Anna in Minneapolis (“librarian in peach sweater”) recently received this anonymous note from a disgruntled library patron. “Apparently, I was talking too loudly to one of our elderly customers on the phone,” she says. “So much for Minnesota nice!”
related: You seem like really nice people. Really.
extra credit: Just know that I have a whole bag of shhh! with your name on it [youtube]
109 responses so far ↓
#1
Hushed Shusher
We get this ALL THE TIME in our library. Why am I being shushed in my own library?!
Jul 21, 2011 at 9:48 am rating: 11
#2
Denise
my mom worked in a library, the head librarian actually asked them not to whisper to each other….because it would give the impression you are talking about someone. She was afraid that a library patron would think they were talking about him/her, and that would be rude.
Jul 21, 2011 at 9:51 am rating: 11
#3
Heather
You can’t shush a librarian !!!! That’s just crazy. The nerve of some people. Seriously, you just can’t do it. Not even in a note.
Jul 21, 2011 at 9:53 am rating: 17
#4
Katie
whatever happened to someone asking nicely if you could please lower your voice? must have become too difficult.
Jul 21, 2011 at 9:53 am rating: 35
#5
Smedrick
Do people really need complete silence to read or all library patrons just complete dicks?
Jul 21, 2011 at 9:54 am rating: 46
#6
Patrick
Reminds me of a child walking up to me during a sale in the bookstore I work saying “Shh! We’re in a library”. I couldn’t help but laugh a little.
Jul 21, 2011 at 9:59 am rating: 31
#7
Bets
Umm…passive aggressive is the definition of Minnesota nice
I should know, I’ve lived here for 23 years.
Jul 21, 2011 at 10:29 am rating: 33
#8
Venus Flytrap Inc.
Nice. She could have just asked her to be quiet.
Jul 21, 2011 at 10:31 am rating: 1
#9
This or That
That notes looks like it was written on one of those old card catalog index cards with the holes at the bottom. Passive Aggressive towards a librarian AND Disrespecting Dewey Decimal? Someone is about to lose their library card privileges.
Jul 21, 2011 at 11:05 am rating: 30
#10
Oh Geeeee
I’m one of those people who gets loud in the library and while I know it’s obnoxious I don’t care – for three reasons. One, now a days many libraries are used for purposes other than silent reading such that some noise is expected (kid’s reading hour, meeting rooms for boy scouts, school groups, or even the local town council). Second, many libraries – at least around here – have an area if you really do want silence… if you are not in that area then tough. Finally, libraries are PUBLIC places. If you want silence stay at home. The public is noisy, sorry. Oh, and ear plugs are cheap, for those who need to be at the library and who also seem to need silence, just sayin.
And the real reason, just so that there is complete honesty, I am a little self centered . . . just a tad.
Jul 21, 2011 at 11:25 am rating: 3
#11
bored@work
Mmmmm…… Librarian in peach sweater. I’m having Shirley Jones flashbacks.
Jul 21, 2011 at 12:03 pm rating: 5
#12
thrall
“Shhhh, put your chair down,” was always the line of our librarian when you rocked back on two legs of the chair–like that made noise. I guess the rare times someone ended up on his @$$ were pretty noisy…
Jul 21, 2011 at 1:12 pm rating: 5
#13
Nashley
First Asians saying things like “ching chong ting tong ling long,” now librarians in peach sweaters? Where will it end, Ms. Wallace? Where?
Jul 21, 2011 at 1:15 pm rating: 3
#14
penny
because when you are trying to concentrate on something, quiet is preferred.
Jul 21, 2011 at 1:18 pm rating: 4
#15
Guadalisá
Why do we whisper in libraries anyway? It’s not because we need to hear what we are doing. We aren’t quiet any other time people are reading, like on the bus, around the table, in class or at work. While I’m at it, why are we quiet on the golf course but not a baseball game? You have to concentrate on hitting that ball too. Why is it rude in one situation but not the other? We are raised to think it’s rude, but who decided it was in the first place? Are we just sheep following the herd? I’ve put way too much thought into this and now my head hurts. I’m going to the library, where it’s quiet!
Jul 21, 2011 at 1:45 pm rating: 4
#16
Cari
I’m a librarian, and I get shushed all the time. It makes you feel awful (I would have felt worse if I got this note!) It’s hard to keep tabs on how loud you’re being when you’re helping people and trying to do your work. We have designated quiet areas, and my desk isn’t in one of them.
Jul 21, 2011 at 1:50 pm rating: 20
#17
jadefirefly
I love books, and the concept of libraries. I have no problem with the idea of being quiet in a library.
But that many people in that big a space being that quiet is eerie to me. Gives me the willies.
Jul 21, 2011 at 1:58 pm rating: 4
#18
GhostWriter
…speaking quietly in a library? – Who cares?
