Patrons of High Culture
November 6, 2010
ALAN WRITES:
Regarding libraries as sanctuaries for the homeless: “The homeless” is code for bums, loafers, panhandlers, parasites, and worse. All of them enjoy the refuge of public libraries. I have seen them sleep at library tables for hours, annoy staff and patrons, misplace books at whim, chat up women, and talk with each other about who’s in and who’s out (of jail). They love to loiter for hours, gaping at beautiful, expensive books on art, architecture, and photography and discretely removing pages they especially like.
Librarians must suffer their presence because those who run libraries (not necessarily librarians) will do nothing to kick them out or keep them out. Indeed, librarians and other staff are expected to defer to their plight with sympathy and helpful advice on how to improve their situation. (That is, of course, hilarious: Men who wish to improve themselves do not loiter day after day in libraries, as these men do.) Librarianship has thus expanded to include social work. “Standards” are elitist and discriminatory and all those other nasty things, and everyone is equal to everyone else – such is the frame of mind of those who now run public libraries.
This is just one example of what people get when they buy ideas like “egalitarianism” and “multiculturalism.” They deserve it.
On the subject of refreshments in libraries, which was also mentioned in the previous post: Have any of your readers noticed how impossible it is for people who use computers at public libraries to survive longer than twenty minutes without taking a slug from the life-sustaining liquids they carry with them everywhere? Indeed this is a dramatic departure from the standards that libraries once upheld. But library etiquette is just another casualty of the cultural revolution that we have witnessed over the past half-century.
— Comments —
Karen I. writes:
I have been very careful to watch my children at our local library since a child in a neighboring small town was sexually assaulted in the children’s section in their local library. The little girl’s mother was just a few rows away when it happened. The perpetrator covered the child’s mouth so she could not scream. It is so sad that children are not even safe in libraries anymore.
Laura writes:
God help us. A child molested in a public library: that’s inconceivable.
James P. writes:
Alan writes: “They love to loiter for hours, gaping at beautiful, expensive books on art, architecture, and photography and discretely removing pages they especially like.”
The bums who loiter at my local library have no apparent interest in books of any kind. Mainly they use the Internet. They spend a lot of time loitering just outside the library entrance, which is bad enough but better than if they actually came inside.
