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Locally (Stockholm, Sweden) the head of the city libraries has made a statement of battling the 'quietness norm' in libraries. Most of them now have playgrounds

Locally (Stockholm, Sweden) the head of the city libraries has made a statement of battling the 'quietness norm' in libraries. Most of them now have playgrounds, one in Kista (where I happened to live at the time) won awards for best library in the world and in Sweden the same year. It was completely unusable for what me and my fiance usually do at the library. The study rooms had the ventilation system for the building running through them with a loud dull noise making going back out to the playground-ridden small library with build int coffee-shop feel like putting on active noise supressing headphones. And the playground + café + it being placed in a mall (as opposed to across the street in the municipality building like it used to be) made reading or browsing a hard task. My fiance who has ASD really has no public space available at all in this city anymore and we are moving to another city where we know of accessible quieter places, including parks and libraries without built-in noise generators. ./rant Carpeting here is extremely rare. Scandinavian minimalism everywhere. The article helps me understand why the local chinese restaurang, with carpeting, tablecloth and padded chairs, is so nice to stay at.

vegardx 8y ago
I don't think it's just Scandinavian minimalism. You want hard floors when you know there will be snow and rain for a large part of the year. It would be impossible to keep things clean otherwise. Just look to Svalbard where you take of your shoes even when going to a bar.
willvarfar 8y ago
I'm a big fan of the making-libraries-loud (loud as in happy) movement, but I'm usually bringing my kids to browse the shelves and pick books to bring home, not to actually spend time there reading them. In my experience kids find quiet libraries intimidating. (Which is at odds with my own preferences, I should add, but I prioritize the kids.) What the libraries need is a quiet reading room, rather like the trains have added quiet carriages. I don't know which libraries you are meaning, but it sounds like their study rooms are broken, rather than the whole concept is broken. So, lets fix the study rooms! :)
- keiferski 8y ago
  Libraries are not playgrounds. This idea that the primary functional purpose of an important space should be some kind of afterthought is rather depressing, but I guess is follows from the entertainment-centric culture we live in. The purpose of a library is to read, not to entertain your kids.
  - thom 8y ago
    Libraries are repositories of books for people to take away. The idea that they need to provide office space for people who could just as well read at home is stupid.
    - eponeponepon 8y ago
      Good luck taking a Gutenberg bible or a Shakespeare first folio away to read quietly at home.
      - sgift 8y ago
        Comparing a city library with an extremely specialized institution which holds a Gutenberg bible or a Shakespeare first folio is ridiculous. These are separate institutions which only share the name library.
        JohnBooty 8y ago
        Yeah that's kind of the problem with this entire discussion. People are discussing entirely different sorts of libraries.
        eponeponepon 8y ago
        Well, no. People are trying to draw a functional distinction between two types of libraries that isn't really there. First, old-fashioned academic libraries existed; later, public lending libraries existed, but only because various people noticed that the existence of academic libraries was a good thing thing that should be more widely accessible to people outside academia and/or religious institutions. At no point has the purpose of public lending libraries been to provide the community centre and entertainment resource that some people want them to be.
L_Rahman 8y ago
There is a very simple solution to this problem. Build more libraries or bigger libraries. A terrific example is the Jefferson Library in lower Manhattan. It is technically a children's library to the point where it's nearly impossible to find bathrooms that are adult accessible without children. It is also possibly the best quiet library in the city because the upper levels of the space are adult only and nearly pin drop silent. You can absolutely have both.
- tapland 8y ago
  Oh. If there is one thing we are not lacking it's libraries. Actively fighting to make them all louder is what's causing it here, not a lack of libraries.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
f_allwein 8y ago
Pro tip (for people in London at least): Senate House library in London rents out private Study Carrels to its members. These are located in the reading rooms (which are usually very quiet) and have their own walls and a door you can close. I loved them and did some fantastic focused work there (although others found them claustrophobic...) https://www.senatehouselibrary.ac.uk/using-the-library/inter-library-loans-and-copies-other-libraries/rent-private-study-carrel https://www.senatehouselibrary.ac.uk/using-the-library/inter...
ghaff 8y ago
The architectural style and decorations are part of the problem as the article says. An equally big one though is, as you say, the apparent need to have blaring music, TVs, etc. just about every place. I was just at an event a month or so ago that had a DJ in the exhibit hall blasting music at a volume that was actively preventing people from having easy conversations. Which is sort of the purpose of being there. Not listening to some DJ who apparently has to work corporate events to pay the rent but nonetheless thinks people are there to listen to him. After complaining to the organizers, they turned things down a bit but this is a pervasive problem. Even when I'm eating by myself, I still find the music in some restaurants both annoyingly loud and not what I would consider pleasant background music for a meal.
- brokenmachine 8y ago
  >Even when I'm eating by myself, I still find the music in some restaurants both annoyingly loud and not what I would consider pleasant background music for a meal. This is by design to get you out of there quickly to free a spot for another paying customer. I vote with my wallet and suggest you do too. If a restaurant has music I don't like, which seems to be a trend nowadays, I get the message that they don't want me to be there and leave immediately.
dilap 8y ago
This is blowing my mind. Why would you want to change the "quietness norm" at libraries??
keithpeter 8y ago
No local university building with some public access or similar?

