December 7, 2005

I am a librartarian

I think the library is the closest I’ll ever get to undertanding what it must be like to be conservative in our time, to look about and see all the values you hold dear thrown by the wayside, moral decline in the name of progress. It’s absolutely heartbreaking.

Exams are nearly upon us at the University of Toronto, and consequently the libraries are teeming with scholarly hordes violating those sacred places. The carrels are cracking with candy wrappers and buzzing with cell-phones, the stacks are full of books people continue to write in, the computers are occupied with people on instant messenger, the student lounge echoes throughout the entire building, wireless access fails for five minutes and all hell breaks loose. In my job, when I inform students that they should not be eating in the library or speaking on their phones, never does anyone apologise and realise the error of their ways (unsurprisingly, as they are eating with “No Eating”/”No Cell Phones” signs staring them in the face), or even just apologise. Instead they tell me to fuck off, either with words or their facial expressions.

I believe passionately that libraries are sacred places, and in sacred places we don’t eat and drink, and our cell-phones don’t ring. We don’t talk above whispers, we don’t scratch our initials into furniture. I believe that people who keep overdue books are immoral and undermining the foundations of our society. When the librarian tells you to shush, you shush my friend. You are in a house of godliness.

But alas, no one else seems to think so. The old road is rapidly fading.