Paul’s been offered a full time position with Brit and he’s accepted! So it looks like we’ll be living in the Dallas area indefinitely.

Regularly, I wonder where libraries got their fantastic reputation of being sanctuaries of quietness and places of solitude. Representations of libraries in films and on TV make it seem the natural habitat of hawk-faced women in severe clothing who insist on a level of silence that not even the dead can maintain. In reality it’s not even close to being quiet and I don’t personally know any librarians who resemble birds of prey ready to swoop down on wrongdoers. I even work on what is considered the “quiet” floor and I still think it’s pretty noisy. I can identify the majority of cell phone ring tones … including a particularly disturbing one that sounds like a kitten trapped inside a box.

People really don’t treat the library with much respect. A lot of the people who come in are pretty self-absorbed. They all seem to believe the world really does revolve around them. These people believe they should never have to wait in line, that they alone should be able to check out books from the reference collection, that they should be allowed extra time on the computer even though there are six other people waiting for an available CPU, and that the book(s) they want should be waiting for them when they show up … even books the library doesn’t actually have in the collection.

What’s really crazy is that the majority of the librarians seem to be incredible introverts. I’ve watched them; they avoid eye contact, they hate any type of confrontation and they’ve turned it into an art form. Although who can really blame them when they have to deal with the general public so much? The general public is pretty whiny, like three year olds who missed naptime.

I halfway wish we could post a list of common sense rules. Something like:
1. Please do not abandon your child(ren) for hours at a time at the library. We are not a babysitting service. If we find unaccompanied children, we will not hesitate to call the police.
2. If you have neglected to bathe in the past week, or you have not applied fresh deodorant within the past 24 hours, please go home and rectify the situation immediately. No one wants to be around stinky people. And trust me, you really stink.
3. The library is not your bedroom. Please do not pass out on one of the couches and start snoring.
4. The library is not your living room.
5. The library is not your dining room.
6. Please do not attempt to reshelf any of the books; even if you have a pretty good grasp of the Dewey decimal system, you’re probably doing it wrong.
7. Please do not kiss (or more) your secret boyfriend/girlfriend among the shelves. We have cameras. We can see you.
8. Please do not try to view objectionable images on our public access computers. We can see the computer screen. You’re violating our policies. We can place a restraining order on you to keep you from our premises.
9. Please do not call in bomb threats. It’s just not nice.
10. Please do not sexually harass the employees or other patrons. We will call the police, file a report, and make certain you can’t come back.

Sigh, if it were only that simple.