This Book Is Overdue!

by Marilyn Johnson

  And here were babies, children, teens, adults, seniors, some carrying stacks of books, crowded close and chattering and stamping their feet to keep warm in the plaza, though a few walked around to the front and, although the library hadn’t yet officially opened, stepped inside to warm up (as it turned out, part of Darien Library’s “extreme service” policy was letting people walk in anytime staff was on the premises, even when the staff was off-duty). “I was here with the senior men of Darien on Wednesday night,” the man next to me confided. “There were thirty or forty of us who came to help dust and test the automatic checkout machines—and there were still carpenters working, and shrink wrap around all the furniture. It’s really kind of miraculous.”

  Then the public-address system crackled to life, and we learned how the library was founded in 1894, moving from one rented space to another for more than fifty years before it found a home on Leroy Avenue. There it had stayed for more than fifty years, until now. New libraries don’t just get built, especially during a recession. Many people toiled to make it happen, raising $24 million in the process. We cheered the leader of the capital campaign, the environmental guru who took a toxic-waste dump and turned it into an eco-friendly building site, the state official who helped cut through red tape, the architects of this quintessential New England space, impressive yet modest—just right for the times.

  It was a birthday party, it turned out. An elder of the town who broke the ground for the new library, and almost single-handedly (according to Darien Library’s website) built the first library, was celebrating his ninety-first birthday. That was the entire reason, we learned, that the grand opening was scheduled for early January instead of, say, mid-June. So hundreds of us shivered and sang “Happy Birthday” to Harold W. McGraw, Jr., chairman emeritus of McGraw-Hill publishing, beaming in his wheelchair. Once in a lifetime a community builds a library, we were told. McGraw, though—he helped build two.

  I was swept forward with the crush when the doors finally opened. “I think those are the architects over there by the door,” a woman next to me said, excitement in her voice, and when she finally reached them, she clasped the young men’s hands and exclaimed over the building’s beauty. They seemed almost embarrassed. “Go on in,” they told her. “It’s yours now.” In the vestibule, you could return books into a machine with a conveyer belt that pitched down into the basement and was visible through the glass: the inner workings of the library revealed, a neat touch. There was a welcoming line of librarians, some of whom I recognized from the photos on the library’s website (Erica is starting Library School this fall! She’s also a fig addict and notary. Pat is a dog lover and haunter of book shops everywhere. Ask her about the best in books on CD or Playaways). I met Louise Berry, the visionary director, and the bloggers John Blyberg and Kate Sheehan, whom I’d been following from a distance.

  I’d see the library in my own time that morning: the computer center in the basement, the teen room with kids drawing on the windows with markers, the art show, and the café. Upstairs, I’d see the self-checkout machines, the open, airy reading room, the sleek auditorium and screening room, the galleys overlooking the clean, spacious, orderly stacks. Information here doesn’t seem to be exploding and out-of-control, but manageable and easy to find.

  The librarians were friendly and helpful. This is your place, was the message. A child on his way to the treasure hunt in the children’s room asked if he, too, could have one of those yellow hardhats the little people seem to be wearing and the librarian reached over and handed him one. “Help yourself!” And everywhere there were nooks and crannies, café tables to sit at or lounge chairs clustered by a window; a small meeting room under the eaves; chairs by the gas fireplace. Even in that crowd, it was possible to find a quiet spot to sit down.

  I was overwhelmed by all this library business. I had been stuffing more and more information into my head, some of it digested, some not. The cataloging business, for instance—oh, the cataloging books that littered my house…! That part of librarianship seemed so bloodless, but an awful lot of metaphoric blood was being shed. I just couldn’t take it in. I regretted my human form briefly; it would be so much easier to drag and drop information into the brain as neatly as one dragged and dropped information on the computer. Perhaps I was suffering from a touch of information sickness? If I could weed out my thoughts…

  There was one reliable cure I’ve found, a bit of the hair of the dog—the release in reading. Not a manual: something with a narrative. A chute built by a writer and waxed until the reader fell into it and skittered right to the end without stopping. The relief of being in someone else’s hands. Yes, exactly: I needed to be under a spell.

