Soundscape #8: Libraries Give Us Power

The Reading Room at the British Museum.

Dedicated to the memory of Jacques Derrida (July 15,1930-October 8, 2004).

The previous post about randomness got me thinking about its opposite, the ultimate in anal-retentiveness--the library and the dewey decimal system. If you think about it logically, do we really need libraries anymore? Everything we can possibly want to know is already online, google-able and copy-and-paste-able...is it not? But I doubt that will ever happen. There's a sense of permanence attached to libraries in general even as they are modernising themselves to keep up with the changing times. Even if you can look up the title on an online catalog and have the book delivered to your doorstep, it won't ever beat the very real feeling of looking up a catalog number yourself and walking the entire length of an aisle, or across the library floor, scouring the shelves and tilting your head just that little bit to the right, all the while chanting the Call Number to yourself, just in case you forget.

I love libraries, some more than others. It all depends on the vibe that it has; that's what gives it character. I love the tapping sound of shoes as their owners gingerly climb the old rickety staircase at Oldham Library and its dark shelves that are almost sagging under the weight of the books. I remember feeling enchanted by the gothic vibe at Manchester Library where you keep thinking that it's really dark along the aisles even though there is sufficient lighting, which makes you feel that you can somehow disappear into another world among its shelves. But even as there are libraries that embrace you for whoever you are, there are some that hold you at arm's length, with its über modern facilities and gallery-like spaces. The vibe here is clinical, professional and highly efficient no doubt but also very anal and rigid, as if someone is lying in wait for you to fuck up just so that they can tell you to leave the premises immediately.

My absolute favourite, however, is the Reading Room at the British Museum. To say that it's awe-inspiring just doesn't do it justice. I think it's pure unadulterated awe itself, to be able to stand in the middle of the world, time and history itself, all carefully catalogued for you to discover. I remember my heart skipping a beat as I try and process the timeless grandeur of the place where Karl Marx, Oscar Wilde and Gandhi once stood with probably the same jaw-dropping delight.



Track Listing:
1. (0:00) Manic Street Preachers - A Design For Life (Buy Everything Must Go)
2. (4:16) Wolf Parade - I'll Believe In Anything (Buy Apologies To The Queen Mary)
3. (8:52) Margot & The Nuclear So And So's - Quiet As A Mouse (Buy The Dust Of Retreat)
4. (12:88) The Envy Corps - Sylvia [The Beekeeper] (Buy I Will Write You Love Letters If You Tell Me To)
5. (15:98) Belle & Sebastian - Wrapped Up In Books (Buy Dear Catastrophe Waitress)
6. (19:32) Death Cab For Cutie - Debate Exposes Doubt (Buy The Photo Album)
7. (23:68) We Are Scientists - Textbook (Buy With Love And Squalor)
8. (27:69) Matt Pond PA - Silence (Buy Green Fury)
9. (30:09) Pavement - Gold Sounds (Buy Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain)
10. (32:48) The Weakerthans - Our Retired Explorer (Buy Reconstruction Site)
11. (34:71) Radiohead - Stop Whispering (Buy Pablo Honey)
12. (39:96) Yo La Tengo - I Heard You Looking (Buy Painful)