A mini concert in a library is a stretch too far for people who find the nostalgic days of silence in libraries comforting. Photo / Thinkstock
It happened during last year's Rugby World Cup. I'd popped down to my then local library (Birkenhead) to work for an hour or two. The library is a regular escape when the home office gets too quiet and claustrophobic, or I need reference material. I was just getting comfortable when the music exploded from downstairs. Weird, I thought. A one-person flash mob? Surely the librarians will politely usher him out?
But no, he finished that song and launched into another. By this time other people were popping their heads up from their laptops and books. It was impossible to concentrate.
After about 15 minutes, I packed up and wandered downstairs. Sure enough, it was a one-man band, playing his South American heart out, right there in the foyer as a few librarians looked on benignly.
I quietly asked one of them how long it would go on.
About another 15 minutes, she said.
"You realise that some people are trying to work - or study, or read?" I asked, grumpily.
She looked as dismissive as if I'd asked her to turn down the sound at a Rolling Stone concert. "It's for the Rugby World Cup," she hissed. Ah, yes. Birkenhead had adopted the Argentinians, and this was evidently some bureaucrat's idea of demonstrating our support for a team that probably wasn't, at that moment, inside the library.
Now, I think it's right and proper that libraries should be community hubs - places to go to learn to use the internet, or participate in a book club or craft workshop, or hear an author speak.
I don't mind students quietly discussing assignments. I can handle the smell of coffee and the clink of china drifting up from the cafes that are popping up at libraries. I could put up with a lunchtime concert of chamber music in the background while I read (as is on at the Auckland Central Library next Thursday). And I think the community knitting event to be held at Botany Library next weekend (all items for Women's Refuge) is a great idea.
Full piece at NZ Herald.
She looked as dismissive as if I'd asked her to turn down the sound at a Rolling Stone concert. "It's for the Rugby World Cup," she hissed. Ah, yes. Birkenhead had adopted the Argentinians, and this was evidently some bureaucrat's idea of demonstrating our support for a team that probably wasn't, at that moment, inside the library.
Now, I think it's right and proper that libraries should be community hubs - places to go to learn to use the internet, or participate in a book club or craft workshop, or hear an author speak.
I don't mind students quietly discussing assignments. I can handle the smell of coffee and the clink of china drifting up from the cafes that are popping up at libraries. I could put up with a lunchtime concert of chamber music in the background while I read (as is on at the Auckland Central Library next Thursday). And I think the community knitting event to be held at Botany Library next weekend (all items for Women's Refuge) is a great idea.
Full piece at NZ Herald.
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