  I wandered across the austerely elegant stone floor down an aisle of newer books, and dropped onto a wood bench by a big window lit by winter light. I pulled the book closest to me off the shelf, Wild Nights! by Joyce Carol Oates, its subtitle a magnet for someone who loved old books: Stories about the Last Days of Poe, Dickinson, Twain, James, and Hemingway. And I fell down that chute, while the happy crowd buzzed just beyond the stacks. “EDickinsonRepliLuxe” is as strange a story as the strange writer tells. It’s the future, perhaps the same future as in Easy Travel to Other Planets. A childless couple purchase an animatronic Emily Dickinson to live with them in their home. The creature spends most of her time hiding in her room, scribbling poems and reading, and slowly, steadily, the creepiness mounts, until the line between what we read and who we are blurs completely.

  It didn’t matter who I was, or what I did, or where I paid taxes, or how long I stayed. I’m sure it didn’t matter if the book had RFID tags or a checkout card with a ladder of scrawled names, though tags were neat. I knew the librarians would help me figure out anything I needed to know later—This town is hurting economically, right? How many parking spaces in your lot? What do you call sign-making skills (wayfinding)? And which of your librarians likes figs?

  I was under the librarians’ protection. Civil servants and servants of civility, they had my back. They would be whatever they needed to be that day: information professionals, teachers, police, community organizers, computer technicians, historians, confidantes, clerks, social workers, storytellers, or, in this case, guardians of my peace.

  They were the authors of this opportunity—diversion from the economy and distraction from snow, protectors of the bubble of concentration I’d found in the maddening world. And I knew they wouldn’t disturb me until closing time.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Among the many, many people who helped me research this book, a few helped me time and again, across months and years, well beyond any reasonable expectation: Jenna Freedman, Susan Hamburger, Wayne Hay, J. J. Jacobson, Kathryn Shaughnessy, and David Smith. They were patient with me—I knew nothing when I started—and they shared their knowledge, skills, and insights with grace and good cheer. I’m grateful to them beyond measure. They, like all my sources, did not know what I would end up writing, and it’s my fault if anything has been garbled in the process.

  I’m indebted to all the librarians mentioned in the book, many of whom did much more than their part in the narrative might suggest; I’m particularly grateful to Maurice (Mitch) Friedman and Siobhan Reardon. I would also like to thank the following people who were not mentioned but went to great lengths to help me: Elizabeth Bermel, Jane Marino, Sandra Miranda, and Stephanie Sarnoff; the IT staff of WLS, especially Wilson Arana and Rob Caluori; the staffs of the Chappaqua, Mt. Pleasant, Ossining, and White Plains branches; the Westchester Library Association; and the WLS board, especially Dave Donelson.

  Rebecca Guenther of the Library of Congress led me into the back rooms of cataloging and was a wonderful guide through Washington, D.C., and London.

  Meredith Farkas and Rick Roche were especially helpful. Thanks to Robin K. Blum, Jill Cirasella, Meg Holle, David Lee King, Edward Morgan, Tom Peters, and LISNews. My correspondence with The Happy Villain was one of the pleasures of this project.


  Thanks to those who helped me in Queens and Rome and weren’t mentioned: Jean Davilus, Caroline Gozzer Fuchs, Cara McMahon, Dr. Anna Clemente Rosi, Blythe Roveland-Brenton, Joseph Sciortino, Angela Maria Bezerra Silva, Zeldi Trespeses, and Heather Wolcott. Thanks to the many who helped me navigate and interview in Second Life: Wrath Crosby, Mae Goldflake, Jack Granath, Trevor Hilder, Lorie Hyten, Jilly Kidd, Teofila Matova, Dennis Moser, Gareth Osler (Gareth Otsuko), Sonja Plummer-Morgan, and Sheila Webber, whom I met in London and who as Sheila Yoshikawa conducts a series of seminars on education and research in Second Life that helped me immeasurably. I could not have reconstructed the conversations and some of the events in this chapter without the technical assistance of my first friend in SL, Inigo Kamachi.

