This year the local library (the Wilmot branch, to be specific, which is the one I frequented as a child) switched to a self-serve checkout system. It’s kind of fun: there’s the touch-screen and the red scanner, the automated print-out complete with a list of each book and a number at the bottom to inform of the total (no counting required). It's a sad shift, though: I rather miss the contact with the librarians. And the library is the one quiet place, with its old, brown carpet and constant ebb and flow of patrons, that’s never supposed to change.
I wanted to be a librarian when I was young. It seemed like such a tangible job. They had scanners back then, too. Books were passed, front cover open, under the box which emitted a red light-line. It would fall over the bar code and emit a satisfying beep. The librarian would stamp the due-date on the cover page, or maybe on a gridded slip of paper glued into it. The book then had to be thumped through the demagnifier -- a metal shelf-like protrusion that must have allowed everything to walk back out of the library without setting off alarms -- and stacked atop the growing pile. This pile, when complete, was then scooched across the counter back to me, the short and hopeful patron. Crack, scan, beep, stamp, close, bump, stack. Crack scan beep stamp close bump stack. Crack scan beep stamp close bump stack. Smile. Good day. Scooch.
There were no automated lists. As a pre-teen I’d go straight home with my stack of books and repeat the entire process, this time pencil in hand. Open each cover, pass it under a makeshift pretend scanner, jot down the title and due date on a piece of lined paper, close the book and thump it against the shelf made by a corner of our coffee table. I always lost the list of books, as I do now. The process of making it, though, spoke to me of order and peacefulness. Rhythm and ritual in daily life.
I wonder how many of our little rituals will change over the years, along with the rapid flow of technology. Will there be tangible rhythms which our children remember? |
