Case Study Libraries

Libraries are an illuminating case study of a work environment, as users have a very large number of ideas about how they should operate and sound like, and what constitutes acceptable behaviour. Also, with a postgraduate participant group, almost everyone reported something about their library, or their choice not to use it. Libraries are one of the few public environments whose managers and sta seem to take auditory settings seriously, and city libraries invariably have dierent areas for dierent levels of noise. For instance, the Salford University library has areas for: quiet group work; general socialising; no noise at all; taking mobile phone calls; computer work; and bookable rooms for group work.

Despite this, libraries are a barely researched area of soundscape research. Dökmeci and Kang (2012) evaluated various sources within three libraries in Sheeld mostly used by students. They found:

Mobile phones, personal music players, and construction noise were rated highest for annoyance. On the other hand, walking/footsteps and page turning were rated at least annoying and even for some participants preferable in a library environment.

Following this, they determined some gender-based and academic-level-based soundscape preferences undergraduates broadly found libraries more acoustically comfortable than postgraduates and sta, and women found the level of reverberation more of a problem than men, for example. However, none of this begins to tell us why this is the case, returning to one of my key critiques of existing soundscape research. In this section then, I explore categories of possible soundscape response from the listener's perspective. Most participants didn't like working in libraries. This was for a variety of reasons, but remarkably there were responses on all four of my basic `noticed' categories: negative quiet, negative loud, positive quiet and positive loud (explained in Section 5.8 on page 224) remarkable for a single environment. Unlike most environments though, everyone had

an opinion on libraries. They were either avoided entirely due to being too noisy (in one case too quiet), or someone's favoured place of work due to it being perfectly quiet, or comfortably loud.

People who liked working in the library invariably preferred one specic context over others, and had made a conscious choice about their desired context.

A lot of nothingness vs. Eerily quiet

Brian considers the library to have a lot of nothingness and occasionally something. He works solely in the library, and never at home. He works there because it's quiet, too noisy to work at home, and goes other places to relax. The only sound he perceived in the library was people tapping their laptop keyboards. Brian therefore is an anomaly in this study he simply considers the library an essentially silent, quiet place of sanctuary. This is a place of maximum productivity and comfort. It is interesting therefore that no-one seems to agree with him that it is silent.

Claire gets to the library very early in the morning, due to a quicker and more pleasant commute at this time of day. Sta will be cleaning, or doing book reorganization. It can be eerily quiet in the older part of the library where she works, with only very occasional noises.

Claire: It's got really high ceilings and it's, it just feels, it's like an older part of the library, it feels quite grand, and it feels quite odd to be in there on your own.

It feels very odd to her that there's nothing happening, and Claire does generally have feelings of loneliness when not around friends or family. She feels out of place, and notices all the tiny noises. Moving around big journal volumes makes a lot of noise. She can work ne there without music until people start shuing around, then it gets too distracting, and she puts headphones on (more on coping mechanisms in Section 5.6 on page 199). Claire therefore perceives the same, `quiet' (at least acoustically) space very dierently to Brian. Instead of being a place of sanctuary, it's a place of loneliness and noise intrusions.

In her case, she prefers to use a walkman to provide a much louder, but more consistent auditory context.

Hive of activity vs. Showing my age

Francesca likes working in a library computer cluster. It's the only place she says she works eciently, and a lot.

Francesca: Uh, I do really like [this computer cluster] actually, I've found that over the past few years it's really the only place where I work really eciently, and a lot. It's a computer cluster that's kind of on the rst oor of the library so a lot of people don't like working there because it's too loud, [compared to] other sections of the library where there's kind of a perceived silence, but I nd that in those kind of environments um if anyone makes any noise then you become really aware of it. So if someone drops a pencil, then you're like a pencil's been dropped!, whereas on Blue 1 in the library, there's a constant hive of activity you know, and I work best with that because then if someone drops a pencil, you're not going to notice it, cos it's kind of in the background. Um, so now I can't really work at home just cos there's too many distractions, and certainly on campus this is the place I'll always work academically.

Lots of people don't like working here because it's too loud. Francesca though thinks other sections of the library have a perceived silence, but nds in those areas any small noise is a huge distraction. There's a constant `hive of activity' in her preferred cluster, which makes a lot of background noise so she doesn't get distracted as easily. She nds home too distracting to work, and this is her favourite place on campus to work.

