[yesss, this will be IN ENGLISH]

A week ago, or something, Bucharest hosted The White Night of Open Libraries. I knew it because a friend was part of the organizing committee. I had even offered to help but forgot. Just as I forgot, or ignored going. Because I have absolutely no interest in Bucharest libraries. None whatsoever.

But then Andrei, one of the people behind A Page, asked me to think about why I had no interest and make it an essay. So here goes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HISTORY

I love books. I like to gather them. I hate people who borrow and don’t return. I write my initials on my books because I LIKE owning books. Of course I also like reading them but that’s besides the point. So the thought of a place which is not my house which holds the books is somewhat annoying. Yet I realize I cannot own all the books in the world so we’ll let this frustration go. Truth is, aside from my book owning mania, the one thing which formed my relationship with libraries where the abhorrent and utterly obnoxious library ladies at my former university. I sometimes have nightmarish flashbacks to the moment when we were told what the reading list was and we had to dash to the basement of the building and peer through a slit in a crummy wall begging for a glimpse from the group of always nasty, always rude, always bored, always eating sandwiches library ladies. Figuring out how to butter up the harpies at the library was part of the going to university rituals.

RITUALS

To me libraries are about two things: exotic and ritual. Exotic because I expect to go there searching for a forgotten copy of a forgotten novel. but also exotic because they are there for exploration. for opening up the long drawers of index cards and leafing through to retrieve a gem (yes, i would keep those, would NOT make them digital, because it’s all about) rituals.

rituals because everything today is experience. we don’t just use products. we live experiences. branding makes brand universes which are, mainly, perpetuated with experiences and rituals. think breakfast at tiffany’s library scene, the soup nazi of seinfeld but in a library, name of the rose and the poisoned treatise, hogwarts.

i like the moist and bookish smell in libraries, i like bespectacled librarians, i like the quiet, i like the whispering, the lamps, the index cards, the torn pages. as long as they are part of a ritual, an experience, not a cesspool of frustrations by a group of illiterate harpies.

so, make my library a ritual and i will be there. make it exotic, and i will be there.

A HERO. OR TWO. OR SEVERAL

i also think that brands are made by brand heroes. we lost one today but Jobs is the perfect example of how a spokesperson can make or break you. libraries need to have someone to fight for them. someone who can be outspoken, love books, love to speak about them and make people understand what is so special about books.

eventually it boils down to a frivolous branding tactic but libraries need a hero, or a mascot if you will.

BIGGER DOORS

it’s always astonished me how libraries are always in small places, almost in hiding. i understand that the economics behind that, they bring no money so they cannot pay premium rent. i also get that books need to be protected. but placing a morose person behind a small window, imprisoning books behind the counter, placing the reading tables away from the books is insane. people who will set foot in a library respect and love books. let them get closer.

A CHANCE

Thanks Andrei for making me think of this.

Library images from here and here