NOISE IN THE LIBRARY: PROPOSING A SOUNDED DESIGN SOLUTION

Photograph of Pius XII Memorial Library by Marissa Krieg

The Problem: Noise in Study Spaces

When I hear the term learning environment in reference to SLU, I
immediately think of the wide variety of programs and classes, the rigorous
intellectual engagement, and the remarkable faculty we have hereall of which
certainly make the education I am getting valuable. But is all of that really our
learning environment, in the truest sense? Strangely, I feel that I never hear about
what SLU offers in terms of the physicality of the learning environment: the actual
places in which we learn. We spend a significant amount of our time in classroom
and study environments on a daily basis, and these spaces likely have an immense
effect on usyet, we pay very little attention to them. The consequence of this lack
of attention is that our classrooms and study spaces are often mired in ineffective
designespecially, I have noticed, ineffective acoustic design. This poor design
makes it hard to ignore things like mechanical systems set up right outside library
windows and the frantic page-turning of someone five cubicles away. Obviously,
these are less-than-ideal spaces for learning.
Unfortunately, up until now, the de facto solution has been to make it
students responsibility to deal with the cacophony by investing in a good pair of
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headphones. This individualistic solution does nothing to solve the problem of noise.
Not only are students blocking out the noise around them, they are also blocking
out most of the other sounds around them. Isolation is counterproductive to the
mission of SLU: to educate the whole person and to give students the tools to work
in the service of humanity. Students really should be engaging with the world
around them. In this vein, students would benefit greatly from the inclusion of a
sounded space in Pius, an area where ambient noise is integrated into the
acoustic environment in a way that minimizes other distracting noises without
separating students into isolated echo chambers.

What Is It About Noise?

Why, though, is sound so important to us at all? Professor of Urban Studies
Rowland Atkinson argues that sound can be central to the experience of space. He
explains:
Music, sound and noise can be seen as spatial and temporal territories in the
city suggesting that for particular groups the soundscape has a profound
effect on patterns of social association, physical movement and interaction
there remains little comprehension of the connections between the social
sources of sound and music and both the misery and elation that the
resulting ecology create. (Atkinson 1915-1916)
Atkinson asserts that the soundscape, like the cityscape, is profoundly social. People
influence the creation of sound around them, and at the same time, environmental
sound influences how people relate to one another. Still, we have very little
understanding of how sound affects the social/physical spaces that we move in: we
take it for granted. It is clear, however, that our understanding of sound has
profound social consequences, something that is especially illustrated by how we
perceive noise.
Noise has been defined in the field of sound studies as either
incomprehensible or unwanted sound (Kelman 23). Noise is that which resists a
concrete meaning: whether something is considered to be noise or sound is
entirely dependent on context and individual experience. Because of this, noise is
dislocated from its construction: it is not produced by its source as noise, but is
still somehow imparted as such to its listener (Kelman 24). In this way, noise is a
signal to the listener to pay attention, to be aware of the presence of its source. To
identify noise is, as a result, an act that engages the listener with their
surroundings, forcing onto the listener an awareness of the people and things
around them: a whispered conversation in the cubicle opposite from me makes me
aware of the whisperers; the crinkling of a Starbucks pastry bag makes them aware
of me.
In a library environment, the problem is that this awareness can distract the
listener, making it more difficult for the listener to accomplish anything. According
to a study on common attributes of study spaces conducted by Seung Hyun Cha
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and Tae Wan Kim, Noise level was considered the second most important attribute
for spatial choice only overtaken by amount of space in students views (Cha and
Kim 277). Cha and Kim found that noise was a significant factor in students choice
of where to study in libraries. This finding makes sense to me, at least anecdotally:
I, for one, cannot count the number of times that loud conversations have kept me
from studying to the point where I have considered moving to a different spoteven
on the upper floors of Pius, which are supposed to be relatively quiet.
The problem, though, is not just people talking loudly when they are not
supposed to. In fact, so-called quiet areas can be the most distracting places to
study. A space that is quiet overall often amplifies less prominent soundsa page
turning, a person whispering. There is a reason for the phrase pin-drop silence,
after all. When neutralizing sound is not present, quiet sounds become anything
but quiet and shift from sound into noise.
No matter how quiet they are, the sounds made by another person can be
particularly distracting. According to workplace design expert Alan Hedge, because
humans are social animals who rely on one another for survival, the human ear is
naturally programmed to seek out sounds made by other people (Noguchi). This
unfortunate biological fact means that even if someone is actively seeking to shut
themselves off from others in the library so they can finish a paper on time, their
ears are still attempting to make social connections with the people around them.
Isolation may be desired, but is simply not feasible.

