Something strange in the library

Maybe it's because I spent the better part of yesterday working in the library, but I was suitably entertained by this video re-imagining the opening scene to Ghostbusters, wherein the Ghostbusters team pursue ghosts into the New York Public Library's main reading room. Sure, it was a stunt, but a worth one, to generate publicity for the library's fund-raising efforts (and those are some pretty harsh budget cuts it's facing).

I found the video via Mashable, which also posted a clip of the opening of the original film. The most noticeable difference between the library past and present to me (aside from fashion choices) was that the library today is absolutely overrun with laptops, just like the National Library is in Singapore.

Yesterday I was a little peeved at a library user hogging two power points when he wasn't even referring to any reference books. I'm starting to wonder if popular libraries are going to have to introduce more stringent laptop use policies in their reference sections, so that the people who are actually there to use the books (i.e. resources that can't be accessed off-site or via some kind of secured online network) won't find themselves crowded out of a seat (and power point) by headphone-wearing teenagers playing first-person shooter games.