This from the Daily News:
That’s because recently-appointed Brooklyn Public Library Executive
Director Dionne Mack-Harvin views libraries as community centers –
places where people are expected to talk to each other, not sit in
silence.Mack-Harvin is so determined to end the shushing that librarians
from all 60 branches have been attending training sessions to get the
word out about her approach."We’ve moved away from what some consider the ‘shushing library’
model of the past, from being a sterile, educational place that’s
somewhat elitist," she said, "to being a community space where everyone
walking in the door can find a place for themselves."Mack-Harvin’s no-shushing policy will be further backed up next
Sunday with the opening of a new auditorium at the Central Library.
With seats for 200, the auditorium will host performers from the Big
Apple Circus as its opener.
I came across this article when testing to see if my article showed up in Google – http://www.gettingboystoread.com/content/start-%E2%80%9Cno-shushing%E2%80%9D-policy-your-library.
Please read my article as they are both connected. I am going to add a link from my article to this one.
I like the idea of a community center where people can connect, but there should be areas where those of us who want to actually read can do so without shrieking children or guffawing adults. The previous commenter is right on target about Brooklyn students. Many of my high school age students use the public libraries to get work done before heading home to a small space with no privacy or quiet area. Even now, they often complain about the noise from younger children in the libraries. Libraries are meant for books, hence the name. Hopefully this new policy will accommodate everyone and not just those who need a place to hang out to socialize.
This is just making the BPL’s longtime unofficial policy official, but I have to ask “what’s wrong with a shushing library?”, or at least some shushing space? I presume the areas with the big tables, which generations of us have used as a quiet place amid the city’s cacophony, to read, study, and even do our taxes, won’t be called “Reading Rooms” anymore.
When did it become elitist to go to an institution which charges nothing with the expectation that one would learn something from the books (and, OK, other media) and not necessarily one’s peers? If Mack-Harvin is presuming that students don’t need the peace of the library to study, because they can do it at home, she is the elitist: many Brooklyn kids live in crowded, noisy conditions which aren’t conducive to schoolwork, and depend on the library for this.