We spent part of election night at our local library. Here are our observations.

Rongo Rongo

Libraries --- Every sound is louder here. The tearing sound of a paper print out. The whirring of a printer. A flapping sound with someone turning pages in a magazine. Rip. They must be doing a lot of printouts. A beep of the bar code scanner as people check out books. Ah, the rip is the book check out record for each person being printed up and torn off, like a receipt in a grocery store. Steps falling on the hard floor, and a shuffling of books. Russling as someone fidgets. More printing. Rip. The bright babbling of a toddler being taken outside. Slaps as books are piled up on the counter. Friendly banter as someone drops off his returned books.

The ceiling here is elaborate. Whirr. A fancy floral inspired pattern in guilded on with gold paint, against contrasting blue and dusky pinks. "Thanks a lot!" A son and father walk by, talking in hushed but excited tones. The librarians behind the desk are talking to each other. The jangle and clink as someone goes into the bathroom. A man's pant legs brush against each other. Cards are being tapped together and shuffled. Beep beep. Steps as a woman picks up her books and leaves. Rip. Beep.

There is a elaborate chandelier over the checkout desk, with dozens of bulbs. One is burned out. The clatter of a rolling cart. Ding. Tap. Beep. There are three large potted plants with leaves in a radial umbrella pattern. The librarian lets someone know when their books are due, and more gears turn for more paper printouts. A zipper is loosened, a glasses case snapped open. More zippers, and the sound of a magazine page being turned. Ding. The father and son are leaving, jingling key and still talking. The sound of a book being closed and then a door closed and opened. Jingle jingle. Step. The librarians are chatting as the church bell next door rings eight times. This room has carved wooden pillars and paneling up to an arched and domed ceiling. The floor is mosaic tile with curly ques and diamonds. The rustle of pages being turned and the librarians are talking to each other in an easy way. A man is explaining something to his son. Pages turning and a man taps the newspaper. Flip flip. Three men are reading and their page turning synchronizes sometimes. Rip.

The librarians talk more but the echoes blur the words and they sound like voices but not words. A plastic bag is being opened. Rip. Whirr. Quick footsteps as a man goes through. A door closes. Whirr. Paper bag rumples and a man leaves, carrying two bags of books. The sound of paper crumpled up. There are gold framed oil paintings of colonial era men and women. Statues of people wearing drapery. A boy looks down from the balcony. A door closes. A young boy reads from a sign. Key jingle and clank. A zipper sounds and more whirring, and a wooden chair drags on the floor. Another man has pant legs that make a swip sound as he walks. He asks for directions to a drugstore and the librarian explains clearly.

The heating system turns on and the sound of water through pipers. The librarians are talking again. Flip. Flip. The magazine must have a lot of ads. Cough. There is an American flag in the corner with an eagle on top. Whirr. Rip. Beep. A man clears his throat. Whir. Rip. The door closes again. A librarian is explaining about an overdue fine. Beep. And about different due dates. Whirr. Rip. Grind. The chink chink of change being made and put into a pocket. "Thank you, have a good night!" Change jingles. Rip. Beep. The librarians murmur as they make the machines beep and rip and whirr. They stop talking but are still whirring and ripping. A librarian gives directions to Some particular stacks. "You're welcome." Then it's back to the whirring and ripping. This must not be just for book checkouts, it must be for their internal tracking too. Books are being stacked and lifted and set down. Flip. The door opens, and the squeaks when it is closed. Footsteps. Shifted weight. The elevator pings. Voices in conversation, footsteps pass, a query, an answer, and a woman gets a library card, leaning on the counter. Sing song voices in rhythm and patter and they are friendly. Flip. Throat clearing. Flip. Beep. Sirens outside. People laughing. "Thank you so much."

Bunny Dragon

Back in college, I was part of the (100+?) Concert Choir, there was one rehearsal where the director said, "Shhhhh. Listen. ... Hear that? That's something Mozart, or Beethoven, never heard: the sound of planes overhead, cars and trucks outside on Memorial Drive. It was the sound of nature, if you went away from town."

I thought it'd be interesting to do 30 minutes of listening, rather than doing a visual observation.

First, a map.



C = a guy with a cap
N1 = nuclearpolymer, reading next to the bookshelf. N2 = nuclearpolymer seated next to me, doing her version of this task.
L = a lady reading a book
L2 = another lady who entered later, wearing a leather jacket
M = guy with a moustache
R = guy wearing a red jacket; entered later
B = guy in a blue shirt. G is a guy in a green jacket who goes to the same spot as B.
X = me :)

The red block is the fireplace, although there was no fire.
The white is the entrance to the reading room. Just past that entrance is the main entranceway, with the Circulation Desk (CD) being right across the entrance to the reading room.

7:35pm start. Some sort of heating -- forced air? -- from high left. There's a cyclic noise to it, which makes me think of a pumping fan. It occassionally stops for 1-2 seconds, making you think it's shut off, but then it comes back. No particular pattern to the stoppages, although sometimes it's hard to hear. I took some times: 24 sec, 60 sec, 54 sec, 150 sec, ~120 sec, 59 sec...

