Cards in pockets. Bookmarks keeping pages. The sound of date stamps: Clunk. Ka-chunk.
Shhhhhhhhhh! This is the library.
Or, well, so I thought. Thanks to a newly published children's book of mine, I've been spending more time in libraries, both school and public, than I have in years. I do not think that Mr. Dewey, inventor of the classic decimal system for book catalogs, would recognize these places.
Long a refuge for quieter adults and kids who like the company of an engrossing page, the libraries I've been visiting lately are awash in almost as much noise and activity as a busy Starbucks.
When I asked about some loud talking at a neighborhood branch in Providence, where I live, the staffer at the desk looked me up and down. "I don't 'shush' people," she told me. "That went out with sharpening pencils."
It did?
I'm not trying to put a crimp in anyone's fun, but the noisiest among us already dominate most of the places where people are together. Schools. Offices. You can pick it.
Isn't the library supposed to be slightly sacred? A temple, not of worship, but of contemplation?