LET'S TALK ABOUT LIBRARIES

 I know that this is close to Richard's heart because Shelley runs one of these.

'Close', 'Richard' and 'library' are words you haven't seen me use connected to each other before.

When Richard drove me to Shelley's library once he naturally parked as far away from the entrance that was possible without actually leaving the suburb. Of course it was raining at the time.

Libraries are on my mind for two reasons:

• I visited one in Christchurch recently.
• I listened to a National radio interview today relating to libraries.

I'll address the second thing first (sorry to confuse you Second).

I was surprised by a few things that the interviewee said. The dropping of overdue fees was one. Rebecca Matthews was bubbling over about how successful this council initiative was but was a bit cagey about how many overdue books there now are. No doubt soon there will be another RNZ story about how the libraries are short of books because borrowers just don't bother returning them. Sheesh!

The second thing that pissed me off was Matthews saying that the bad old days of requiring silence in libraries is gone. Users are encouraged to use them as a gathering place and to feel free and unrestricted. WTF? This leads me on to my first thing - my visit to a library in Christchurch.

When we had our apartment in Auckland I used to love walking to the central library to spend some time reading. It was a peaceful place. used by university students for study and writing assignments and people doing research or, like me, doing some reading and reflection. That changed over time as it became a congregation place for central Auckland's homeless and down and outers. They took over ever greater areas of the seating areas, talking loudly, sometimes fighting and generally making things unpleasant for those around them.

In Christchurch I was filling in a spare hour by reading a large tome about the Maori Battalion in WW2. This outfit fought in the same campaigns that my dad did in Greece, Crete, North Africa and Italy. As I was reading it a cellphone nearby rang and this guy - a homeless guy as it turned out from his conversation that everyone could hear - for 20 minutes yelled into his phone about his day, his yesterday, his plans for tomorrow and all sorts of inane and uninteresting stuff. I tell you - I'd rather read one of Robert's post than listen to that.

There was a time when library staff would tell someone like this guy to shut the fuck up (was that the correct procedure and language Shelley?) and to remove himself. I also remember a time when the library staff wouldn't need to do this because library users were courteous to others and respected the rules.

Sheesh!