Library Etiquette

When did it become acceptable to be noisy in a library?

What ever happened to whispers and soft talking?

At a recent visit to a neighborhood library where I went to spend some relaxing time with magazines I like enough to read but not enough to pay for, I was astonished at the behavior of the others around me.

It's a small library so seating choices are very limited. I was sitting near the group of audio books. A woman was intently searching for a particular book, or perhaps she was just reading the titles. I'm not sure which and it doesn't really matter. What does matter is that she was listening to an audio book on her headphones. How do I know it was an audio book and not music, you ask? It's because I could hear the words being spoken by the reader, "Chapter Six....girls sat down...it was noon..." I could hear it from 15-feet away. How loud, really, did she need to have the volume? The speakers were right next to her ears for crying out loud.

Later, there was the obligatory cell phone ringing, and I looked to see who it was. We're all supposed to cast our best stare in the direction of the sound and if one of us knows the person's name we're supposed to say, "[THEIR NAME] that's your phone." Now, you might think this person would find their telephone and reject the call, or stand up and exit the room to answer it. Not this person. No, he had to sit where he was, answer the phone and begin speaking in normal cell-phone-conversation volume. The kind of volume that you can hear from 20-feet away. I was 3-feet away. I could hear the person on the other end of the call. Something about visiting the doctor again. While still on the phone, he got up, walked over to his wife and handed her the phone so she could straighten out this doctor mess.

Then, today, (yes, I went back) there's suddenly somebody talking really loudly to the history books. Oh, no, wait, he was talking on his cell phone. Apparently he thought this was his personal telephone booth and that there were some invisible sound partitions around him. Later, as I was leaving the library, I saw him with his wife at one of the computer stations. Now I understood what he was doing. He didn't want to disturb his wife by taking the call right next to her, so he moved over to the history section where his voice could reverberate around the room. I guess he was just being neighborly by sharing all his family business in the neighborhood library.

Another commotion erupted from the computerized library catalog when a library worker approached a woman who had apparently asked for his help a little earlier. I know that because he was speaking in a normal level conversation as if he were at the grocery store and he was letting her know that the mayonaise could be found on aisle 15.

Finally, quiet returned, but not for long. The person sitting closest to me began to make a phone call. Not answer a call, make one. Although considerate enough to have turned off her phone when she got to the library, she now wanted us to listen to the clever little ditty her phone makes when she turns it on. She has Verizon service, by the way. I gave her my best leer to let her know that I heard her phone. She ignored me and started pressing numbers to make the call. Each press of the button a voice announced the number that she selected, "Five, four, eight..." And of course, I heard not only her end of the conversation but the other end as well. My leers were of no use.

So what happened to being quiet in the library? What happened to keeping your noises to yourself so that other people won't be disturbed? And what about the librarian who would lead by example? You could count on the librarian to keep people in check. They would come around every now and then and a hush would fall over the room. Nobody wanted to be told to be quiet so they toned it down before the librarian had a chance to point out their bad manners.

Is it manners and respect that's missing, or are we living in a time where there is so much noise everywhere that silence is not regarded as desirable?

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