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L
IBRARIES have long had a reputation for being places of silence, with only the occasional “hush” to break the calm. Obviously, we know that silent libraries don’t exist but like many library and librarian stereotypes, the myth persists.
Kate Egglestone has been in touch with one partial rebuttal to the silent library narrative, gleaned from the pages of the Daily Mail and in response to a reader’s question about the quietest place on earth. The following response came from P. Alexander, who wrote: “Wherever you are on Earth, there might be wind on the trees, waves on the shore, birdsong or the constant hum of traffic.”
They go on to explain that “Even libraries have quite high background sound levels.” Even Libraries…! The real answer of course is Microsoft’s anechoic chamber, which was built to help the company test its audio products and sound levels emitted from devices. The room has a background noise level of -20.3dB, which is 20 decibels below the range of human hearing and close to the volume of air molecules colliding. Being inside the room is described by CNN’s Jacopo Prisco as “downright eerie”, adding: “If you stand in it for long enough, you start to hear your heartbeat. A ringing in your ears becomes deafening. When you move, your bones make a grinding noise. Eventually you lose your balance, because the absolute lack of reverberation sabotages your spatial awareness.” (
https://cnn.it/3nx7hb0). “Silence is the perfectest herald of joy,” according to Claudio in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, and that quote is the perfectest way for us to move seamlessly to our next item. A librarian in Stratford-Upon-Avon has been moonlighting as the great playwright, guiding tourists to Tudor World around the town. William
April-May 2021
A famous motoring name comes to the end of the road, seen here in its original clothes from the early 1990s.
Stafford, who works at the town’s library, told the Stratford-upon-Avon Herald (
https://bit.ly/2QG) that “As we are next door to the birthplace I thought it would be fun to grow the little beard because the hair was going naturally anyway so it was easy to get the Shakespeare look. People wander into the library and see that on my name badge it says William – they look at me and do a double take.” Now, how to get from Shakespeare to the Ford Mondeo… While we ponder on that, its time to mark the end of an era as Ford have announced it will no longer make its long-lived line of Mondeo cars. After 30 years of the car that inspired the concept of Mondeo Man, production is due to come to an end – and who better than Jeremy Clarkson to help remind us why hundreds of thousands of Mondeos have been sold in the UK. His review from 2005, dragged up by numerous news outlets and forwarded to Mediawatching by Alan Bullimore describes the car as “a hoot to drive... like a librarian with a G-string under the tweed”. Tweed and silence in one column – this month’s Mediawatching is proving once again
that stereotypes are hard to kill. Continuing with our finger firmly on the pulse, Mediawatching moves from a 30-year-old car to a 100+ year-old book. This time it is Margaret Eccelstone who is helping to keep us up to date. She writes to say: “I have recently been reading E.M. Forster’s The longest journey. The main character is Rickie, who loves being a Cambridge undergraduate, but afterwards sees himself as a writer. However, he wants to get married but has no money. His future brother-in-law is a master at a minor public school, and on page 222 explains how he can get Rickie a job as a teacher.” The passage reads: “Adopt a frankly intellectual attitude,” Mr. Pembroke continued. “I do not advise you at present to profess any interest in athletics or organization. When the headmaster writes, he will probably ask whether you are an all-round man. Boldly say no…. That is how we begin. Then we get you a little post – say that of librarian. And so on, until you are indispensable.” IP
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