There definitely used to be several factors in choosing where I wanted to eat, but all of them pale now in comparison to quiet,” said Mo Rocca, the actor, TV journalist and host of the CBS News podcast “Mobituaries.” He proudly turned 50 two months ago. “I have no problem saying that I’d rather eat at a place that’s more like the library,” he told me. “In fact, if the library opened a restaurant, I’d be first in line.COMMENT
Can this really be the first article I've run across that mentions libraries in terms of noise? I'll have to look back to see if I missed something because enforced quiet at the library is one of the Big 4 stereotypes along with 1) there is nothing there but books, 2) librarians read all day and 3) the Internet makes libraries obsolete. As this article expresses, peace and quiet is not the opposite of lively. Some degree of enforced quiet may actually be necessary if you want to have social interaction without shouting at each other. Particularly for the over 50 crowd whose hearing range is shrinking, (full disclosure: me) it can be impossible to follow a conversation at all in a noisy environment. The quiet library space becomes an ideal of what public space could be like without all the loud music echoing from hard surfaces. If this makes us old people sound like fuddy-duddys, so be it. Today's youth will be old someday too, and they'll want quiet places to go. Maybe the shushing librarian deserves a little more appreciation!
