I am tired of going to a certain library (which used to be a quiet place) but nowadays seems to be just another place where people go to carry on their conversations…go to tim horton’s or whereever else you like to hang out and gab and let the library be used as it is meant to be…a place to read, write or for God’s sake, actually learn something.
—someone who likes the quiet
This article appears in Nov 12-18, 2009.
I was in the Mount’s library one day, and had to go tell the Dean to stop talking on their phone.
they still have libraries?!?!? I thought they would have been rendered obsolete by now…
I know what you mean OP… I work in a library and have to put up with loud kids and parents daily.
Who is in charge of making sure libraries are quiet so we can all enjoy them in an equal manner? If someone is overly loud they should be shushed. Isn’t this a librarian’s responsibility?
Oh yeah, I forgot, the last time I was at a certain branch the librarians were talking louder than the patrons! It was quite disruptive. Great way to set an example ladies!!!
The librarians probably aren’t allowed to tell people to be quiet any more, lest they violate the rights of the chatters or something.
Silence is golden… Duct tape is silver 😀
Last time I ever stepped foot in a library, there were a handful of old Asian men yelling across to each other as they read their newspaper. It was like a sporting even with the way they were going on. I asked staff to shush them, since I felt it was their job. The woman politely asked them to be quiet, but they totally ignored her and essentially laughed in her face, all still yelling in Chinese or whatever it was. I was repulsed. So I took the books home to do the essay I was working on and had to listen to a screaming baby crying from the people upstairs – which is what I was trying to escape in the first place by going to the library. Tried those foam ear plugs but they get kind of painful after awhile.
Next project: build a sound-proof room for myself. Definitely worth it.
I used to work at two university libraries — and I can definitely say one of them (on a highway in bedford) has a circ staff member who, upon complaining about said noise, will go over and tell them to quiet down.
Anyway, complain to reference staff or circ desk staff. Most times they’ll be nice about it and tell the offenders to stfu.
I’m so old I remember my first Library experience – some bastard had the Guttenburg Bible already out – pricks.
RaphEmer…Isn’t that The Chatters of Rights?
Mind Snap…Priceless!
RB…Learn how to say STFU in chinese.
The worst when I was at Dal trying to study in the Killam were either:
A. Groups of first-year T-Dot girls (“Heheheheh like Ohh My God did you see what, like, Ja’mie was, like, wearing to class the other day? Ohh my God it was, like, so ugly!”).
or,
B. Groups of Middle Eastern men. (“Akhmed! AKHMED!”)
I know I’m probably going to get the “you’re a sexist / racist” card thrown at me (*ducks), but that was my experience. Yes, I realize that lots of white males can be loud and noisy too, and I hate that as well.
Whoa, whoa whoa. Q, are you saying that you actually study in the Killam? You do know those dark corners are better suited for, well, you know, stuff. Giggity. Also, the Killam is a dank pit, much like the LSC, and I’m certain you could find a cubicle on the third floor in classical literature that hasn’t seen an ass since 1985. On the topic of the LSC, crazy, mind bending shit happens there. Just visit the 5th sub basement of the physics wing. Like a scene from Aliens.
Ahh yes, the lonely old Killam. I don’t study there anymore, of course (I’ve graduated from Dalhousie but whine about not being able to get work in my field, remember?), and while I spent plenty of lonely nights at that place back in my university days, can’t say I’ve ever done the dirty at the library. Something about books that isn’t so erotic, plus my girlfriend at the time was not so adventurous (yes, I had a girlfriend through a good part of university… sigh, silly me again!).
The LSC is indeed an odd and ugly place. Memories coming back now of some random Calculous class I had to take with a professor straight out of Eastern Europe… I need to go to bed!
“Something about books that isn’t so erotic,”
Maybe you’re not looking at the right books.
I’m with Miles on this one. The right books make all the difference!
senor, i believe that would be nee chow soi,or close to it.
At Dal in the ’80’s I used to find quiet in the “non circulating Z collection”…no-one was ever there, and there were little desks, with tiny windows along the back wall.
I still, to this day, have no idea what a “non-circulating Z collection” is…