6 hours in a Toronto public library: a vignette

It was cold today; snowing outside. I had to wait to get my car repaired, so I ducked into a nearby library in a part of Etobicoke I knew nothing about. This was the second smallest library in Etobicoke, I was told; one that was small and cold. “Is the cold always like this?” I asked a librarian working at a computer terminal.”It’s an old building.” was the reply. “We’ve asked about it also, but this is as warm as it gets.” Great. “It gets warmer in the summer” he adds quickly, grinning.

“I guess if you have to work here every day, you might as well make a joke of it,” I replied, shaking my head. “Thank-you, sir.”

I know today is a school day, but there were more old and middle-aged people in the library than I expected. Mopers. People looking aimlessly at the stacks. Some people quietly typing away or staring at the computer screens. Some looking at newspapers. I didn’t quite get the impression that anyone was doing any actual reading. Everyone was still bundled up like they were outisde. Except for one white-haired man who seemed to be here to read the encyclopedia.

Another person who was concerned about neither was spending a few minutes on different terminals. When he sat in a computer next to mine, I glanced at his screen, and I recognised that he was engaged in a chat room of some kind, and typing into an input window with one bandaged finger. When his 20-minute login timed out, he just logged on to another terminal, and continued his interaction. I left him alone, since he wasn’t really harming anyone.

It was just that no-one struck me as a literary, or book-loving type. They weren’t here to read a novel, or to do research on the best way to plant their rosebushes next spring; or planning to set up a business and becoming more informed on market trends. Nobody was here to write an essay. Their shabby clothes told of their poverty; their eyes told of their vacancy and boredom. Their hardship summed up in a public building that couldn’t even begrudge them a little extra heat and comfort.

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