Noisy Libraries – Rethinking Quiet And Reclaiming The Sanctity Of Silence

Collaboration, participation and humanization are key ideas that modern librarians use to plan and operate today’s libraries. Used properly, these ideas can improve society. Unfortunately, from my perspective as a seasoned library user, I routinely observe librarians using these ideas incorrectly, thus deteriorating one of society’s most valuable institutions. In stark contrast to expert opinions, I have witnessed disturbing trends under the guise of “collaborative learning” or “shared learning”. Most disturbing is the disappearance of polite public spaces. Without a widespread concept of polite public space, no standard of acceptable behavior can exist in a library’s shared spaces. There can be no architecture that different people experience at the same time with a common respect. The disturbances that I just described are typical of public libraries that I use regularly. I also use a university library whose commons areas are equally noisy. My experiences are not unique. Other people report similar trends. Downtown Detroit Library – “None of the social problems that made working there seem sometimes like being trapped in a loony bin have gone away.

Such noise problems in public libraries are becoming legendary. Academic libraries do not fare much better. “People now use cell phones in research libraries. Even where official policies clearly demonstrate respect for quiet, actual practices do not enforce these policies. Instead, noisy people seem to be abusing the rights of quiet users habitually. In Walton’s survey, 62% of library users rated low noise levels second behind attractiveness and comfort of physical environment. Based on his findings, he recommended the actions of enforcing, monitoring and maintaining as necessary actions to insure quiet areas. Aaron Schmidt, using a less formal approach, confirms widespread noise problems in many modern libraries. Many library leaders have grown to accept noise in libraries as normal and typical developments of social evolution. Noise, therefore, has gained a comfortable foothold in today’s halls of learning. This statement simply illustrates a gross misperception, as disrespectful behavior somehow has become attached parasitically to the concept of shared learning. The truth is that individual decorum, common courtesy and regard for others have hit an all-time low. A search of the database, Academic Search Premier, using the key phrase, “cell phone rudeness”, returns 230,677 full text articles on this particular subject.

This sheer number of articles provides full evidence of the problem. By accepting such a problem as normal, we enable further psychological dysfunction, and we cultivate greater intellectual disability. The danger in “accommodating” noise in modern libraries is in defining the word, “accommodate”, as the practice of tolerating rudeness. When we allow talking to rule exclusively over quiet atmospheres, we destroy a fundamental requirement of higher human development. Librarians, as a group, find safety behind scholarly words that easily lend themselves to erroneous use. Using such words effectively is not the same as applying those words to achieve their defined result. Applying words such as “collaborative learning” often is not even possible without endangering the quiet space of others. Old building designs and space limitations might not allow the best of both worlds (quiet and noise). In such cases, noise can simply become the standard, because noise fits more easily into quiet than quiet into noise. Librarians feel compelled to provide different learning spaces that actually are in conflict with each other. The realities of trying to please everybody in this way have set in. Librarians, thus, seem to be numb from the conflict.

One librarian I talked to candidly confessed that he had “given up the battle long ago”, comparing his public library to the “wild wild West”. His confession comes as no surprise, in the wake of society’s crumbling etiquette, exaggerated sense of personal entitlement and fanatical business philosophy of pampering consumers, in order to keep them paying or supporting a cause. I sense that a number of librarians have “given up the battle”. They have just accepted the failure. Failure to achieve guaranteed quiet areas, however, is not in the hands of librarians alone. We, as a society, are failing, as a whole, to teach common manners. Consequently, many people today cannot behave responsibly under the unique influences of new technology. Librarians, as teachers, can help instill these manners, but not without defined policies, patron education, active leadership, and moment-to-moment managing, monitoring and decisive enforcement of policies. Learning spaces that conflict with one another (in principle) cannot exist without sustained teaching efforts.