) [@anya\_marie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anya_marie)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-library-shut-the-fuck-up/464934/35 "2008-09-28T03:27:16Z")
There are always kids babbling away on cell phones at the library of my community college and these are converstions that center around parties and gossip. Also, some clown brought a hot roast beef sandwich into the library and made everyone smell it for an hour. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-a-library-shut-the-fuck-up/464934.md?page=1)