In the stacks of books I note the quietest reading yet: 40 dBA. In the Reading Room, where only two of 17 people are holding books (the others peruse their laptop screens), the meter registers 44 dBA. Then a phone rings. From 30 feet away, my meter jumps to 58 dBA, equivalent to the snap of a cedar campfire in the dead of night.

Gordon Hempton, John Grossmann, One Square Inch of Silence-…, loc. 360