I visited the library at the University of Sussex yesterday for the first time in ages. I was unpleasantly surprised to discover that the library is now locked up tighter than a drum. In order to enter the library at all, you need to have a valid library card which is scanned by a card reader attached to the turnstyles. This just seems so… odd. I can understand preventing unauthorized people from removing items from the building, but why prevent anyone from entering and using the contents in a polite way? I’ve been to university libraries in several European countries, across three Canadian provinces, and in a few American states, and I’ve never seen a locked down library before. The war on terrorism has spread to libraries: our knowledge might be contaminated. Lock those libraries!
I went to the library yesterday expressly to find the supposedly available copy of Delany’s Babel-17. After fumbling with my card at the turnstyle (no instructions were provided — in fact, I just guessed that it wanted to scan my library barcode), I went on a exploratory mission to the deepest, darkest depths of the library, hunting for the elusive, improperly signed ‘PZ’ category which holds the library’s limited science fiction collection. As I went down darkened row after darkened row (yes, dark!), lights magically came on before me. Actually, I thought this was an excellent new feature of the library. After all, many areas of the stacks are very lightly trafficked, if at all, so only turning lights on when someone is in them and moving is probably a win-win situation for the environment, for electricity costs, and for cooling costs in the summer. Now we have a library that keeps terrorists out and lights up the lives of permitted patrons. Will wonders never cease?