Self Service.

My local library has a self-service counter, as most libraries do these days. Four touch screens equipped with scanners for taking out, renewing or returning books. I guess it makes the process more efficient and leaves the librarians free to focus on other things (and probably means the council can employ fewer librarians too). I’m not sure efficiency is the point of libraries. When I’m reading, browsing or selecting books I am happily inefficient, and have no desire to increase my efficiency. Perhaps people who listen to their audiobooks on 2x speed would disagree, though.

We’ve come to accept self-service as the default in so much of our lives, to the point where we resent having to interact with another human being. I can’t remember when I last used anything other than the self-service checkout at the supermarket. But there are some people for whom that in-person interaction may be the only human connection they have all week, a vital lifeline in a lonely world.

The self-service library counter sits less comfortably with me. In my experience, the people who work in a library like books and they like people, and they like talking about books with people. And I like talking about books with people. I miss the conversations at the library counter that begin “Oh, I see you’re reading XYZ, have you read such-and-such? I think it’s even better.” Instead, we’ve removed this joy in the name of efficiency, and replaced it with TikTok influencers, or online platforms that track our reading progress and harvest our data for their recommendation algorithm. It’s worse for the reader and, arguably, worse for the librarians too.

I probably sound old, and maybe this is a futile yearning for the “good old days”. For those of us who grew up and discovered the world in libraries, perhaps that pull of nostalgia is inevitable. But if ever there was a place that befits slowing down, taking your time and contemplating the wisdom of your fellow human beings, well, the library feels like the place for that.