Many responsibilities of library employees are opaque to our patrons, but the public has in mind that one of our day-to-day responsibilities is maintaining the library’s quiet environment.  My family makes frequent jokes about my proclivity towards shushing, which I argue is 100% false.  However, it is true that to be an environment that allows people to read, study, and research the library must maintain a certain level of muted sound.

I imagine that many of us are engaged in a balancing act of meeting patron’s varying needs for space for group work and silent study.  That’s why we are interested in the flyers, signs, and other materials that you use to communicate your library’s noise levels and environment to patrons –  the formal, informal, and funny!  Or if you have a work-in-progress that needs some feedback from other librarians, send it here too.  We’re looking forward to seeing the various ways that our community designs around this library phenomenon.