I personally would find this oppressive and unpleasant. That's not to say that my concentration is better served by working at a rock concert, but "library rule

I personally would find this oppressive and unpleasant. That's not to say that my concentration is better served by working at a rock concert, but "library rules" are robotic, not particularly humanity-affirming. The offices in which I've gotten the most work done had a low to midlevel din of casual conversations and banter, like a place that lets humans be the social animals they are, while still encouraging some kind of collective respect for the idea of getting work done. It's a hard balance to adhere to consistently, but I'd rather struggle with the vacillation than work in a library. In fact, this is the very reason I gave up working at home after two years: it's too quiet. You can hear a pin drop. A library to me has the ambiance of a funeral home, and encourages similarly dark thoughts. Needless to say, I got a lot more done in an office with an officemate, where we were both banging away at our keyboards and casually chit-chatting all day.