I wanna know whatever happened to Tuesday and so slow…
Jul 21, 2011 at 3:22 pm rating: 2
#19
Angie
A friend is a “stompy boots and dreadlocks” library director and she is not a “Shush” Librarian, nor does she run a quiet library. There are study rooms if you want quiet. Libraries are much more than books these days. They are community centers.
Jul 21, 2011 at 6:12 pm rating: 4
#20
Emily
I was in my local library last weekend and one of the librarians had a very LOUD LOUD LOUD voice.
She wasn’t on the phone, she was talking to a patron who was on the other side of her desk who was speaking in a normal low volume voice. I was at the opposite end of the library and I could hear all of her end of the conversation.
It’s Minnesota, but she didn’t have a peach sweater on that day. I wonder if it’s the same librarian.
Jul 21, 2011 at 6:23 pm rating: 9
#21
Daemon
Why was this obnoxious patron on the phone anyways? Every library I’ve been in has big signs telling us phones are to be turned off.
Jul 21, 2011 at 7:38 pm rating: 2
#22
Anonymous
While I completely understand having to speak loudly to an elderly patron on the phone, library users HAVE gotten too loud since I was younger. When I was a kid, we were shushed if we talked louder than a whisper. Consequently, libraries became almost like churches to me, hallowed ground where you quietly browsed and read.
Now people use the internet with headphones loud enough for you to identify what song they’re listening to, let their kids run wild and screaming through the place, and talk in loud voices. I realize this just means that the “library culture” is changing, but I still long for the days when a hushed library was the norm.
Jul 21, 2011 at 8:20 pm rating: 27
#23
Lu
I’m a librarian and I have been shushed as well. I love that there is this stereotype about shushing librarians but the only time I shush is when a patron comes up to me tattling about how loud so and so is and that I should remind them that they are “in a library.” Libraries are not sacred temples of silence. If you want quiet then go to the quiet areas and let me do my job.
Jul 21, 2011 at 8:45 pm rating: 8
#24
Dianne
The freaky part is that is my maternal gmother’s exact handwriting, and she died in 2005 –
The soothing part is even as opinionated as she ever was, she was never that much of a crank about it…..
Jul 21, 2011 at 9:05 pm rating: 3
#25
TEAM NOTE WRITER
the librarians at my local are far more distracting and noisy than anyone else. just because you spend 8 hours a day in a place, doesn’t mean you should use your comfortably loud voice.
Jul 21, 2011 at 10:06 pm rating: 6
#26
bibberly
This person would have a hard time in my town – all of our library branches are busy and lively with noise all of the time. Then again, they are only open certain days of the week due to budget cuts, so we all have to go at the same time. However, there are no signs about cell phone use, and no one ever shushes anyone.
I’ve worked in school libraries (media centers) for the past five years, and the only time it’s ever been quiet is when we are used as a room for student testing (we hate that). Occasionally I have to shout, “Let’s turn the volume in here down a notch!” but that’s about the extent of it.
In my previous city, there was a librarian who reminded me of that Will Farrell character from SNL who couldn’t moderate his voice. That guy would yell whether he was helping you find a book or telling you it was your turn on the computer, and you could hear him throughout the single-story building. I can’t imagine anyone shushing that guy, although some other librarians told me they were happy to be transferred to a different branch.
Jul 21, 2011 at 10:07 pm rating: 3
#27
Loribl
I work in a library and I can always tell when someone in our town hasn’t visited our library because they will comment that it must be nice to work somewhere sooo quiet! I always reply that the local Fred Meyer is quieter most days.
We are extremely busy from open to close and even though we are a two story building, we have noise from both levels. Due to part of our building being a century old and part being less than thirty, we have open areas that carry sound VERY well. I can hear cell phone conversations in the upstairs back corners from my desk down stairs!
What I want to know is this: Why the HELL are your phone conversations sooooooo important that you can’t have them somewhere else? Other than someone calling a spouse or friend for the title of a book, I have yet to hear a conversation that couldn’t wait. Take the &%$##!! phones OUTSIDE, for God’s sake!
Jul 22, 2011 at 12:18 am rating: 20
#28
Rachel
The submitter says, “So much for Minnesota nice?” Minnesota nice is not truly nice. It is pretending to be nice and not actually being nice. This note is actually a perfect example of Minnesota nice!
Jul 22, 2011 at 6:39 pm rating: 6
#29
smartypants
Actually, I’m tempted to send a similar (but perhaps better worded) note to the employees at my university’s library. I understand they have to have an enormous staff to keep up the place, and that everyone needs an office and that some of these offices are going to end up close to the designated study areas, but do they have to listen to music with their office doors open? When their office is right next to one of the prime study spots? During exam time? And the employees that just stand in the hallways (that echo terribly) and chat about random personal shit are far more annoying than the girl talking on their cell phone (who at least does it in a hushed voice because WE ARE IN A FUCKING LIBRARY).