vegardx 8y ago

I don't think it's just Scandinavian minimalism. You want hard floors when you know there will be snow and rain for a large part of the year. It would be impossible to keep things clean otherwise. Just look to Svalbard where you take of your shoes even when going to a bar.

willvarfar 8y ago

I'm a big fan of the making-libraries-loud (loud as in happy) movement, but I'm usually bringing my kids to browse the shelves and pick books to bring home, not to actually spend time there reading them. In my experience kids find quiet libraries intimidating. (Which is at odds with my own preferences, I should add, but I prioritize the kids.) What the libraries need is a quiet reading room, rather like the trains have added quiet carriages. I don't know which libraries you are meaning, but it sounds like their study rooms are broken, rather than the whole concept is broken. So, lets fix the study rooms! :)

keiferski 8y ago
Libraries are not playgrounds. This idea that the primary functional purpose of an important space should be some kind of afterthought is rather depressing, but I guess is follows from the entertainment-centric culture we live in. The purpose of a library is to read, not to entertain your kids.
- thom 8y ago
  Libraries are repositories of books for people to take away. The idea that they need to provide office space for people who could just as well read at home is stupid.
  - eponeponepon 8y ago
    Good luck taking a Gutenberg bible or a Shakespeare first folio away to read quietly at home.
    - sgift 8y ago
      Comparing a city library with an extremely specialized institution which holds a Gutenberg bible or a Shakespeare first folio is ridiculous. These are separate institutions which only share the name library.
      - JohnBooty 8y ago
        Yeah that's kind of the problem with this entire discussion. People are discussing entirely different sorts of libraries.
        eponeponepon 8y ago
        Well, no. People are trying to draw a functional distinction between two types of libraries that isn't really there. First, old-fashioned academic libraries existed; later, public lending libraries existed, but only because various people noticed that the existence of academic libraries was a good thing thing that should be more widely accessible to people outside academia and/or religious institutions. At no point has the purpose of public lending libraries been to provide the community centre and entertainment resource that some people want them to be.

L_Rahman 8y ago

There is a very simple solution to this problem. Build more libraries or bigger libraries. A terrific example is the Jefferson Library in lower Manhattan. It is technically a children's library to the point where it's nearly impossible to find bathrooms that are adult accessible without children. It is also possibly the best quiet library in the city because the upper levels of the space are adult only and nearly pin drop silent. You can absolutely have both.

tapland 8y ago
Oh. If there is one thing we are not lacking it's libraries. Actively fighting to make them all louder is what's causing it here, not a lack of libraries.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

f_allwein 8y ago

Pro tip (for people in London at least): Senate House library in London rents out private Study Carrels to its members. These are located in the reading rooms (which are usually very quiet) and have their own walls and a door you can close. I loved them and did some fantastic focused work there (although others found them claustrophobic...) https://www.senatehouselibrary.ac.uk/using-the-library/inter-library-loans-and-copies-other-libraries/rent-private-study-carrel https://www.senatehouselibrary.ac.uk/using-the-library/inter...

ghaff 8y ago

The architectural style and decorations are part of the problem as the article says. An equally big one though is, as you say, the apparent need to have blaring music, TVs, etc. just about every place. I was just at an event a month or so ago that had a DJ in the exhibit hall blasting music at a volume that was actively preventing people from having easy conversations. Which is sort of the purpose of being there. Not listening to some DJ who apparently has to work corporate events to pay the rent but nonetheless thinks people are there to listen to him. After complaining to the organizers, they turned things down a bit but this is a pervasive problem. Even when I'm eating by myself, I still find the music in some restaurants both annoyingly loud and not what I would consider pleasant background music for a meal.

brokenmachine 8y ago
>Even when I'm eating by myself, I still find the music in some restaurants both annoyingly loud and not what I would consider pleasant background music for a meal. This is by design to get you out of there quickly to free a spot for another paying customer. I vote with my wallet and suggest you do too. If a restaurant has music I don't like, which seems to be a trend nowadays, I get the message that they don't want me to be there and leave immediately.

dilap 8y ago

This is blowing my mind. Why would you want to change the "quietness norm" at libraries??

keithpeter 8y ago

No local university building with some public access or similar?