Who, Me?!

"You can't move furniture around like that," said a stern voice beside me. "And you can't block the aisle. Put the chair back where you got it."

I stared open-mouthed at the library security guard hovering over me. Was she talking to ME? I had pulled a chair from a nearby table in order to see the books on the bottom shelf, having reached the age when reading call numbers is a challenge and floor-sitting (and floor-getting-up-from) is best avoided. No one else was near my aisle; I would certainly have moved out of the way of anyone who came near.

I sat there blinking up at her in disbelief. "Put the chair back," she said again, her tone of voice ratcheting up a notch. I felt a surge of rage rise up inside me, and I almost said, "Are you kidding?!" Then, since I never want to be a Difficult Person and since I obey all authority figures, especially those in uniform, I swallowed my anger and humbly dragged the chair back to its place. The guard moved on, stopping to have a loud conversation with some people at the next table. I returned to the shelves whose titles I now could not see, gathered my things, and left in a huff, promising myself I would never again return to that library. I knew I was reacting like a teenager, but I didn't care.

In the car I sat in appalled disbelief. I JUST GOT YELLED AT IN A LIBRARY! I kept telling myself. I considered going back into the library, finding the director, and telling him/her that I would never be back, that a library is a sacred place for me, a place I would never profane. I spent half my childhood in various libraries, and never once got yelled at. As an English teacher I was one of the few faculty members who actually used the library and insisted that my students use it. I loved it so much I became a school librarian, doing everything I could to make the library a place kids would want to be. I even wrote a novel with a library as the setting! I am a Friend of the Library! I am one of the few people left who still whispers in libraries! I DO NOT GET YELLED AT IN LIBRARIES!!

I calmed down and tried, in fairness to the guard and the library's higher authorities, to imagine why it would be necessary to enforce or even have a rule against moving a chair. Of course there are people who will move a chair and not move it back. There are people who will block an aisle even when someone clearly needs to get by. This particular library is heavily used by homeless people, and I'm sure the librarians are torn between making patrons feel at home and keeping them from taking over the library as their home. Having spent five years as a librarian to teenagers who were often just looking for a place to hang out, I know what havoc some patrons can wreak.

But moving a chair in a nearly-empty library to sit quietly studying books is not wreaking havoc. Acting as if it is can only drive patrons away. In this age of declining readership, that just makes me sad. I'm already over what happened today. Now I hope the library will recover.