Seattle Public Library - Queen Anne Branch

Seattle Public Library - Queen Anne Branch
Category: Libraries
Neighborhood: Queen Anne
Update - 4/10/2011
WINNER of the Decade (by near unanimous acclamation)!
Noisiest Library in Seattle, 2005-2011. And proud of it.

And if you the patron don't like it, take your hearing aid out, or put in your headphones. Or talk loudly yourself. Or just don't go at all.

(At least, I'm not doing an Alexandra Wallace).

Mark Twain in 1867 in "Innocents Abroad" described Americans [tourists] "who talked very loudly and coarsely, and laughed boisterously when all others were so quiet and well behaved."

Or Edith Wharton, who Jonathan Franzen describes as being "hostile to the rawness and noise and vulgarity of America." Wharten was not referring to material and technological advances.

http://www.newyorker.c...

* * * * *

These are the (unspoken & cool) Rules of Conduct at this branch:

(1) Librarians encourage patrons to speak at the top of their voices. "Turn it up, folks! We can't hear ya!"

(2) Librarians model this behavior by frequently speaking at the top of their voices (other staff are exempt). "One of the most important things we learned in Library School was to be loud. In fact, we don't have to think about it anymore."

(3) Librarians encourage patrons and matrons to stand in the middle of the main room engaging in raucous social chit-chat*:

"Sammy got a toothache...and my God! Can you believe it? I mean can you REALLY believe it! Ha-ha-ha-ha!!! Awesome. I mean super-awesome...Hey, just wait, I gotta answer my cell-phone. It's Mark. You know, Mark, don't you? Yeah, you do...remember when we out for drinks Saturday at...?"

There just happen to be a lot of books (and some ugly wooden furniture) here.

(4) Librarians allow children to run around unsupervised, screaming and crying. "Run, baby, run!"

(5) Librarians throw a hissy fit if you ask them to speak quietly and not disturb library patrons. [Note: this will probably NOT happen if you are of a certain physical appearance, and I don't mean necessarily Caucasian. Queen Anne matrons, three-piece suits, and black persons, you have nothing to worry about].

"Would you mind lowering your voice please? People are studying and doing research."

" N O . YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO LEAVE. Right now. "

"Why?"

" I'M GOING TO CALL SECURITY."

"Did you forget to take your medication today? (Or have a flashback of your time at the Rainier Beach branch library?)"

(6) Librarians can be dismissed for kidnapping. Or extortion. But not much else.

* that is of no interest whatsoever to anyone but themselves and maybe their significant other.

* * * * *

If you want to read in relative peace, go to the Central Library fifth floor Atrium or 9th floor Reading Room. Not here, an Oprah romper room for all ages.
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3 Previous Reviews: Hide »
10/13/2010
"The Seattle Public Library does not allow the use of slug repellent on its premises."

* * * * *

Libraries used to be quiet places to read, browse, do research, which is important, as not all of us live with considerate neighbors or house-mates. Unfortunately, that is no longer always the case for a surprising reason: Library staff!

This is the case with the petite Queen Anne Library, housed in a claustrophobic three-room neo-Tudor brick Carnegie building.

* * * * *

For one reason, a new librarian--a tall, silver-haired, absent-minded man with a eunuchly--I mean, uniquely--inspired vision of humanity consistently infringes on the rights of library patrons to concentrate in peace and quiet on reading and research.

After months of hearing him raise his unpleasant (loud, adenoidal) voice as if he were sitting in a lounge chaise on his porch and talking to the next door neighbor, I finally asked him a few days ago, "Would you mind keeping the level of this conversation down? There are people trying to concentrate..."

(I was sheepishly embarrassed to have to actually remind a librarian he should not be loud).

Before I had a chance to finish, he exploded in a very loud, enraged voice " N O ! " as if he were beating his dog.

No explanation whatsoever. I suspect barely veiled, virulent racism. I was an easy target for this frustrated individual--and as you know, all librarians are frustrated spinsters. Or bachelors.

I was speechless. Before I had a chance to recover my bearings, he yelled at me, " YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO LEAVE THE LIBRARY. NOW." No explanation whatsoever.

