By Julie Moore
Libraries, traditional and modern are like onions. Peel away the layers of apparent tedium, dullness row after row of books, and you have eccentric librarians, odd members of the public and always, but always, an odd smell in the reference section (or is it just me?). All change! Goodbye traditional, ‘silence please’ libraries and hello, Mediatheques!
...Zhasam- Computers, visual display units, cooking demonstrations (our village celebrates culinary endeavours) and, quelle horreur, music playing via a PA system. Working in silence is now classified as a special need, and a request for a quiet working room met with a mixture of professionalism, pity and the furtive passing of your details to the Ministry for Internal Security.
I digress. Far from criticizing the new generation of ‘public information amenity’( image of public toilet), I love them. They have the ambience of a meta-marketplace. Parents can bring offspring and place them on bean-bags. Nothing new in that, save for now, the bean-bags have plug-points for Mirelle’s e-pod, so she may, uninterrupted, continue to download 4 media inputs into her tiny, (now) over-crowded cranium. The DVD collection area looks similar, but stark difference now that you are invited to watch a film, in a comfy armchair - library-cinema. The new Mediatheques are multi-faceted venues. If you landed, blindfolded into the middle of one, you would be forgiven for identifying the building as a cafe-cum-kindergarten-cum-youth club-cum-parent respite cum-art gallery cum-stationary shop.
Soon, I presume, you will be allowed to eat, drink, laugh and perform fringe theatre in the non-fiction aisles. Bizarrely, our village cafe is now more tranquil, where one can actually read a book quietly, whilst the waiter whispers, respectfully. Recently, our Mediatheque hosted a ‘living sculpture’ expose - visitors were encouraged to thump large objects ‘ to celebrate ‘resonate sound’ - the librarians were not happy (especially the large ones).
Dead-tree books are now cherished almost as museum objects. I saw a small group of children blinking at a row of tomes the other day. Not too sure whether they were taking time to choose their titles, or fathom what these curious objects were, Either way, their beady-little eyes soon returned to their e-book. I do applaud the vast collection of journals, which range from Geoscientist to Ongles Today. I’d love to sit on the ‘forward planning’ committee for my local mediatheque; car-maintenance in the lovely new garden and swing-dancing sessions in the lobby. All library staff... sorry, Media-technicians, are natural tutors of meditation, spending their entire working hours (until now) in monastic-style silence. As they up-skill their profession, they can now offer both spiritual tutoring in the old reference section and -should it be required, yodelling. The new-look library now has the feel of an old-style adult education venue, so why not merge the two, the digital era makes all things possible?
The reading room