The setting of these pictures is the second floor of the UNE library, on a Tuesday evening. There were a lot of aspects of this setting that I couldn’t quite capture in pictures, but one that I could was the bookshelves. They are fairly tall, but do not rise to an intimidating height. The books on them are all neat and orderly, but incredibly diverse, with subjects ranging from biochemistry to Classical history, and lengths from only a dozen or so pages to multi-volume collections. The library is also well lit, but at this time of day, it is lit entirely from the inside, making it feel distinctly separate from the outside.
I could capture the emptiness of the library in my photos, but one thing I could not capture was the silence. The second floor is supposed to be a quiet study space, but the lack of sound is still surprising. The only sound that could be heard was the occasional tapping on a laptop keyboard; a quiet sound even more muffled by the room and the bookshelves.
To me, at least, all these things combined, (plus the closeness of the stacks, the carpet, the warm temperature, etc.) give a feeling of insulation, a quiet place that is cut off from everything outside, even time itself. Time feels slower there, but when you look outside or at a clock after a while, you realize it’s been longer than you’d thought.
It can be comforting, especially during those times when your life is fast-paced and full of noise and stress. It’s like a pair of noise cancelling headphones, but as a place. Great for blocking out noise, stress, and distraction until you can calm down and maybe get things done. But, like a pair of noise cancelling headphones, you eventually need to go back to the world outside. The silence, in a way, becomes its own kind of noise, and the narrow aisles between straight lines of books seem to close in. The outside provides a breath of fresh air, and you realize how dusty the library smelled, how low the ceilings were, how alone you felt in the silence inside.
