The Deceiving Library

It was a building that transformed as the arms circled around the perimeter of a clock; in the dark hours, this building thrives; in the light hours, this building suffers. When students are in their dark hours of slaving away in classes, the library is vacant, only occupied with those with a free period who wish to work on homework, read a book, or work on productive tasks. In the light hours, when students can exhibit the outdoors, the library is excavated of these productive people to be filled up with those in need of a place to socialize, make noise, and eat food. A library stands for individualism: the silence that accompanies a library implies no communication between others. People who are alone with their book, reading to themselves, teaching themselves, enjoying themselves can only thrive in the dark hours despite the broad rays of sun that flood the room.

The Big House Library is a sanctuary from late work for those who procrastinate with their work. The dark hours smite recognition into the frantic minds and rush the work. However, it also is a place of information and correctiveness. The sun sheds light onto the grim situation that many burden during the school hours, and the white walls reflect and magnify the effect; lighting the building builds a positive attitude. The orderliness of books is professional as well as the lineup of computers. Windows show the existence of life and periodically give a breeze to relieve stress. The attack of cold air against red cheeks feels like a thousand small pinches, and it relieves and snaps a person into attention.

In the heat of the day, the heat of the students stampede into the welcoming, open doors of the air conditioned Big House Library and proceed to uproot the quiet help center into a gang hang out location to game on computers, to speak with vulgarity, to chomp at complimentary snacks. The reek and stench of only one food can cause the library to become a hostile environment for focus, wakening the monster stomach, causing it to growl, demanding for food, stopping work and train of thought, standing up to get food, seeing friends on the way, getting distracted, talking to friends, making noise, eating more food, sitting back down, trying to rediscover what one was working on. The noise also threatens the productivity that the library can offer: the noise is like a family of chimpanzees after the zookeeper throws some bananas into their cage. Food. Wakening the monster stomach. Noise. The result of food. Chimpanzees. Closely related to humans. Food, therefore, cannot be a healthy diet for the studying community.

The way that library books are organized and displayed on the shelves is comparable to a soldier in the army. A queue of books line uniformly; a regiment of soldiers stand solidly. The librarian checks and organizes books, while the general commands and disciplines soldiers; the books stay and live in their shelf, and the soldiers respond and obey to their orders. The librarian is the overlord; the general is the commander. If a book is out of place, it is reassessed; if a soldier is out of line, he is chastised. They need to undertake extreme conditioning before they can be on the line. The binding, tagging, and sorting that books undertake is just as gruesome as the cardiovascular, strength, and endurance that soldiers endure. Children’s backpacks contain the hazards of spoiled lunch, spilt drinks, and peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches that degrade and erode the pages and bindings of books; enemy encampments comprise the dangers of slain allies, lost supplies, and torture instruments that weaken and demoralize the hearts and souls of soldiers. Yearbooks are ransomed to kids for the return of library books; war is threatened to enemies for the restoration of captured soldiers. Once back at the base or back at the shelf, they line up in a queue to obey orders.

Reading, writing, focusing—these activities keep the library functional. With the abundance of books and magazines and comics and computers, entertainment as well as research are reasons to visit the library. Unfortunately, the entertainment values and audience exceed the minuscule group of people who wish to use it as a research center, and the army of teenagers cause it to become a playground. The library resembles a work ethic, but in reality, it is not; in Joan Didion’s Many Mansions, the Reagan residence is described in a similar fashion: “The walls ‘resemble’ local adobe, but they are not” (68). The house—vast and vacant, white and bright, hard and cold—portrays a powerful appearance but an empty reality just as the library boasts helpfulness with an entertainment reality.

Joe