Hot take: I visited the new library in Portland and the quiet rule is actually a problem

Honestly, I went there last Tuesday to get some work done, and the total silence felt weird. I saw a guy trying to whisper a question to a librarian and he got shushed by three different people. Tbh, it made the whole place feel tense, not peaceful. Has anyone else felt like some libraries are too strict about noise now?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_felix19d ago

The Portland library has study rooms you can book for group work. Most people just want a quiet floor to concentrate without hearing phone calls or loud conversations. Getting shushed for a whisper seems over the top, but maybe those people were trying to finish something important. It's a library, not a monastery, but total silence is kind of the point for a lot of folks.

lee_martinez9719d ago

Actually, the quiet floors are for total silence. That's the whole rule. The study rooms are for group talk.

wyatt_shah8523h ago

The Seattle Central Library quiet floor has signs that say "no talking, no whispering, no cell phones." I've seen staff ask people to leave for a single whispered sentence. In my experience, that strict rule is what makes the space work for people who truly need zero noise to focus.