When Sydney singles me out as the best hope for appeasing “sensible types,” that’s when you should realize he’s living in a world that bears only a passing resemblance to reality. But I’ll do my best.

In The New York Times this morning there was an interesting article: “Lock the Library! Rowdy Students Are Taking Over.” Gotta love the sensationalist title for an article on libraries. The article’s basic idea was that public libraries have become popular after-school hangouts for kids, many of whom use the library not as a resource for media, but more like a clubhouse. Teens visiting libraries in order to hang out with friends, flirt, wrestle, and taunt each other create a nightmare for the library staff, who must be both pleasant founts of information for the public and chaperones, occasionally even bouncers, for students.

Although the article was informative, I laughed because the NYT finally caught on to a problem that has plagued public libraries for quite awhile, and has become increasingly worrisome in the last ten years or so. When I worked in a public library in high school and college, after-school hours were the times that some of my more experienced colleagues had to steel themselves for. Not only did those hours involve babysitting small children who were expected to remain at the library (unchaperoned) until their parents came home from work, but now there were increasing numbers of teens swarming the computers and attempting to secret themselves in nooks and crannies of the library in order to do who-knows-what. One thing the newspaper article didn’t mention was that problems with hacking and attempts to view pornography using library computers spike dramatically during after-school hours. Thank you, hormones.

Complicating matters is the fact that kids and senior citizens make up the bulk of all public libraries’ clientele. How many middle-aged adults do you know who make a regular trip to the library to stock up on books? But how many little kids do you see with a stack of the library’s picture books sitting on their shelves? Throwing out a portion of the population that keeps you in business can get tricky.

It’s also just difficult laying down the law in a library. Many library staff are reticent people who hope to connect with their patrons through a love of books. The stereotypical draconian librarian doesn’t exist as often as you might think. And even where she does, what might one old dragon do against an entire library full of teens?

I’m thinking we need a new breed of librarians. When I worked in one, I was old enough to have a sense of responsibility, but young enough (and hot-tempered enough) to permit myself a few glares when banning someone from the library. If problems persist, you might start seeing librarians less well-equipped to read picture books to preschoolers, and more capable of bounding over the counter to tackle teens who attempt illicit behavior in the library. Will there be something like a police academy for librarians, where they learn to use Mace on gangs of students who attempt violence after hours? Or throw a gum-smacking, foul-mouthed, short-skirt-wearing girl over their shoulders and “escort” her out of the library of young, impressionable kids? It could be an interesting place.

– Erin