Like Claire, Francesca sometimes uses a walkman in this space. However, if she's been in the library for the whole day with headphones on, she starts getting a headache and can't listen to music, and sound becomes a bit much to handle. Either way though, she doesn't mind asking people to be quiet if they're talking too loudly, and generally seems condent asking people to keep the noise down.

Gloria however nds the library not a great place to work, which she thinks is showing my age. It irritates her how students think they can talk while they're in the computer area,

having a loud talk, laugh or gossip. She thinks the rest of library is OK, although notably doesn't work there, but the computer area is too much to handle. Gloria therefore neither enjoys using a walkman, feels comfortable asking someone else to keep quiet, or likes workspaces with chatter in in general, even though she greatly appreciates conversation in the rest of her life. Perhaps this is a self-perceived generation gap, but it's the exact opposite of Francesca's attitude to the same space.

Imogen was initially surprised how much of John Rylands University Library didn't contain books, how modern it was, and how strange it was that there was nothing made of wood. She found people chatting and talking in what she perceives as a work space a very strange experience.

Imogen: People were chatting and talking and it was just strange for me because the last library I loved, in my last university I actually loved the library! The nerd that I am, I loved it because it was so peaceful, whereas this is not a peaceful library.

The library Imogen is used to in Dublin was by contrast very quiet and peaceful, and she much prefers it. John Rylands has dedicated spaces for dierent activities, and bookable rooms, and she really likes that aspect however. She had a dening experience complaining when some lads in the room next door were being too loud, talking about inappropriate things for a public space, thinking they couldn't be heard. The library sta kicked them out and were very apologetic, to her great surprise: I was surprised that they cared. It's interesting then that despite libraries' obvious, clearly signposted and delineated attempts to create a plethora of auditory contexts, and her own acute awareness of how the dierent spaces make her feel, she still feels unable to complain about the noise from other people. Generally though she likes the fact it's a social, working space, but feels like it's less of a library as a result, as if there is a true library experience.

A perfect balance?

For some, some areas of the library represented a perfect balance, always as a contrast to other areas which they disliked.

Laura prefers working in the library, or outside. In the library she prefers a specic quiet corner area, with a volume such that you can chat a bit quietly but it's not too noisy. This is in contrast to the second oor silent zone she never goes to she feels she can't work if it's perfectly silent, preferring a bit of `background noise'.

Laura: It's quiet enough because I think they, upstairs, [on the] rst oor, they still allow you to talk. You can talk, but it's still a bit quiet and then the next oor is too quiet for me, it's a silent zone I never sit in there.

INT: Why is that?

Laura: I don't know, I feel like I can't study when it's perfectly silent so for some reason. I prefer some, a bit of background noise even if it's the slightest. Another contrast is her local public library where she goes to collect leisure reading. It's loud and fairly busy so she never reads there, feeling like there is too much crammed into too small a space: children, adults and computers. This space is much too noisy to study. Oliver really likes quiet spaces, and will work in department labs as they are very quiet and he has a chance of a room to himself. He also really likes the library, feels it is very quiet, and gets lots of work done as there are no distractions. He tends to work in the second oor silent zone during term time, because it's too noisy in the rest of the library. Out of term time, he's started working on the rst oor as it's quiet then: paradoxically quiet in this context means that there's the potential to chat with other postgraduates when he wants. In term time the same space is really loud and annoying, though. As long as it's quiet however, this is his preferred work space.

Oliver therefore likes two categories of workspace `silent', or with a small group of other people doing similar work. Laura, like Claire prefers the latter; they both desire a certain amount of activity but with a fairly clearly dened threshold, including rules about times, oors and population density.

Overall, this case study demonstrates how specic people are about their work environ- ments; the variety of desirable environments between listeners; the height of expectation placed upon people's work environments; the range of opinion about what constitutes loud and quiet; and completely contradictory experiences of working in the same spaces. Clearly this is an area where soundscape analysis that does not consider the listeners as holistic people outside of the immediate environment could end up very conicted. Understanding how dierent listeners construct their preferences should be a large part of understanding how to create desirable library sound contexts.

It is remarkable how much eort already clearly goes into this on the part of the library sta and library designers, and how little people feel able to talk about it. Perhaps this is symbolic of how uncomfortable people feel asking others to be quiet. This hints at a need for libraries to actively solicit noise complaints even more, perhaps making explicit the range of things that people can do or ask about. Needless to say, libraries are a highly fruitful research location for a soundscape researcher.

5.3 Expectation