  Thanks to the staff of the New York Public Library who appear in this book, but also Paul Holdengräber, Kim Irwin, and Meg Semmler, who put on excellent programs, some of which I participated in; Isaac Gewirtz; and Herb Scher. Stewart Bodner was a great help. I could not have written this book without the benefit of the Frederick Lewis Allen Room.

  I’m grateful also to Solveig De Sutter and the Society of American Archivists, and especially L. Rebecca Johnson Melvin, Michael Cogswell of the Louis Armstrong House and Museum, and Mary Ann Quinn. Nancy Adgent and her reading list were invaluable.

  Mark Bartlett of the New York Society Library was a thoughtful and generous source. Kathy Jennings of Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library gave me a special tour, as did Joseph Shemtov of the Free Library of Philadelphia’s Rare Books Department. Thanks to Larry Seims of PEN, David Sharp of BFI, Charles Warren, and the librarians of the Internet Public Library. Clifford Lynch of the Coalition for Networked Information generously shared his thoughts and insights. Rory McLeod gave me a whole day behind the scenes of the British Library, including its archives and its Coalition for Conservation; I’m so grateful to him and his colleagues, John Rhatigan and Alison Faraday. Thanks to Dottie Hiebing and Jason Kucsma of the excellent Metropolitan New York Library Council, the organizers of the Computers in Libraries conference, and the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies and the City University of New York.

  These lists do not include the scores and hundreds of archivists, librarians, clerks, pages, IT staff, and scholars who either helped me anonymously, prefer to remain anonymous, or have been inadvertently neglected here, to my great regret. Nor does it include scores of friends and family members who supported me, sent me clippings, and fed me, literally and figuratively, along the way, or any of the dear writers and editors who gave me advice, though Ben Cheever, Marcelle Clements, Lee Eisenberg, Esmeralda Santiago, and Larkin Warren improved chapters, and Susan Squire gave the complete manuscript her tireless and scrupulous attention.

  I’m grateful to my agent, Chris Calhoun of Sterling Lord, and the good people of HarperCollins, especially my inspired editor, David Hirshey. Thanks as well to Jane Beirn, Milan Bozic, Shannon Ceci, Kayleigh George, Kate Hamill, George Quraishi, Virginia Stanley, and Nick Trautwein.

  The generation behind me and the generation ahead, my children and my parents, are my motivators. Jackson, Carolyn, and Nick Fleder have, with grace and good humor, made space for this odd sibling. My parents, Dave and Dotty Johnson, taught me to love both books and librarians, and to follow my heart. That led me to this project, and it also led me to Rob Fleder, without whom this—all of it—would have been unthinkable.

  NOTES

  1. The Frontier

  I became interested in librarians while researching my first book: The librarian and sailor with the phenomenal memory was Agnes Swift, who died in 2004, at the age of ninety-six. The map librarian was Walt Ristow, who died in 2006, at ninety-seven. The website marilynjohnson.net links to some extraordinary obituaries of librarians, including these.

  We know the first words uttered on the telephone: The digital history I quoted here was Gregory S. Hunter’s revised Developing and Maintaining Practical Archives.

  2. Information Sickness

  If you don’t know where to find a book: WorldCat.org is brought to you by OCLC, which stands for Online Computer Library Center, Inc. It was founded by librarian Frederick G. Kilgour, who in 1967 had the bright idea to combine the catalog records of fifty-four Ohio colleges (OCLC originally stood for Ohio College Library Center). OCLC is supposedly nonprofit, but some librarians lift their eyebrows at this. Not every library is in WorldCat. Libraries have to pay to join, and rather a lot, I’m told. Libraries pay to contribute their catalog records, then pay to use the records. Still, it’s a very cool tool for those of us who need to find a book.

  Because I happened to be embedded in that big library: Either I’m irrational about microfilm or librarians are. They all insist it is essential and remains stable for many years. I hate it with a passion. Elsewhere in this book I mention Nicholson Baker’s Double Fold, the title of which refers to a library test to determine the brittleness of a paper item. A corner of a page was folded back and forth multiple times; if the paper didn’t spring back, the book or newspaper would be deemed too fragile and deaccessioned. In the name of the double fold, untold books and, particularly, old print runs of newspapers were trashed, and microform versions substituted in their place. I appreciated Double Fold, and tried not to get too friendly with librarians who didn’t appreciate it as well.

