Sanitizing Gels and Latex Gloves: Plying the Librarian’s Trade
April 3rd, 2007If this one doesn’t belong in the Collapse category, I don’t know what does. I selected a passage to quote that will not turn your stomach, but be warned, if you click through, that this is an extremely grim account.
Via: Tom Dispatch:
Although the public may not have caught on, ask any urban library administrator in the nation where the chronically homeless go during the day and he or she will tell you about the struggles of America’s public librarians to cope with their unwanted and unappreciated role as the daytime guardians of the down and out. In our public libraries, the outcasts are inside.
Posted in Collapse | Top Of Page
Though by no means “homeless”, I was in between houses and jobs simultaneously for a little over a week last summer. I had the floor at a friend’s house to crash on at night, but they had visiting relatives at the same time and I wanted to not be a nuisance. The public library and my car were my refuges in the midst of the turmoil. It was an interesting experience, and reading this article, I realize how few choices there really are for people – I knew it then, when I felt the stir-craziness of not having anywhere to go, and when the library was the blatantly, obviously, ONLY place to go. I didn’t consider the social ramifications until reading this, though…
thanks for sharing it, Kevin!
If you are allergic to Latex Exam Gloves, you can switch to free ebooks on Project Gutenberg.
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page
I wasn’t homeless, but I’ve gone through a few phases where I spent most of my days (and evenings) in libraries. I can only think of two libraries where I never encountered homeless people. Actually these are the networks of libraries on the USC and UCI campuses. They are heavily policed, especially USC.
If, however, you could manage to look like a student, you probably wouldn’t have too much trouble. Notable exceptions are areas that would require ID like computer rooms, or after hours times when cops are ordered to check ID. Before I left the U.S., UCI started sending renta cops to walk around the library stacks and study areas at night, but I was never asked for ID.
Some homeless people are better than others at maintaining appearances. A close friend of mine, for example, was homeless while he was finishing his PhD. He slept in his lab and “bathed” in a small public restroom that was lockable and had a drain in the middle of the floor. Of course, all homeless people are paranoid of being caught sleeping illegally, and with good reason. But PhD programs might be a better solution than others for going homeless. This was done at UCI, where such a thing was so unthinkable that it was doable.