Exit/ no way in

No entry allowed. This is the exit point for people that are within the library area of the Kirkwall Library. The barrier is situated about hip height for an adult, and is a swing barrier, which means it is for ease of usage and not intended to fully restrict people. Two important features exist here; firstly, this is a sign normally found on the public highway, which means 'No Entry'; secondly, this is a manner in which to direct the flow of people within the library itself. No-one can or should enter via this point. A library is full of books, which are by default full of words, but a visual cue is being used by the library as a means to inform people of what it expects from them, and with cues that do not necessarily hold any meaning for the younger generation who are not legally old enough to drive, and will therefore not be familiar with the Highway Code. Red, of course, signals stop where traffic lights are concerned, and small children may be aware of this; but to use visual cues in a place that deals primarily in books does indicate something about society; maybe society considers that visual cues, and the more recognisable ones that are inherent in the daily lives of people, have more sway than the mere presence of words. By the use of traffic signs, there is a part of society that is being excluded in this use of instructional visual signs, namely those that are not of the age to understand what the Highway Code signs are supposed to mean. The use of traffic signs is also relevant when considered in the way in which the library signs themselves are acting to direct the people to follow a set route both in and out of the library itself; the public highway has been in a sense brought in to the building and the same signs that a motorist would obey are in effect being used to ensure compliance within a structure, because of the lawfulness that they enforce on the public highway itself; this makes them an ideal and forceful means of shepherding society in a set manner, and in a way that they might not be immediately aware of. The discourse of the Highway Code is shown here to be as effective indoors as it is outdoors.