  I could have gone to Google: I could have saved the web pages and then gone back and consulted them anytime—as long as my hardware and software remained current.

  Google couldn’t answer the question: Brian Herzog’s blog, Swiss Army Librarian, is recommended for its bracing doses of reality and intriguing reference questions. Herzog is also, it seems, at least partially responsible for the handy calculator with which you can put a monetary value on the library services you use.

  Mosman Library, located near Sydney, Australia, sponsored a contest: I am indebted to Kathryn Greenhill, who writes the blog Librarians Matter, for the tip to tune into the Mosman Library challenge.

  3. On the Ground

  This is a chapter about my own public libraries. I hadn’t intended to stay in my own backyard, but I walked into the story, and consequently spent a great deal of time in the curious state of patron-reporter. I’m anything but objective. I walked into my first trustees meeting of the Westchester Library System, thinking I would be sitting in an audience, anonymously; I was not only the sole representative of the public in attendance, and knew, independently, four of the people there, but I was also the subject of one of the reports because I was slated to read at their annual authors luncheon.

  There are thirty-eight libraries in WLS, but one, the White Plains Library, runs its own software.

  Carolyn Reznick and Maryanne Eaton had been on the job: Carolyn Reznick later left Chappaqua to direct the Ruth Keeler Memorial Library in North Salem, also in the Westchester Library System.

  “Unfortunately, the move has been disastrous”: To be completely fair, the Insane Clown Posse songs are titled “If You Can’t Beat ’Em Join ’Em” and “Dead Pumpkins” (along with “Toxic Love” and “Murda Cloak”). At any rate, the search algorithm has been fixed and the Insane Clown Posse no longer pops up ahead of the book.

  Hay and his staff, frustrated by all the money: Working in one of the local libraries, I looked up to see a sign that listed all the things I couldn’t do there. I was so freaked out I wrote them all down:

  NO Abusive language

  Animals

  Bare Feet

  Candy

  Disturbing Noise

  Feet on Furniture

  Running

  Sleeping

  Smoking

  Soliciting

  Sports Equipment

  Blogger Michael Stephens has a funny presentation mocking negative signs in libraries. I sympathize with the librarians who post signs saying No Disturbing Noise or No Soliciting. I can just imagine what compelled them to write these. But I wish I’d see lists telling me what I can do.

  The Library Concept Ce
nter in Delft is called DOK for the three concepts it embraces: music (Discotake), the public library (Openbare bibliotheek), and art (Kunst).

  4. The Blog People

  The ranting, mocking model prevailed: The Society for Librarians* Who Say “Motherfucker” is a group blog, active since 2004, that has a number of rules, one of which states, “What happens at the SLWSM STAYS at the SLWSM.” In other words, if library workers recognize coworkers by their rants, they should not rat them out. The asterisk in the title is explained: “Open to librarians; library associates, specialists, technicians, and paraprofessionals of all kinds; library school students; library aides and volunteers; and all of those who love libraries, or even just love a particular librarian. Welcome.”

  People serious about the future of librarianship: Graham Lavender is the librarian behind The Inspired Library School Student. “Five Weeks to a Social Library” is an excellent online course that could catch anyone up on social networking. It was devised by Meredith Farkas, Michelle Boule, Karen Coombs, Amanda Etches-Johnson, Ellyssa Kroski, and Dorothea Salo, all blogging librarians. “23 Things” is another good online course, devised by Helene Blowers of the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County in North Carolina to teach librarians the tools of Library 2.0 (Blowers has since moved to the Columbus Metropolitan Library in Ohio). Stephen Abrams’s list, “43 Things I Might Want to Do This Year,” challenges readers to teach themselves the tools of the Web by listing tasks they want to accomplish (“Get a Del.icio.us account and play with social bookmarking and tags”).

  It also gave those of us with questions: Jessamyn West’s “Ubuntu @ the Library” is posted with its original soundtrack on Vimeo, which is how it should be viewed. She got a “scary letter about copyrighted music” from YouTube, so another soundtrack, not nearly as much fun, accompanies this video on that site.