Well hello, the Internet. Nice to see you again for another curmudgeonly blog post, dipping once more into the unfathomable depths of cranky rage lurking beneath this mild-mannered exterior.
The local library has turned into a combination hyperdome wrestling centre with flashing lights, vacuous noise and obscene quantities of the kind of literature that is wholly unrepresentative of the notion that we are a moderately advanced culture. That's right, kids, the path to ruin is one where the literate people in our society will only read chick lit about vampires or the sorts of books that form the basis for films with which spend their entire plot budget on explosions. This is the path to a dystopian future where the monkeys keep people in cages and Charlton Heston confuses shouting with dramatic emotional depth ("It's a maaaaadhooooooooouse!").
I dream of the libraries I remember from my childhood, where you had to be quiet on pain of a stern shushing from a serious-looking librarian. The modern community library is the product of a fallen, decadently ignorant civilisation. There are toys, free internet access (ergo lots of bogans shouting out their Farmville achievements), and no one to stop the kids from the local high school hooking up on the beanbags in the reading area. Frankly, it makes me fantasise about when global hegemony is mine and I get to institute literacy and intelligence tests in order to ensure that the deeply stupid are quarantined in their own homes. This may sound somewhat illiberal, but I can assure you that it is essentially for their own safety. I'm not cruel, they'll still have access to all the Judge Judy, Jerry Springer, and Farmville they could want. Give the modern semi-literate bogan a McDonalds which delivers and house arrest will probably even be a kindness.
I don't understand this notion that we need to 'modernise' libraries, as though free access to books is somehow an anticlimax that can only be sold to the populace by stealth. "Oh look, here near all the free internet access and DVD collections of Jersey Shore, there are these bound things with lines of text in them! Maybe you could pick up some literacy by sheer proximity!" It is as though local governments are trying to force the stupid to read the way a parent goads a recalcitrant toddler to eat, hiding the wholesome stuff under mountains of sugary crap "Here comes the aeroplane!" Surely we have enough books that are the literary equivalent of cheezburgers (insert yet another dig at Stephanie Meyer here) that this misguided democratisation of our libraries is at best counter-productive, and at worst, simply making libraries no fun for people who actually like reading. Give them some bread with their cake, preferably something dense and grainy with nutritional value and intellectual depth.
I'm painfully aware this entire rant seems a bit elitist and classist, particularly given that it is highly probable that the semi-literate goons disturbing the library peace and disrespecting the books are from the disadvantaged socio-economic classes. We are talking the sorts of people who consider the baby bonus value for money, and who plan a fourth child as a finance scheme for a flatscreen television. Flatscreens appear to be important bogan lifestyle necessities, perhaps because Border Security just isn't as edifying on the smaller screen.
It is elitist, but only a little. I love the idea of democratisation of knowledge. I love the concept of universal literacy, the idea that everyone can have access to the combined knowledge of Western (and for that matter, Eastern) civilisation. Every child should be given the opportunity to know and love Orwell. I just think that turning libraries into entertainment complexes is the worst possible way to go about this grand plan. We should be concerned with helping people reach a reasonable standard, rather than continually lowering the bar. By lowering our expectations of these groups within society we do them a far greater disservice in the long term.
Also, my idealism falters somewhat when confronted with the sorts of people who think making a flamethrower from a Lynx deodorant is the height of intellectual endeavour. I am transported to memories of a high school experience in which learning how to put out spot fires in your hair was a necessary survival skill. I can't help wishing these kids had paid more attention when the primary school was trying to help them understand the complexities of The Very Hungry Caterpillar. There is no doubt that the system failed them and that many were probably raised by the kind of only barely sentient bogan parents who see the education system as convenient childcare, a necessary evil until the kids hit sixteen and can go start a family of their own on the dole. Nobody inspired them with the written word, read to them as children, listened to them read. Nobody showed them the value in knowledge, and this is a tragedy. I don't have an easy fix for this, but I think it's probably not a terrible start to bring back corporal punishment and empower librarians to brutally beat people incapable of using inside voices within what should be peaceful places of learning.
At the very least, we should be capable of ensuring a minimal standard of behaviour for within libraries such that they are not periodically turned into centres attracting confused-looking neanderthals whose minimal attention-spans are positively indulged with shiny colours and the sort of literature which would be of more social use pulped and lining litter trays.
Oh, such utopian and nostalgic dreams. The peaceful stacks, the quiet studying areas, the libraries of my youth are gone forever. Libraries now apparently feel the need to compete with the local shopping centre for tack and vacuous shiny things, encouraging 'expression' and 'approachability' so that the bogan is essentially transported to the book section of Big W, except the books are free and no one will shout at them for being particularly obnoxious or letting their children climb all over the shelves.
It is archaic, and far too much to hope, this expectation that people might come to the library to be quiet and read something. It is surely only a matter of time before they begin to hold Zumba classes and offering little cocktail sausages on sticks. And then, why not allow for corporate sponsorship, so that the children's section could, for example, be sponsored by Dora the Explorer and be all about teaching pidgin Spanish and the joy of merchandising to inquiring young minds? Hola Kids! Come Explore(TM) the Dora The Explore(TM) Combine Harvester! It's pink and makes pretty sounds while it's grinding the other neighbourhood kids into a scarlet jammy pulp!
I may have gotten a little carried away there, although since there is apparently already a Dora themed toaster, probably not as carried away as it is possible to get. Let me make this simple point relatively clear. The library should contain books. It should contain useful periodicals. There's probably nothing wrong with some documentary style DVDs in moderation. It should probably contain some sort of internet access, but preferably in a space removed from other areas of the library so that no one needs to hear excitable bogans ramble on about how good they are at Farmville. And maybe some sort of nasty-looking contraption with lots of spikes bearing a sign which explains in quite small and graphic words what happens to those who can't manage to keep their voices down and control their infinitesimally tiny attention spans for the duration of their stay in the region of the books.
We are unfair on the bogan. By never requiring it to adhere to a bare standard of civility we never give it the opportunity to peel itself from the glittery tack of its cultural aesthetic to embrace something more substantial. The modern library is in the business of making the bread and circuses shinier and more distracting while civilisation itself is buried under a mound of consumeristic refuse.
Don't get me started on museums without explanatory placard things, either. Glorified fucking pomo art displays...
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