I went into the library today to finish off my essay, so I could print it off when it was done. (I don’t have a printer at home). I had just started working when the guy opposite me starts talking REALLY loud. Which was a bit annoying, but he was talking about work so it didn’t bother me too much.
He eventually shut up. But there are two girls next to me, and one of their phones goes off. It’s on silent which is okay. What is NOT okay is the fact the bitch answered it and proceeded to have a long and loud pointless conversation IN THE LIBRARY.
“She did?”
“Wow! I can’t believe it!”
After 5 minutes she hangs up, and then proceeds to REPEAT THE CONVERSATION TO HER FRIEND NEXT TO ME!
I don’t care that your friend’s 17 year old sister has moved in with her boyfriend!
She then shuts up, but her phone rings AGAIN! And once again she has THE SAME pointless conversation. At this point I give up, and just print off the essay hoping its good enough.
When I get back from the printer, loud guy, phone girl, and her friend have all logged off their computers and gone!
Ahem. . . Sorry. I wholeheartedly agree . . . snrf. . . I mean that I think these jag-offs that forget that other people. . . chortle, smrp. . . sorry, these raging buttheads that . . .
(Can’t contain self. Begin loud raucous laughs again. Flop around on floor. Heart quits beating momentarily. Other people in the library glare at me.)
Actually, I really do agree with the OP. I worked in a library for two years, and was always astonished by the lack of courtesy and common sense that people have. It’s a freakin’ library. Shut your hole.
I see that the librarians’ association objected to a “librarian” doll which someone or other put on the market, because all it did was go “Shush!”.
Frankly, I think librarians ought to go back to saying “Shush” more often. The libraries have become as loud as a rock concert – OK, maybe that’s a bit strong, but people have definitely gotten out of the habit of whispering in the library, and that is a habit that needs to make a comeback…
I think you have to take into account the types of ways people use your library and the people themselves. I work at a university library. We allow talking at a normal level and group work on the top floor, which is where all of our public serice points are. We’ve designated the lower floor as a quiet study area. We have security & supervisers who walk through and enforce the quiet downstairs.
Two separate floors are a luxury some places may not have, but if that’s the case, then maybe some other compromise can be reached to satisfy the group studiers & the people who need quiet. If libraries are public spaces, then both groups need to be able to use them.
Also, we don’t allow cell phone use at all in the library, mostly because people get really loud on phones without realizing it, and the ring tones are annoyingly distracting, even if you’re doing group work & talking.
And finally, I don’t shush. It’s freaking patronizing. If someone’s out of line & loud I politely ask that person to keep it down. That shush noise & gesture drive me crazy.
Another librarian chiming in. I’m in a large public library, and our facility has become far too noisy. As with the OP, we always have a barrage of cellphones going off and people holding loud conversations out in the open. We have to go by waving a “no cell phone” card at them until they pack up and leave. The amount of indignation we receive from them as a result is really something. Cell phones, combined with the constant patter of computer keyboards from everyone emailing, really makes for a noisy environment.
On the other hand, as a result of the library trying to be more like Barnes and Noble we also have a coffee bar that usually makes far more racket than the typing and cellphones combined. In fact when the coffee bar is really going I sometimes can’t hear what a patron is saying to me at the Reference desk. And of course patrons see this as a double standard and come up to complain about why they can’t use their cellphones based on noise level when we have this constant grinding going on. In my least snarky tone, all I can say is that the coffee bar is providing a patron service (while adding mentally, “And if you would like to go over by the bar and let other patrons use your cellphone to make calls, that would be acceptable too”).
The problem comes with wanting to promote the library as a fun and safe social place for patrons, in order to encourage them to come and use stuff and return regularly, in order to appear useful to government/funders, in order to stay employed. Having a reputation as a quiet, reverent, holy place does not help a library compete against Barnes and Noble. Also, the tomb-like stereotype of a library does not encourage folks to “ask any stupid question you like” at the reference desk.
Now, I totally agree the result sucks ass, especially if the library doesn’t have designated quiet and loud areas. I’m just offering up the socio-financial reason behind suckiness.
At least, this is what I learned recently in library school. I work for a private corporation as part of a three-librarian research team in our own tiny little stacks and its veeeeeeeery quiet.
I know you’re talking about libraries up in the top hemisphere, but yak-sessions are a pain in the arse here as well, especially when it’s in a library’s research area. Countless times I’ve been trying to concentrate, looking at old newspaper records, when someone a couple of yards away decides that their particular bit of research work needs some quite loud narration accompaniment.
And the cellphones warble.
And old friends see each other, and start having loud chats as if they were in the middle of the flamin’ street.
Ugh.
Seriously considering using ear plugs next time I go in there.
