The Library-Gestapo

The library has always represented a place of peace and sanctuary for me. I have loving memories of whiling away hot summer days holed up either in the school library or in the local library in the delightful airconditioning with a world of adventure on paper.


I introduced my boys to books and to the joys of the library when they were still very young and our local library was my sanctum during a brief stint at homeschooling. Those wonderful ladies, the librarians, kept my children excited, entertained and enthusiastic about reading and gave me a glorious and much needed break. The library was a safe place that I could go and I could take my children. It was a way of travelling through the world, having extraordinary adventures and meeting exceptional people without ever fearing for the safety of my boys.


The first school that my boys went to had another wonderful library, staffed with glorious ladies who valued reading, encouraged children to borrow wildly and generally believed that any use of the library would lure unsuspecting readers in.


It came as a rude shock to me, then, when yesterday I encountered the Library-Nazi and her SS second in command at the boys' current school. B1 had rugby training after school and I had thought that instead of wandering the school grounds for one and a half hours waiting for him to finish, B2 and I might use the time to do homework and read some books. Accordingly, I approached the head librarian to ask if we could use the library for this purpose and was told summarily that the library was not a "babysitting service" and if she were to allow me and B2 to use the library, then she'd have to let everyone in. Umm.. isn't that the point of a library?


Babysitting service? I hadn't asked her to care for B2 while I wandered off to go shopping. I was asking if we could sit at a desk, do homework and peruse the books in the library.


So what was her alternative to using the school library for this purpose? "There's a coffee shop down the road you could use". Mmmm... the point of using the library is that it's quiet and would allow us both to concentrate on what we're doing without being exposed to the volume of noise encountered in a coffee shop.


Did I voice my concerns? Well, yes. Some of them. But I'll admit that I was so dumbstruck at her attitude that I probably stood there doing a fine impersonation of a goldfish rather than calling her on her bizarre attitude.


So, the school library has gone onto the blacklist of Places I Do Not Expose the Children To and I'll be taking them to the local library more often instead. Thank goodness for the wonderful, hard-working and sensible librarians there!


An Addendum: http://curiousexpeditions.org/?p=78