By Sue Fagalde Lick
When I was a kid, going to the library was much like going to church. On our biweekly visits with our mother, my brother and I were expected to be quiet and reverent. If we spoke too loudly, we could expect a librarian to lift a finger to her lips and hiss, "Shhh!"
The books were sacred. We were never to write in them, fold the pages or get food on them. Nor were we allowed to return them late, lest we not only be fined but have a black mark on our library record.
Like my mother, we grew up readers, looking forward to taking home new books and immersing ourselves in the worlds they contained.
As we grew up, the libraries in our lives got bigger and contained more resources. We used them to gather not only books to read, but research material for school papers. We found microfilm and microfiche, and later records, CDs and videotapes. We treated them all with respect and returned them on time.
Apparently today's kids have a different experience. This week on an afternoon research trip to the Saratoga Library, I had to borrow a chair from a group of girls noisily playing cards. I don't know what game they were playing, but their shouts of "Get a condom!" were infinitely more interesting than the data search I was conducting.
The room hummed with conversations. The parking lot was so full it looked as if the afternoon traffic jam had simply moved from Sacred Heart, St. Andrew's and Redwood Middle schools to the library. Youths hovered around the front door and filled the library. I saw very few of them holding books.
The same afternoon, I was at the Odd Fellows Home when the Santa Clara County Library Bookmobile arrived. All other activities stopped for the seniors to climb aboard and check out armloads of books, records and videotapes. The coming of the Bookmobile every other Wednesday is something the Odd Fellows residents look forward to.
Their grandchildren's generation seems to have a different point of view.
Our libraries have become study halls and playgrounds for kids who allegedly have no place else to go after school. The same scene can be found at most libraries in the valley.
The books are still there, along with other media and various computerized research tools, but I wonder how much these kids hanging out playing cards appreciate them. Perhaps with more disposable income than kids used to have in the '50s, they figure they can buy their own books, videotapes and CDs and do research over the Internet from their home computers. The only thing the library offers them is a place to go with their friends after school.
Wouldn't it be more comfortable to go home or to a park, which is intended for recreation, than to the library, which is intended for reading and studying?
What I don't understand is why someone doesn't insist that the library be used as it was intended. Where is that librarian who would jump up and tell us to be quiet? Why are kids playing cards in the reference section?
While Saratoga and its neighbors worry about funding the library and even expanding it, let's take another look at how people are using it.
Sue Falgade Lick, former editor of the Saratoga News, is the paper'sWest Valley reporter.
This article appeared in the Saratoga News, April 17, 1996.
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved