This would be a great place if it were actually a ...

This would be a great place if it were actually a public library. It is a library but it s not for the public.

When you enter the room, the librarian greets you with, Excuse me, sorry, this is a research library. You re going to have to leave. He enunciates research as if you are not likely to know what this word means. You do not explain that your last position was Research Director .

Instead, you inform him that you re looking for a quiet place to do some writing (and to prove it, you hold up your notebook and pen). He looks around the near empty room and says, Well we re not too busy today so I can let you stay, but that has got to go straight away, gesturing to your pen. There s no ink allowed. No pens, no markers, no felts, no quills... and he continues to rattle off a list of prohibited ink filled items as you sit there wondering if you have accidentally walked into an orphanage and you re about to be struck by the constipated headmaster. You assume that rather than evaluating education and work experience in their candidates, the library s Human Resources choose staff by finding cranky old men with failing marriages. The training, it appears, is solely the instruction, We don t actually want anyone to use this room, so just be as rude as you can.

Thank you, but actually I feel very unwelcome, you ll say, confused about why he is so aggressively unfriendly. I think I ll go somewhere else. He ll respond with, I m sorry about that, in a voice that makes it clear he is not at all sorry about that.

As you descend the stairs, the pleasant security guard obviously used to people returning to his desk with a what just happened? expression will suggest you visit the Yeats exhibit. This prompts you to wonder where Yeats did his writing; it certainly couldn t have been here. Also why is there a security guard at the entrance to a public library? To keep out the public, you realize.

You ask the guard whether there is a library you can actually use. Ah, yes, he smiles and nods knowingly. You ll want to go to Pearse Street library. You thank him.

As you leave, you see the street lamp posters with the Library s slogan: What will you find today? The answer is a publicly funded service seemingly dedicated to being inaccessible with a beautiful marble staircase.

If what you re looking for is the verbal equivalent of being pushed off a bicycle, this is the place for you. If you re looking for a library, try somewhere else.