The CD (circulation desk) beeps on occassion. There's an occassional printer sound at the desk.

7:40. Man walks through lobby: the sound of sneakers on tile, which are presumably on concrete. The thump of books as they're placed in a wooden box. I notice B, a man in a blue jacket, reading a paper to my right. He flips a page and shifts his weight, which I hear as a footfall sound. He rustles about in the newspaper stacks he's next to: rustling, footfalls of sneakers on tile.
There's a lady, L, in front of me, her back to me, reading in a chair. She shifts slightly, turns a page, and uncaps a pen in her lap.
There's conversation in the main hallway -- a man talking. With whom, I can't hear.
A man in a cap, C, has been standing silently next to a table reading the paper. He leaves, which I hear.
A man with a moustache, M, gets up, goes to the magazine racks, an teruns. Rustling as he turns pages.

7:45: L pulls a book from her leather bookbag, and then there's a metallic snap of a closing buckle. It sounds like a leather-bound book sliding sliding in her leather bag.
Nuclearpolymer, at N1, coughs. B leaves.
Cash register at CD whirrs: it's one of those very low profile cash registers you might see at a bake sale or a convenience store. The whirring I associate with it printing on its internal paper tape.
Car -- no wait, truck -- noises from the street outside. The library is on a main street: Massachusetts Avenue.
Nuclearpolymer hops over to start her task. (Well, okay, she doesn't literally hop.) I hear her footfalls, rustling keys, and the rustle of her jacket. She's now seated at N2.
L clears her throat, coughs. G, a man in a green jacket, comes in and reads the paper in the same spot as B. I start theorizing about spies and their dead drops inside particular newspapers.
Writing sounds from nuclearpolymer. M turns pages.

7:50: Main desk worker is checking out books: the book spine hits the desk as he grabs the book in both hands, there's a rustle as he flips to the back page, a BEEP! from the computer, and the spine hits the desk again so that he can close the book. There's an occassional riiiip! as a paper receipt is torn off from a printer.
A toddler says "ga ga!" twice. A man approaches the CD and rubs some coins together. A brief conversation ensues.
I inhale and move my pocketwatch: the scrape of metal on a wooden table: the first time I've noticed me making noise.
Empty plastic DVD cases hit the CD desk.
Two women are conversing at the CD. M flips pages, G flips pages. In the distance, a man is talking to someone else; the two women are still conversing at the CD.
Ka-CHUNK as a door closes somewhere: the sound is what I'd expect of an exterior door with a push bar.
G closes his paper, files it away, and pulls out another.

7:55: my throat hurts: clear throat. My wedding ring hits the wood table: metal sliding smooth wood.
L pulls a index card bookmark from her book, marks her place, and then puts the book away in her bookbag and leaves. Sneakers initially on carpet then tile, plus the sound of khaki? pants. G leaves at the same time: sound of jeans and sneakers.
M clears throat, coughs, turns page. Someone at the CD sniffles once.
An elevator dings, but no sound of doors opening. (Dun dun DUUUUN!!!)
Someone is browing in the magazine stacks, and a finger or hand brushes against the backrest of the magazine stacks. The backrest is just a thin, very long plank of wood, so it makes this hollow-ish sort of sound.
Beep beepbeep beep whirrrrr of the register at the CD.
A man's voice, deep, talking to someone distant. It's weird that I usually only hear one person in these conversations.
R, a man in a red jacket, appears from the magazine stacks to my right, crosses behind me and to my left, and sits in the corner chair. Stereo hearing, woo! A clack of an eyeglasses case being open and closed, ziiiip
of the jacket. Page rustling which settles down into page flipping.
Someone exits the library, their metal keys jingling.
A small boy is saying something. I hear perhaps the boy's parent having a conversation with someone at the CD.
A man with keys on his belt walks by. Later, I see him on the second floor, but he's too distant for me to hear his keys over the ambient (fan) noise.

8:00: The church tower next door tolls the hour.
Ka-CHUNG of a push bar handle: perhaps the main door of the library?
M flips pages. A man is talking somewhere in the distance. You are likely to be eaten by a grue. Sound of walking in the main hallway.
A woman in a leather jacket, L2, enters the library and then the reading room. She's wearing heels, so her heels on tile is very sharp and distinctive.
B is back at the same spot. Neatly shuffles a paper so that the pages are aligned. This is the worst dead drop statecraft I have ever observed.
R is rapidly flipping pages. 2 women are having a conversation at the CD. Later on, I figure out that they are CD workers. M shifts in his chair and starts page flipping.
B rustles in a plastic bag, twice. He plays more with some newspapers. Then he picks up his plastic bags and a made-from-recycled-plastic-bags plastic bag and leaves.

8:05: Just as I'm about to stop, the air vent sound drops noticeably in volume. Still there but faint.