Friday, May 14, 2010

Where is this "Library" of which you speak?

I just bought a Scosche "boomSTICK" decibel meter. You know, because every library needs one. But really, I bought it to convince myself that the radio in my car is too loud.

A quick check on the way home registered the loudness at 98.1 dB.

About that, the interwebs say, "93 dB is twice as much noise as 90 dB. In other words, sound intensity doubles every 3 dB. Hearing protection should be used for any level over 85 dB."

Crap. Now my ears hurt. Damn, you Barry Manilow. Why do I need to play you so loud? Because "I Write the Songs" rocks so damn much.

But that's not what I wanted to show you; I want to show you the back of the sound meter:


I understand that most of the world views a library as a quiet place, or even a very quiet place, but I just "shushed" the decibel meter in a quiet room and it came in at 76.9 dB. That ranks between a vacuum cleaner and an alarm clock, but not enough to cause hearing damage. How much shushing goes on at your library?

Damn, my ears really do hurt.