Locals

I could not let Andrew's latest post on the intimate knowledge of call-numbers and demise of propriety in libraries go unremarked. I've also reached the point when I don't have to look up the library floor plan to find a book—HM is on the second floor, B's on the third, JC down on the B-level. It's a feeling of familiarity much like the one you have when you get to know your neighborhood or city well-enough to feel entitled to call yourself a local.

And, as locals, we begin to notice the upstarts and the young'uns. We resent their nonchalance, their casualness, their lack of reverence for the place.

The library is ours more than it is theirs. We've come to know its language. We've climbed down every staircase and know how far each leads us—all floors... floors two through five... basement... sub-basement. We've taken in the skyline from the fifth floor. We've learned to tell the difference between the second and third floor reading rooms by the way that the light falls through the windows and bends over the roof of the Palevsky dorm.

We're library locals. And we're getting old.