How Do Libraries Deal with Noise?

To get a better picture of sonic design in libraries today it may be helpful to
look back at library design in the past. Historically, the function of the library was to
cultivate a more refined environment, separated from the noise of the downtown
district in a more park-like atmosphere (Mattern 283). This separation was a clear
social division: the isolation of the library was a privilege of the elite. The stereotype
of the shushing librarian grew out of this culturebut libraries nowadays, including
Pius, have shifted to a more open, democratic sonic structure that accommodates
many different kinds of people. In their study of how libraries function as a social
space, Svanhild Aab, and Ragnar Audunson noted regarding the population they
studied, Even in the most homogeneous of these three communities, the middle-
class, one is exposed to pluralism in the sense of different ethnic groups, different
cultural expressions, different age groups, and marginalized people in the library
(Aab and Audunson 146). The diversity found within the population of library
visitors today is a huge change from the racially and ethnically homogenous, elite
clientele of libraries over a century ago.
Despite this change, however, social divisions still exist. We see these
divisions with open versus closed stacks and how each floor is successively more
and more silent and removed from the noise of others, as well as the separation of
audio-visual material from more traditional print material (Mattern 292-3). The
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audio-visual people and the computer people are in this way differentiated from
the book people in a hierarchy where the book people are clearly prioritized,
based off of the sheer number of resources oriented towards them in the library.
Certainly, these divisions are a far cry from the rigid, exclusionary demands of
earlier sonic design. The divisions made nowadays are meant to accommodate as
many people as possiblesomething that Pius was clearly designed for, too. Yet,
distinctions such as the aforementioned ones still suggest that particular library
users are prioritized over othersand may, in fact, reinforce the very gender, racial,
and class hierarchies that structured the library in decades past.
At Pius, students have access to varying levels of background noise, as they
can either choose to study on lower floors where conversation and group-work is
encouraged, or on higher floors where the study areas are quieter. Clear attempts
have been made to democratize the space of the library. This reflects a move
within many libraries not to completely shut out noise. Silence is offered as a choice
rather than as a requirement. Libraries are no longer designing against noise, but
instead designing for certain kinds of sound (Mattern 288). However, the problem of
distracting noise in quiet spaces persists at our library. Pius could be made even
more accommodating to people who would be more productive in a study
environment designed to minimize noise, but not sound. In the status quo, those
who are comfortable studying in quiet spaces are prioritized above those who
need some level of ambient sound to studycreating a problematic hierarchy.

The Problem of Headphones

The current solution to this noise-distraction is an individual one: students
themselves opt to wear headphones while studying to block out other potential
distractions. But this choice isolates the headphone-wearer from the people around
them. They are no longer aware of others, and paradoxically are likely to be louder
and less considerate of those around them, simply because they lack awareness of
others.
Sherry Turkle, a writer and clinical psychologist, recounts one experience she
had on a train sitting next to a man who was having a loud, personal phone
conversation that exemplifies the danger of this kind of isolation. She explains:
Here is what I learned by trying not to listen. Hes had a recent bout of heavy
drinking, and his father is no longer willing to supplement his income. He
thinks his girlfriend spends too much money and he dislikes her teenage
daughterThere was some comfort in the fact that he was not complaining
to me, but I did wish I could disappear. Perhaps there was no need. I was
already being treated as though I were not there. (Turkle 155)
Just as the phone conversation disturbed Turkle, an over-reliance on headphones
often disturbs other students. The most innocuous example of this is a situation we
have all experienced: someone puts in headphones, turns their music up, and
doesnt realize that the music is leaking out of their headphones in static-y bursts,
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distracting everyone around them. Headphones not only cause this lack of
awareness when they are being used, they also set the precedent that one need not
be concerned with others around them.
This kind of isolation is detrimental to the formation of a community that a
Jesuit education demands of us. Mack Hagood points out in Quiet Comfort: Noise,
Otherness, and the Mobile Production of Personal Space that use of noiseless
headphones in particular is a privilege of the powerful. Moreover, the ability of
certain people to determine what is and what isnt noise is very much based on who
is at the top of the social ladder. He uses the example of air travel to discuss how
this individualistic drive to free oneself from the burden of surrounding noise has
social consequences. This example can also be extrapolated to the space of the
library. In both situations, noise is reduced, and personal space is created, but a
sense of community, of connection with other people, is lost.
Noise, Hagood argues, is the sound of individualism and difference in
conflict (Hagood 574). Those in power determine what this difference is, and thus
what noise is. The prevailing philosophy of neoliberalism, Hagood argues, has
caused people to see the problems of noise in air travel as individualistic, rather
than systemic. Along these lines, when we put in headphones to study, we
essentially make the choice to not be concerned with how the sound of our
environment is affecting otherspeople around us are no longer important to us.
Moreover, the task of ensuring that the environment is as quiet as possible becomes
each individuals responsibility, regardless of whether or not they are able to
actually do so. As a result, we blame other people, rather than the environment,
when we perceive the noise they make to be distractinga perception that may be
formed according to our own biases regarding things like race and class. Although
we may end up achieving the kind of focus that we need to complete the task we
came to the library to do, we pay a heavy price for this achievement: the loss of our
sense of responsibility and connection to others. This seems contrary to the goal of
a Jesuit education, to work in the service of humanity. How can one be responsible
to humanity if they are isolating themselves?

