Thoughts on Libraries

In theory, public libraries are awesome.

In actual real-life, they're kind of annoying. Rather, the patrons are annoying.

Countless times, I have gone to the library to read/work/study in relative quiet, only to have the latest outbreak of the cold make everyone around me chronic coughers and snifflers. Or I hook up my computer, get to work, and just get into "the zone" - and a guy comes and sits behind me and starts hollering to his girlfriend on his cell phone. Like, hello! A public library is not a quiet place for you to have an argument with your significant other.

In theory, I support public access to books, the Internet, and multi-media resources. I agree that the public has the right to educate themselves on whatever they need to be educated on.

In actual real-life, I miss the libraries at Oxford where only the elite could get in. I miss going to study with people who are super respectful of other people's study habits. I miss the good feeling I got when I'd walk in and show my library card and be admitted to the world of knowledge and scholarship, accessible to the awesome people who were lucky/cool enough to study in Oxford, of all places - at one of the most famous libraries in the world.

And no one would bang on their keyboards in the study cubicle next to me. And people with the sniffles would work from home. And the book you wanted was almost always on the shelf, because no one was allowed to check it out. Yes, I lived that dream.

This leads me to conclude that I have two options:
1) Start a library, which is half-public, and half-elitist (like, you have to pay to go to any floor but the first one - kind of like Hulu plus, only in library form).
2) Build my own secret library room, accessible through a secret bookshelf door. I'm sure my parents wouldn't mind some modifications to their basement.

Also, why don't libraries have drive-through pick-up windows for the books/materials you place on hold? Someday, I will live that dream.