Fighting the Silence Norm at Swedish libraries

Many libraries in Sweden are becoming less attractive for book readers. This is particularly true in suburbs with many social problems. There are reports on drunk people, violence, loud youth gangs harassing visitors and staff, and robberies. Guards are being called in frequently.

The Swedish post-modern left has responded by criticising the "silence norm" at libraries. Strangely enough they are defending the bad behaviour of predominantly men this time, despite the alleged influence of Patriarchy.

Public Service Radio (Swedish Radio) posted the article "The library - a silent place or our common living room?". Weirder yet was a recent article in Litteraturmagazinet by librarian Sebastian Lönnlöv using a postmodern vocabulary.

He defends the loud people at the "people's library" where he works, calls it a "meeting place", and writes that it's even ok to be drunk there, as long as you don't disturb people or vomit (!). The article ends:

"You can smell bad at the library. You can be sad, you can be ill, you can be young and wild. There are limits, but those limits should not be dictated by a fine-literary middle class who want premises that they can be nostalgic about. Because we don't only exist for the literature-obsessed and well-behaved intelligentia".

Well, my comment is that public libraries don't exist for free. They are paid for by the public, and my modest estimate is that more than 90% of the general public want the library to be a quiet and safe place where people mainly go for reading. If this librarian and his friends wants to make his workplace a Social Justice project, people, including politicians, will react.

We are living in the information age and we can't take for granted that all libraries will exist in ten years. If libraries will still be libraries, many people will defend their existence. However, if libraries will continue to turn into "meeting places" for grownup babies who don't know how to behave, there won't be much sense for most people in wasting taxpayers' money on them.