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May 11, 2022Liked by Richard Cheverton, Pamela Fitzsimmons

This is so good!! I read it a second time! Now, Iā€™m sharing it on FB!!

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Add ā€œknowā€ in the second yo last sentence.

Excellent article!!

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Well written! Thanks for adding two sides to the story!

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Apr 26, 2022Ā·edited Apr 26, 2022Liked by Richard Cheverton, Pamela Fitzsimmons

I've gone back to college in my 60s to earn another bachelor's degree, this time at Portland State. Because I am not in a hurry, I've been enrolled since 2013. Over the years, the quiet floors at PSU's library were my favorite places to study - until they weren't.

I did take one voluntary break from the PSU library when an equally peaceful and quiet place where I could concentrate without interruption became available much closer to home. Nothing lasts forever, though, and the day came when I had to find another place to study. When I returned to the PSU library after several years' absence, I immediately noticed two major changes. First, for reasons known only to an administrator who is probably contributing to the staffing bloat that has caused PSU's in-state tuition to rise from $6K to $9k over the past five years, on the quiet floors a number of carrels had been removed and replaced by lounge furniture.

Secondly, I noticed the homeless had finally discovered PSU's library. I encountered them performing ablutions in the men's room, rummaging through rubbish bins and, of course, simply killing time.

Not only are PSU's quiet floors conspicuously marked as such on the walls near the entrance, there are signs to that effect on each side of the carrel that also ask users to avoid making unnecessary noise. Floors where talking is permitted are never far away. On the occasions when I have had to remind PSU students they were on a quiet floor, they have always either quieted down or moved.

One day, however, a pair of tough-looking guys who looked like older street punks wandered onto the quiet floor where I was studying, put down their oversized backpacks and flopped down on the lounge furniture not far from where I was studying. They immediately began conversing loudly. I debated moving to another quiet floor but opted instead to treat them the same way I would a PSU student. So, I walked over to them, let them know they were on a quiet floor and suggested they move to the next floor down if they wanted to chat. Instead of offering a PSU student's polite apology, one of them scowled at me and said "you can't tell me what to do."

It would not have surprised me if they were armed with knives at least, so I retreated, packed up my things and headed for a different quiet floor. In the elevator lobby I called PSU security to report the incident. The person who answered the phone could not have cared less. All they wanted to do was get off the line. I was told that since the PSU library is considered a "public building" (why or by whom, they did not say) the situation I was reporting did not warrant security's involvement.

Later, as I was leaving the library for the day, I happened to look over and see the pair of vagrants waking up from an hours long nap on the library's comfy furniture and making preparations to move on to their next way station.

On my way out the door I stopped at the circulation desk at the front floor. I recounted the chain of events and my thoughts about them to a slightly built man who looked to be in his mid-30s. He sighed and said in such situations he was available on request to speak to people who were not obeying the library's rules of conduct. I thought, but did not tell him, that it was no more likely that they would pay more heed to him than they had to me. In their world disputes are probably not settled with words.

Angry and disgusted by the Kafkaesque situation, I left and vowed not to return. In what sort of well-regulated society is a tuition-paying student (one with a 4.0 average, no less) required to yield to the disruptive behavior of an potentially dangerous homeless person squatting in the campus building that embodies the university's mission?

Subsequently I read on another social media platform about a PSU student who was fired from his job at the library when he told management he did not feel safe patrolling the library, including the rest rooms, for homeless people.

Then COVID happened and the library was deserted.

I have read that that PSU has at last done what it should have the moment it became clear that homeless people were entering the library, which is to lock all access doors and make entry contingent on having an electronic key card. I am surprised that this measure didn't cause the the usual loudmouths in the homeless activist "community" to lambaste PSU for committing one of their favorite imaginary crimes. It couldn't have been for setting up a "concentration camp," since the last thing we need is for the homeless to be trapped inside our libraries with administrators and users. A better charge might have been the perennial favorite of obstructionist homeless advocates: expecting homeless people to abide by reasonable rules followed by law-abiding citizens amounts to "criminalizing poverty."

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It really hurts to hear about your experience at the Belmont branch where we took our boys every Saturday for storytime and lots of books and VHS tapes. One of my sons laughed so hard at a Halloween puppet show he was tearing up and I still remember the look he gave me like "Can you believe this guy! He's killing it! Such joy one of my fondest parent memories.

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Apr 26, 2022Ā·edited Apr 27, 2022

Yes, my mother took me to Hillsboro's Carnegie Library in 1963. How things have changed.

In Multnomah County I check books out online, get an email when they are at the branch, dart in and dart out. Self-check out too so contact is minimized.

A few years ago I used to run into a library clerk who seemed to drift from branch to branch. He had a long thick red beard, heavy spectacles, and wore an untucked t-short filled with the image of Karl Marx. I hated having contact with him and that when I did that hideous progenitor of sorrow and mass murder was shoved into my face.

Many years ago Sally Tisdale wrote a letter of complaint concerning distracting conduct in Portlandā€™s public libraries. I was sympathetic as I had the same complaint and had recently received a printed letter from a library administrator after tattling in person and via letter about room-loud cell call conversations. The reply began, ā€œDifferent technologies bring different challengesā€¦ā€ I was condescended to and Tisdale, if I recall aright, was widely scorned.

Over the years I tried on occasion to ask staff for the nosiest patrons to be made quiet. Nothing ever came of it. Once a young wife was carrying on a phone conversation audible across the library (St. Johnā€™s). I called out, ā€œHey lady, ya wanna pipe down.ā€ The young woman in question got off of her phone in embarrassed silence. Her very runty husband popped up out of nowhere and things declined into complete ridiculousness. All (there were 4 or 6, way too many) librarians stared daggers at me for being I suppose a racist and a bully. The librarians there frequently carried on loud conversations about after work matters.

And, you are right if you insinuated that quiet in a library is regarded as White Arrogance, or elitist, or some goddamn thing. Bad and loud behavior undermines my power, white male that I am. Early on in my return to Portland a staff member told me this directly.

Years ago the suppressive dogma of the American Library Association was criticized by Andrei Codrescu. The NPR Exquisite Corpse guy. The ALA had a convention or some such in Havana and praised the island country and its political system while never mentioning the rigor of governmental censorship, the men and women imprisoned for distributing or reading non-sanctioned literature, and all that goes with leftist/progressive demands to silence doubters and questioners.

My former branch library in North Portland went 10 years without displaying or celebrating our nation's origins, our founding fathers, the miracle of American self-government, and etc.

Go on, make a guess as sort of material was on varied but constant display - I'll give you a clue: Assata Olugbala Shakur

Rather happily, I came upon this link yesterday:

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/04/brace_yourself_for_whats_coming_to_american_libraries.html

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My first visit to the downtown library was when I was 8 in 1961. My father dropped me off at the children's section said I could check out any books I wanted and then he went to the adult section. I found a mother lode of Dinosaur books grabbed as many as I could carry and went to the checkout desk. The woman at the desk asked me for my library card. A library card? Fortunately my Dad showed up looking for me and checked out all our books. I was in heaven.

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The Mult county library system's employee union just endorsed the most status quo candidate for county chair. To me this means the majority of these employees are fine with the status quo in our county. Disappointing. https://www.afscmelocal88.org/category/political-action/endorsements/

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None of these issues are issues in conservative areas and definitely not in conservative states.

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