[Publib] Background music

[K.G. Schneider]

I'd hate that - libraries are supposed to be places for quiet (I know, I
know).  Cell phones, crying kids, noisy teens and Moms at storytime are bad
enough - but music throughout the building all the time.   <<shudder>>

——

Well, I must be a doughty ol' dame myself, because I *loathe* background
music. 

I don't know this at all, this is hugely irresponsible conjecture... but
it's 90 minutes til Friday and it's been a long day: I think people who want
music bring their own (as someone else observed), and the rest of the world
doesn't want it imposed on them. I was in one library with tinkly music, and
it felt stagy... "look how cool we are." Oddly, my lasting memory of that
library is how hard it was to find the new books. 

I sometimes (not too often) listen to music while I work, but even as a
happy iPod owner, I don't subscribe to the notion that the world is better
off with a soundtrack. Mostly, in fact, while exercising or doing chores I
listen to NPR (live or podcasts), but in daily life I just walk around
unplugged. I do sing on the road, now that I have one of those nifty ipod FM
transmitters, and I am sure south Georgia is all the better for me bellowing
my version of "Down to the River to Pray" while I zoomed home from a
consult. But that doesn't mean I want the library to fill in the gaps for
those times I am unplugged, and they are legion. 

Finally (winding up for the punch), I too have trouble hearing with
background noise (a legacy of working with aircraft engines in my 20s), and
it is not merely cumbersome but exhausting to try to hear someone against a
noisy background. I don't want my ears to compete with Smooth Jazz while I'm
trying to communicate.

Though it sounds "modern," I think this is a trend that is a third of a
generation behind the times. 

Spend it on upgrading your wifi, or buying laptops for a laptop-checkout
program, or goodness, buy a few more books. 

K.G. Schneider
kgs at freerangelibrarian.com