Borders may be having serious financial problems, but the idea the Border brothers first executed in their flagship store many years ago — of building a café in every bookstore — has spread beyond the big chains to the indies. Now it threatens to metastasize to public libraries as well.
Previously, I posted about public libraries in the US and the trend toward making the newer ones community centers rather than proper libraries where people go to read books. That phenomenon may soon not be limited to the US. In the UK, the Secretary of State for Culture, Andy Burnham, believes libraries should be social places. The Independent reports –
People would be able to chat, drink coffee and watch videos in English libraries under a new government proposal, The Independent has learnt. Andy Burnham, the Secretary of State for Culture, will today launch a consultation on changing the face of libraries which he believes are out of touch.
Under the proposals, libraries could install coffee franchises, book shops and film centres. Noise bans will also be reviewed. Mr Burnham will tell the Public Library Authorities conference in Liverpool that libraries must “look beyond the bookcase and not sleepwalk into the era of the e-book”.
Did you read the part where it says, “Noise bans will be reviewed?” Isn’t noise something everyone wants? Aren’t there health benefits to sitting in a noisy room? Silence can be dangerous. It invites thinking and we can’t have that. No sir. But wait, that’s not all –
In Camden, north London, the council will lift a ban on mobile phones in its libraries this month and users will be allowed to bring in snacks and drinks. The council is also considering providing computer games at its libraries.
In 1953, American science fiction writer, Ray Bradbury, published Fahrenheit 451, about a society in the future where books are banned because they make people unhappy. Remember the brilliant 1966 film adaptation by François Truffaut? The opening credits are narrated using voice over. Not a word appears written on the screen because no one reads anymore. In the background are roofs and TV antennas shown in silhouette.
The easy view of the novel is that it is a cry against government censorship. But the book is not about that at all. It is about a society where people willingly give up literature for TV, where the government bans books in response to and not against the popular will. It is an oppressive regime, to be sure, but one the people themselves created.
Perhaps the future will not be as dour as Bradbury believed. After all, what’s so bad about a public library where you can buy a pastry, a double espresso, find a chair, and spend a few minutes chatting on your cell phone, oblivious to anything or anyone around you?
What’s so special about libraries that cell phones should not be allowed? People already chat while driving, in the lavatory, having lunch “with” you, at the supermarket check-out line, in the movie theater, in the middle of class, during a bookstore reading, and soon they will be talking on airplanes at 37,000 feet –
“Hey, where are you? What are you doing? Nothin’ much. You? Yeah. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.”
On and on and on.
(Update Oct. 13, 2008): This is one of the passages from Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 that I was thinking about. In this scene early in the novel, Beatty is in Montag’s house. Montag is in bed, shaken after having witnessed a woman immolate herself with her books rather than have the firemen burn them. Beatty is trying to talk Montag into returning to work by arguing for the system and their work as firemen whose job it is to burn books. After all, books only make people unhappy, so Montag’s work as a firemen is a public service, according to Beatty –
“…If you don’t want a man unhappy politically, don’t give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none. Let him forget there is such a thing as war. If the government is inefficient, topheavy, and tax-mad, better it be all those than that people worry over it. Peace, Montag. Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram them full of noncombustible data, chock them so damned full of ‘facts’ they feel stuffed, but absolutely ‘brilliant’ with information. Then they’ll feel they’re thinking, they’ll get a sense of motion without moving. And they’ll be happy, because facts of that sort don’t change. Don’t give them any slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy.” Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 (1953), at 61
Source: Arifa Akbar, “‘Sombre’ libraries need chatter and coffee shops, minister says,” The Independent (Oct. 9, 2008), Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 (1953), at 61
Jeff | 10-Oct-08 at 12:15 pm | Permalink
Libraries always have existed for their communities. Of course, a well-designed library should have a quiet reading space.
As a former library administrator, I can confirm that libraries must find ways to meet the needs of their communities in order to secure funding. That’s particularly challenging in an age when an increasing number of decision-makers of a library’s parent institution believe that all books are now or soon will be available electronically. So, they ask why fund anymore money for library buildings?
There are a lot of exciting developments in library architecture that incorporate both quiet areas and spaces that serve other intellectual functions for the community, thereby providing for the future existence of libraries. It’s not an either/or situation.
Gonzalo Barr | 10-Oct-08 at 1:15 pm | Permalink
Thank you, Jeff, for your comment! I understand the dilemma you point out. But do we really know that paper media will disappear so soon? I would challenge that assumption, at least for one or two more generations. I can’t believe that I am the only one who prefers to hold a real book over reading it on a screen. At the risk of sounding fetishistic, there’s a thrill to holding a well-designed book, with good paper, and clear type. None of that happens on line.
Here’s another thrill — that of exploring the shelves. I don’t know how many times I have gone into the stacks looking for one thing and (being the disciplined sort that I am) soon I’m distracted by the spine of another book on another topic.
Your comment that it is not an “either/or” situation is comforting, though.
In any case, I will defer to you. I am not a professional librarian, just someone who loves books. Thanks and I hope you will comment again soon!
kevin monroe | 13-Oct-08 at 5:15 am | Permalink
in the city where i live they did 2 major renovations this century, to the Main Library and a Big Branch Library. They were both shut down for almost a year and opened with a new look and shorter hours, so I asked How could you afford the renovations but have to shorten the hours of operation??? Answer: two separate sources of funding.
The Big Branch Library is really beautiful. It feels expanded and there’s all kinds of areas where one can read by sunlight.
The Main Library is ugly, tacky, and where are all the books? It looks like a set for a third rate sci-fi movie. And noisy as nothing else. And it’s the employees making most of the noise. I miss those old days i dont quite remember, when librarians would tell people to shut up.
But to be fair, it is now all air-conditioned, which seems almost mandatory in these days of global warming.
Gonzalo Barr | 13-Oct-08 at 6:06 am | Permalink
Well, I too have a beef with noisy librarians who think nothing of yelling across a room to another librarian. “Did we get the new Roth yet? Not that one. The new Roth?”
Kevin, I honestly think the days are numbered when people still sit to read a book. Reading may even come to be seen as antisocial and introverted. Maybe, in a decade or two, they’ll market a pill for Attention Surplus Disorder, a disease characterized by the tendency to concentrate on one thing for long periods of time while engaging in solitary behavior.
Gonzalo Barr :: A Librarian's Dream Enforcer | 13-Dec-08 at 1:39 pm | Permalink
[…] A post about a proposal to allow cell phones in public libraries and other really smart ideas that only government bureaucrats could entertain is here. […]
Gonzalo Barr :: Cell Phones and Libraries? Sure, Why Not Belly Dancers, Too! | 19-Dec-08 at 10:00 am | Permalink
[…] a library ninja who silences a cell phone user by breaking his neck. One month before that, I posted about a government bureaucrat in the UK who thinks that allowing people to use cell phones in […]