Library Etiquette

This afternoon I visited a clean, well kept library. The usual group of senior citizens was there.  It was quiet, people were busy getting their work or reading done, it was a great experience.

One of us seniors, a fellow I am very friendly with, called me over with a wave of his hand.
"No kids tonight."  He was pleased.  The group of undisciplined juveniles who hijack just about every computer, who are loud and always playing video games...gone... all somewhere else.
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A woman diagonal from me is hard of hearing, so we pass notes.  I wrote "I reported a woman for talking loudly on the cellphone and the librarian yelled at me."
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She spoke - quietly - by rolling her chair near to mine "Things aren't what they used to be."
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Do the "powers that be" get it?   Seniors are banding together and discussing the problem of children at libraries.  We exchange phone #s and e mail.  We will not take the bullying and harassment from librarians acting beyond politically correct, protecting the bad behavior of one minority group from the concerns of another minority group.

Well, now it has come back to roost, their karma,  their wrongful conduct, because their bad behavior is the wedge that we seniors need to expose the fraudulent practices of librarians who push around seniors to seem politically correct.  Enough is enough.   We are now going to peacefully, carefully and with determination correct this wrong.

Watch the public records requests fly.

And then the lawsuits.

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HOW TO RUN A LIBRARY CORRECTLY
AND HOW TO SHOW THE AUTHORITIES THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A WELL-RUN LIBRARY AND LIBRARIES WHICH OPERATE POORLY
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There is a solution, and it is at the excellent, well-run Burlington Public Library (which has a local artist available in their collection as well - whose recording you may borrow and enjoy.  None of this "we don't accept donations" that one arrogant library director thinks is good community relations.)

In Burlington they have a children's room with computers downstairs (let's call it "young adults" as well, but those computers are in the children's section) and upstairs it is marked on the stairwell clearly:  QUIET ZONE

Quiet Zone.  My God, we're back in time, traveling back to the 1960s when librarians cared about the patrons, when peace and quiet was what the library was all about, as well as education, learning and entertainment.

Entertainment from getting lost in a book.

Maybe we have to blame some of the parents for not bringing up their children to:

a)respect their elders

b)keep cellphone use limited to outside of the library

c)be decent human beings.

My library friend was right.   Times have changed. Things aren't what they used to be.

Careless librarians think the publicly funded venue known as a library is just another shopping mall or Dunkin Donuts for juvenile delinquents to hang out at; and for individuals who were not raised properly in their twenties and thirties to talk on cellphones, eat food and drink in the library, be antagonistic and have no sensitivity to anyone else.

There are laws protecting seniors.  I am contacting new lawyers who practice senior law to deal with the thug-like behavior of women who feel like they are the boss.  They have as little respect for civil rights of seniors as they do for the taxpayer funded salaries they enjoy.

But that's ok, to quote the Architect in the film the Matrix we've become "quite efficient" at cleaning up bad behavior.

There's always someone with a better education and better manners that can take the place of a rogue librarian.   

This writer, being a most persistent and determined man, will work hard to remove the bad element from our libraries.   

It's hardly my first time at this rodeo.



*The author has had library cards in Seattle Washington, Manhattan, Florida and around Massachusetts.   

As Director of Research for a company which created PBS specials in the 1990s he utilized public libraries to get the materials necessary for projects that ran into the millions of dollars.