Things to think about on escalators

I was looking for a reference work on the fourth floor of the Central Public Library of Amsterdam. As spelled out on an English-language page produced for their website (http://www.oba.nl/): "The right to information is enshrined in law and in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights." An employee assigned to the fourth floor reference section had said that if there were any books with detailed info on the subject of drums from the Colombian Pacific rainforest, a key element in a text I was translating from Spanish into English, they would (probably) be on the shelves I was circling.

Coincidentally, the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces, the FARC, had reportedly just kidnapped (reportedly, because even with witnesses describing the culprits, their identity as FARC rebels has not yet been confirmed) a new group of people vacationing in the region referred to in the aforementioned text about the drums. The kidnapping itself was reported in international news sources but had not left what you would call a lasting impression. That's not surprising, as the new hostages vanished in the news shadow of another related event, the release by the FARC elsewhere, just days before, of two people who had been held for years. Those were high-profile negotiations. Colombia and Venezuela, the USA and France - just a few of the countries involved. The rainforest kidnapping may have now drawn Norway to the table.

I thought of this while scanning books for references to Afro-Colombian musical instruments. None were found that day, but a visit to this relatively new library is always fun. At the ground floor reception desk, visitors can pick up a foldable map of the ten-floor building, presented as Europe's largest public library. The classic library hush does not apply here, with scheduled and spontaneous piano performances audible on multiple levels, blending with escalator chatter from those en route to upper-level meetings, lectures, presentations or the view from the top-floor restaurant (n.b. the tuna sandwich displayed here upper right is no longer on the handy foldable map, perhaps in conjunction with the first recorded break-ins at the library, evidently carried out by individuals in search of restaurant cash).