Why is a Sounded Space the Solution?

How can one reconcile all of these competing desiresto be in a space with
minimal distraction so that work can be done, but also to remain aware of the
people around you? My proposed solution is this: create a sounded space within
Pius, a large, open space where ambient sound is playing in the background so that
chatter and other noises are minimized, and students can come to study in relative
quiet, but not distracting, pin-drop silence. This strategy of sound control would
reflect what sound studies scholar Shannon Mattern calls positive acoustic design,
which designs for, rather than against, noise.
Coffee shops have employed positive acoustic design in far better ways than
libraries, as they provide background music to augment the noise of commerce. The
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creation of such a coffee-shop like space in the library would allow for noise control
rather than futile noise reduction, and would drastically improve the study
environment for students. It would be a shift away from the concept currently
informing our library design, that there are only a few different ways that students
studyat desks or in couches, open tables or tables with dividers, at different levels
of allowed conversational noise (based on the floor youre studying on). Students
would be given the choice of studying in this sounded space, and people who are
too distracted by quiet spaces would have their own version of a comfortable
study space.
We arguably already have this augmented acoustic design in places like
Starbucks and Einsteins, but there are several drawbacks to the way things
currently are. For one, the background music in Starbucks cannot fully minimize the
sounds of people coming and going in a busy coffee shop. In addition, even when it
is relatively quiet, there is not enough space there to accommodate the many
people who want to study there. In addition, Starbucks is not in the library itself.
This means that there is currently a physical separation between people who need a
more communal space and the people who are comfortable isolating themselves
with headphones. This seems to run contrary to the general goal of libraries to
become more open and accommodating: the serious scholars are separated from
the coffeeshop scholars.
Though it solves the problem of separation since it is located within the
library, Einsteins still lacks the sound control necessary for focused study. Though
the acoustic design of the library accounts for the noise of Einsteins and as a result
separates it from the rest of the library in its own corner, there is no effort at sound
control whatsoever within Einsteins itself, and as a result, it is difficult to study
there. Even if this problem was addressed, the amount of space and type of seating
in Einsteins also makes it inaccessible: there is clearly not enough room, and the
seating is often uncomfortable and unsuitable for studying.
As a result, the best solution to this lack of in-between quietwhere noise
is present but not distractingis to create a space that addresses all of these sonic
and spatial concerns. This area should not be silent, but rather, should control for
sound. Conversation should be allowed, but ambient noise in the background would
minimize the distraction it causes. The solution is not to remove the noise outright
which would be hard to do without outright removing the studentsbut instead to
accommodate it. The creation of such a space would eliminate the need for
headphones, and create a much more symbiotic and well-functioning community of
students within the library working according to the values of our Jesuit mission at
SLU.
Beyond the creation of this kind of space, however, there should be an
ongoing effort at making Pius more and more accessible to different kinds of
learners. Hidden factors like sound clearly affect students, but they are often left
unaddressed in study environments. Pius is far from the only problem areathere
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should be an effort to address problems ranging from the sonic to the spatial and
beyond in classrooms and other study areas, as well. The goal of structuring
learning environments at SLU should be to make these spaces as accommodating
as possible; to accomplish this, research should be done into the many different
factors that affect how a diverse variety of students learn. Through these efforts,
the university can improve its efforts to serve students, and as a result, SLU
students can be better prepared to work in the service of humanity.
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