I know that working in the library is their job, and they have to be there every day, but I wish they could remember that sometimes students seek out the building not just to use the computers, but because libraries are traditionally quiet places, which are ideal for studying. Sometimes, due to poor roommate selection, it is the only reliably quiet place to study.
Jul 22, 2011 at 10:09 pm rating: 10
#30
Loribl
@ Ghost Writer–Fred Meyer is a local one stop or almost everything owned by Kroger.
Jul 22, 2011 at 11:53 pm rating: 0
#31
Sweet Pea
It is interesting how many of the comments here are from people who write about what they remember as children or young adults. Even now you people carry your experiences around as a rule to live by for yourselves and others. I find it interesting how that which we learn to be fact or absolute truth as adolescents often guides and defines our moral codes later on in our walks.
Culture is all about change. If culture did not advance it would die. Any life form that is stagnant will die. So too has time changed the beloved library from holy temple to community playground. Many current libraries have been forced to invite noise into their doors simply to remain open and regenerate the passion they once commanded.
One other interesting thought that struck me was that all my memories of youth are augmented. I remember objects in large proportion when in real life they are not, I remember crucial events of my past when no one else can even recal the day, and I remember impressions taught into me that have stuck with me to today. Some of these impressions i still continue to fight. . .
but it’s just a thought……
Jul 23, 2011 at 5:08 pm rating: 5
#32
Sweet Pea
perhaps what i was trying to say is by giving up you have given in to the new culture spreading it’s roots and digging in. therefore you have allowed what you have always acknowledged to be “the minority” to become “the majority.”
i guess the rest of my thoughts didn’t breach the walls either…….. or you just didn’t care.
Jul 23, 2011 at 11:22 pm rating: 2
#33
matt
I haven’t gone to a library in years, and I’m glad I haven’t. Why would anyone bother continuing to go to a library when these days you can just download the books you want onto your e-reader/ipad? Libraries are scary places full of dodgy, shifty looking old men and small children.
I’m amazed how strong most people’s views on here are about libraries; to me most libraries are nothing more than museum pieces.
Jul 24, 2011 at 7:22 am rating: 2
#34
Liebchen
I want to know where these obnoxiously loud libraries are.
I’ve lived in several different states over the years and been to several different libraries and have never had it where the noise is entirely too loud.
They are in no way the silent temples where if you blink too loud you’re going to be shushed and frankly I don’t think they should be required to. Unless its a campus library you don’t find that many people anymore using the library to study, so asking a question or two in a normal voice is not going to be that disruptive.
But that is no reason to be totally obnoxious and be some huge a-hole and let your kids run around the library like a pack of monkeys.
Be respectful and keep your noise to a respectful volume.
Jul 24, 2011 at 6:36 pm rating: 5
#35
zelmia
I remember this cartoon by Lynda Barry where she has her character go on a school trip to the local library. Writes Barry: “The first thing you notice when you walk into the library is that horrible smell of having to be quiet…” Still makes me giggle.
Jul 24, 2011 at 8:23 pm rating: 3
#36
Canthz_B
When did the sign change from “FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY” to “LOCAL COFFEE SHOP” again?
I’m pretty sure there’s a Starbucks within a block or two of any library, hell, of anywhere! Go there for lively discussions.
Libraries, like large public parks, are supposed to be places where we can find the space to contemplate without distraction. To appreciate the beauty in life, while the ugliness of existence is just outside the door.
Jul 25, 2011 at 10:16 am rating: 11
#37
redheadwglasses
I thought libraries were a place to look up dirty words and sex acts in the reference books without parents looking over my shoulder. (Something I did around age 13.)
Jul 25, 2011 at 12:30 pm rating: 6
#38
ringo
Reading the above just shows the lack of respect that some “people” do NOT have for anyone but themselves, I go to the library a few times a week and with few exceptions the experience is great, librarians speak normally and conduct business professionally and politely, no need to whisper but not loud, people with cell phones ringing or loud conversation are glared at. you want loud, the whole freakin world is loud, leave the libraries quiet, well until the funding shuts down the libraries and we can all go to a bankrupt and closed Borders uhhh nevermind or perhaps shout at Amazon.com through our wireless connection as you try to get the attention of a customer service rep from india…….
Jul 26, 2011 at 2:23 pm rating: 5
#39
Frida
I gotta say, though, I have lived in three states and I have never heard librarians and patrons talk as loudly as they do in Minnesota. It’s weird, because the “Minnesota Nice” thing is fairly true in most other respects–they just don’t seem to give much of a shit about being quiet in the library.
Aug 7, 2011 at 4:44 pm rating: 0
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