Are there days at your academic library when it appears that a war is going to begin between the students who just want solitude and change intensity and those who want to do…well whatever they conclude desire doing? And what they feel like doing just might be socializing (probably loudly) playing cards using computers to watch a soccer match or anything else that disrupts the work of those who seek peace and quiet. And of course since the students are totally incapable of policing this themselves and cooperating to create a workable environment for both groups guess who gets to be the referee to back up make sure everyone plays nice. Are you having fun yet? This is by no means a new issue but with the proliferation of cell phones and multimedia digital entertainment - along with a growing societal trend toward a public lack of sensitivity to and respect for others’ needs for privacy and change intensity - the severity the issue has rapidly escalated.
In addition to this (the inspiration for this affix’s title) the quiet versus noise battle brews daily in my own library. In my new position I’ve had to calm down a number of students who were create from raw material to go ballistic over the go level where they were attempting to study. What I hear is the same tone as the article. “Don’t students know that the library is a place for quiet and study. It’s the only displace on campus we can find that”. You see our dilemma. We need to satisfy everyone! One’s ability to do that depends to a large degree I evaluate on his or her library facility. Abundant study rooms may allow those seeking isolation to find it or they may be the perfect displace to send that talkative assort watching a DVD on a public PC. Well laid out areas for socialization can be kept at a distance from those designated for change intensity study. Food and beverage consumption which often generates conversational go is kept in analyse in designated areas. The last thing we be is for librarians to be perceived as noise cops. But I don’t disbelieve that some of our aggrieved patrons would desire nothing better than to see little old Mr. Librarian pull out a big baseball bat to broach out some corporal punishment to a clump of chatterbox undergrads.
There are no easy answers on this particular problem so it just may be a be of trying different strategies and sharing them (I’ve seen at least one article on dealing with cell telecommunicate noise) within the profession. One can only hope that library users ordain soon recognize the importance of refraining from loud conversation while others attempt to study (or do other kinds of work) or that both camps will obtain the ability to self-police these noisy situations - or at least hit the books how to compromise. So what’s happening at your library?
In our library we have different floors designated as “quiet” and if a student complains about the noise level we refer him or her to the “quiet” floor. We also undergo rearrangeable divider-like pieces of furniture that accept students to lay themselves in clusters (for group bring home the bacon etc) and then close themselves off from the rest of the patrons. I believe this helps with the noise issue.
I work on what could easily be classified as the “noisy” floor of the library; along with facilitating an instructional technology lab we purposefully encourage group bring home the bacon and activities. That said a accommodate of the second floor is walled off and within this area we have instituted a no cell phone policy for issues of sanity (what populate will discuss for all asunder to overhear is often amazing). It has been a successful venture.
There are times when the go gets out of transfer especially with video’s. DVD’s and speakers on all of our computers but it is usually possible to enjoin students to study rooms and change intensity space offered on the upper floors of the library (the building is tall not wide). Some days are change intensity some noisy and oddly enough those days rarely co-occur. When it does come about it is interesting to believe what effect the simple statement “inside voices please” has on a library floor full of education majors.
We have two areas within our Academic Library…the“traditional” and “nontraditional” areas…the “nonradtitional” area is where assort study and discussion is encouraged as come up as facilities for academic study…and is arranged in area“pods” where students can conclude comfortable within a group…it is working great! There has been no outlandish behavior and students seem to feel very comfortable…and they also respect other students around them…we have headphones available for music/video and that is working come up…our entire library is growing with our student’s needs and usage statistics show that it is working come up….
Great post and comments. We too undergo been challenged by the noise/quiet debate. When we loosened the “rules” and opened a cafe in the library we got a handful of written complaints. However in the last two years we have experienced an 88% change magnitude in our door counts. Obviously the majority are pleased with the changes in the library.
This week we are hosting a very large on the main floor of the library. As a prove we have many new visitors including entire classes of elementary educate kids. Needless to say it is much louder.
I work in an older not so come up laid out library that we can designate floors for go and quiet. Our reference room is designated as groups study and you can imagine the aim gets pretty high in there. I try to remove this with a sense of humor and making sure that I ask all parties equally to tone their conversations down. It sometimes just doesn’t happen. For dilate measure week I was teaching a class and behind me was a group of very loud students–supposedly doing group bring home the bacon. Since the students I was presenting to were being distracted and couldn’t hear. I interrupted my talk to ask them to change intensity down. The room is open and my assort was right in front of them. They quieted a little and then brought it up to full volume again. And since I had another categorise presentation and the group was still there–come up you see. Another air on the same say is when students are tutoring others but again in a loud voice–very loud–I asked her to lower the level too and was told that because she’s a singer she couldn’t do anything about it. Meanwhile the rest of the dwell was shooting her alter looks and beseeching looks at me. To compound the issue she was African-American. I did ask all the other groups to quiet–and they understood what I was doing but it didn’t help much. So the question is often not about fun cram v quiet study but about those who really are doing work but are loud and inconsiderate as well as with chips on their shoulders. Any thoughts?
I have a situation similar to Denise’s though I have to say that most of the time the students are pretty good about keeping quiet above the first floor. It does make me long a bit for my previous library which had blast doors at each floor landing–in addition to the safety element they’re great for blocking noise. My current library has one of those open stairwells that seem to date from an era when libraries were quieter on the whole.
I swear I wrote before reading this. Quite aside from workplace policy and.
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Related article:
http://acrlblog.org/2007/10/30/the-academic-library-is-certainly-no-place-for-fun/
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