"Hinzelmann, have you heard of eagle stones?"
"Up north of Rhinelander? Nope, that's Eagle River. Can't say I have."
"How about Thunderbirds?"
"Well, there was the Thunderbird Framing Gallery up on Fifth Street, but that closed down. I'm not helping, am I?"
"Tell you what, why don't you go look at the library. Good people, although they may be kind of distracted by the library sale on this week. I showed you where the library was, didn't I?"
Shadow nodded and said so long. He wished he'd thought of the library himself. [p.372]
COMMENT
The entire library episode actually extends from p. 372-377 -- too long for me to type out. What does Shadow do at the library? He requests a library card, has a discussion with a librarian about a man who stole rare library books, researches Native American traditions, talks to a neighbor and purchases weeded library books at the library book sale.
Two of these book sale books are probably perfectly appropriate to weed, but one of them should certainly have been kept in the collection unless it was a duplicate-- Minutes of the Lakeside City Council, 1872-1884. If this was indeed the only copy of local history it was completely irresponsible for librarians to send it to the book sale. However, the contents of this imaginary book turn out to be a plot point since is contains evidence about children killed by a resident demon. In real life Gaiman is an outspoken supporter of libraries. As a writer, he had to to betray the librarians and send this particular book to the book sale in order to give his character more time to read it.
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