A trigger-happy librarian creates a disturbance--and harasses me--just because I made a civil request of him.

For my part, I had made the faulty assumption that I was dealing with a reasonable, unprejudiced individual. Or that the public servants in our Emerald City rarely misuse their authority and get away with it.

(I guess I am just too honest: I told him to his face, after he stepped within two inches of my face, that he was a boor).

Some may, for that matter, struggle with chemical dependence, compulsive lying, mental illness, bad career counseling, astrological accidents, sartorial mishaps, whatever.

This guy I is just trying to save his own hide, whatever the cost to his moral conscience when he told Marilynne Gardner, Acting Head, that he had asked me to wait until he had finished speaking with a patron.

The man is a liar.

Pity those who have to work with--or under--people like this man. I do get a sense that library workers, with union-like discipline, cover for, and never rat on, each other.

In the meantime, what about (his) returning to work at the Washington Department of Corrections--as a prison librarian?

How the Library lets people like this keep their jobs is a real mystery. Only the Byzantine inner workings of the Administration would provide a clue--and mum's the word.

* * * * *

Hatred springs as surely from being verbally and emotionally abused as it does from being physical beaten. Forgiveness is not easy.

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8/5/2009
Since my last review, this library has become increasingly busy and, I might add, claustrophobic.

Monday evening, for instance, at 6:40 p.m., there were two dozen persons intently reading and working in the adult reading room (one of the two wings of the building). In other words, there were no vacant seats.

The computer terminal space behind the librarian's desk was also completely full, with a baker's dozen of patrons, all silent and busily tapping away at their keyboards.

For lack of space, I decided to sit in the children's reading room, during which time a librarian walked in with a patron to help him select reading material. She would periodically raise her voice in clarion peals of laughter (she obviously enjoys her job), which were pretty disruptive, if not downright frightening.

Since the person she was peaking to was only about six inches away, there was really no need to be speaking so loudly. I know she means well and is trying to be helpful, but still...it's bizarre when the public is respecting rules of public decorum and simple commonsense but the staff is not.

I don't know how many persons felt the way I did: "Please lower your voice! A little self-control!"

I wish I could have slipped her a valium.

The other librarian could enter an Olympic long-distance yodeling decathlon. (I'm sure she'd place at least with a silver medal). With some Queen Anne patrons she could do duets, too. From one mountain top to the next.

Unfortunately, the staff here is either very discreet or else they are mini human megaphones. My sympathies go out to the former.

Compare to the Fremont, Admiral, or Douglas Truth Yesler branches...

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10/23/2007
After a year of being closed to make way for renovations to the building, the modest Queen Anne branch, one of the original Carnegie libraries in a neo-Tudor architectural style--that resembles mostly closely the Fremont branch--, finally re-opened in the summer of 2007.

The two main changes that are in evidence are the following: (1) more computer terminals and (2) re-arrangement of the two reading rooms, one for adults, the other for children. This a definite improvement, as even though the physical space itself has not been enlarged, it still feels more spacious.

The creaky oak furniture is still the same, and there is (still) no air-conditioning. Everything else seems pretty much the same.

My main beef about this branch is that some of the staff, though helpful, seem to not care how loud things get--and they do, with the partitions between the two reading rooms being only partial, with the end result that sound travels all over the library.

In particular, the voices of one librarian and one other staff member tend to cascade and bubble over into giggles and waves of enthusiasm more appropriate perhaps for a carnival or for, perhaps, Filene's basement in Boston.

Two younger staff members, however, speak at a volume which allows them to communicate effectively with the public without bothering others not part of the actual conversation under way.

It is odd that the Douglas-Truth branch library, in the Central Area, which also had a recent make-over plus an addition, is much quieter, with the staff and the patrons in general respecting the needs of those engaged in quiet reading and research.

In fact, I don't think I've heard staff members talk as loudly--in such a small physical space--, overall, as the staff here (Ballard, Capitol Hill, Fremont, Greenlake, Magnolia branches, etc.).

Another patron told me the other day that she brought up the issue of "loud voices" with the staff once and that they had just looked at her...and then ignored her.

When I want to go to a place to quietly read a book, newspaper, or magazine, I don't go here.

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