My first job in libraries was as a teenage college boy at Dawson College in Montreal. At that time, the CEGEP was scattered on multiple campuses throughout Montreal. I attended the Lafontaine campus at 1001 Sherbrooke East very near Lafontaine Park and owe my job to a nice man named Don McGerrigle, who saw something in me.
There, the seasoned librarian was named Dave Jones and I learned lessons from him that would serve me well years later including in urban settings like Brooklyn, New York. The greatest use of the library came in cycles, it appears, when students eager to copy their classmates’ notes stormed the library at lunchtime and created a din most unpleasant to Jones’ ears. It got worse as exam time approached.
One such day fifteen minutes before noon, Jones posted a hand-made sign on the wall next to the lone photocopier in the library; ”OUT OF ORDER” it said suddenly, as the machine had worked fine just a short time before. I asked what was wrong with the photocopier. ”Nothing” Jones replied and from his pants pocket, pulled out and showed me the fuses he had removed from the fuse box and that controlled the photocopy machine. ”It’s easier than pleading with people to respect the library’s rules” referring to the need for tranquility.
The technique worked perfectly as there was much consternation from the student body though nobody thought to search the fuse box any more than Jones’ pants. Fast forward fourteen years. I have finished my MLIS degree and am working in another country, in the very noisy urban environment of Brooklyn New York. There, the children’s librarian Miss Lynch runs a program called RIF where once a week, noisy children and their noisy parents attend to line up and make noise while waiting to complete some sort of card and receive a prize. Man, could they make noise! The RIF activity was disruptive to the tranquility of the library every Thursday at three in the afternoon as each participant needs to photocopy their paperwork in order to get the recognition promised by the program, yet few know how the machine works, how to fill the paper, how to clear paper jams or what have you!
Miss Lynch explained RIF means ”Reading is Fundamental” and she claims it’s a good activity. ”So long as the RIF isn’t followed by RAF” I said referring to the noise produced by the photocopier and had to repeat twice before she got the point with me laughing and repeating RIF-RAF! several times in her face. Miss Lynch is also the one who called me an ”illegal immigrant” in the workplace and kept up her anti-Canadian harassment throughout the year but we can come back to that later. Without any support from Miss Lynch, one fine Thursday, I showed up fifteen minutes before three o’clock with a printed sign reading ”OUT OF ORDER” and posted it on the wall behind the branch’s only public photocopier. Just as Dave Jones had taught me, I made certain the fuses that controlled the machine were already in my pants pocket.
Contrary to the urban hubbub outside, the tranquility of the library was reprieved every week thereafter notwithstanding the consternation of the noisy public and with a sudden re-posting of the ”OUT OF ORDER” sign and the clerks came to appreciate my technique and to find an alternate way to make copies, by spreading out the task throughout the week. I have the librarian Dave Jones and electrical engineering to thank for these transferable skills and sweet gauzy scenes of youth in Montreal.
Frederick Klein