Think you of the fact that a deaf person cannot hear. What senses, then, do we lack that we cannot see and hear another world all around us?”
–Frank Herbert, Dune
The reference room is quiet tonight. The sound of my fingers flying over the keys is probably the loudest, although there are other typists. Readers rustle pages. Pencils skitter across notebooks. Occasionally someone asks a question, and your alchemist tries to answer in her indoor voice. Call it 4′ 33″ 2.0, if you will. Just don’t call it a scandal, or a sign of irrelevance, because it’s actually quite beautiful, if you open yourself up to it.
There have been a number of high-profile news articles lately about old-school vs. new-jack libraries; excitement and razzle-dazzle vs. “musty” books, and people with “strange attachments” to them. I ask, once again, why we must have an either-or library. I wonder why we cannot have both.
I am, as ever, biased. My craving for silence makes Jean Valjean’s bread-lust look downright tame. But we are now, for the most part, hyper-connected, 24/7, and working with technology makes me grow weary of it, occasionally. It is challenging, sometimes, to drag myself away from the tweets, the status updates, the never-ending flow of information and hype, and carve out space and time for quiet reflection.
What would we hear, I wonder, if we were more open to and accepting of silence in our libraries? Is it possible that the silence that’s become so reviled and scorned of late has something to teach us? That it gives shape to the sounds? What if we had libraries with warmer, more animated spaces for the extroverts and cooler, quieter places for the introverts? Just because you noisy lot outnumber us 3 to 1 doesn’t mean we don’t get a vote!
Perhaps that’s a stretch. Still, the concept of a media fast, as articulated by Julia Cameron and Gregg Levoy, is starting to sound awfully attractive to me. One week with no newspapers, no internet, no texts, no tweets, no cheeps, no beeps, not a single lux-ur-ee. Status update: unplugged. Achievement: serenity?
Let’s take that heretical thought and stretch it a wee bit further: could you go 40 days, say, with no e-mail, no cell phone, no emerging technologies? Would you feel alienated, disconnected? Or would you trust that the news you needed to know would find you?
A moment of silence, for silence, please. It’s an endangered species in a loud, crazymaking world. I am all for progress in the form of cheerful, welcoming spaces, and our libraries should most definitely have those. I would argue, however, that excising our remaining quiet sanctuaries is equally unwelcoming. If the user experience is meant to be paramount, then that should include all users, not just the ones who prefer noise.
I know, I know. Worst librarian 2.0 EVAR! My defense is that I’m aiming for 3.0. 
Have the rowdy or restful weekend of your choice, and we’ll talk again soon.
