Forget the Book on Impractical Boundaries

 Sophia Ortega.  "Forget the Book on Impractical Boundaries"  (Modern Love], New York Times, October 2, 2022 p. ST6.

Around this time my therapist assigned my homework, a book with a mortifying title: "Boundary Boss." I placed a hold at the library and was relieved to learn there would be a six-week wait, giving me plenty of time to bask in romantic recklessness.

COMMENT

The author checks out the book, but never reads it.  This made me laugh.  I use the library the same way, to borrow books I'm not 100% sure I'm really interested in reading. 

Library association awards Carnegie medals to McBride, Giggs

 

Hillel Italie, "Library association awards Carnegie medals to McBride, Giggs" Washington Post, February 4, 2021.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/library-association-awards-carnegie-medals-to-mcbride-giggs/2021/02/04/5a82f238-6735-11eb-bab8-707f8769d785_story.html

NEW YORK — This year’s winners of the Carnegie medals for fiction and nonfiction, presented by the American Library Association, have each checked out a few books in their time.

“I work from libraries a lot, and my wallet is full of library cards,” says Rebecca Giggs, an Australian author whose “Fathoms: The World in the Whale” received the nonfiction prize Thursday.

James McBride, the fiction winner for “Deacon King Kong,” has library cards in four different cities and wrote parts of his novel in branches in New York City and Philadelphia.

“In New York you can get anything you want but it takes longer because you can’t leave the library with them. But in Philly, you can,” explained McBride, whose novel last year was chosen by Oprah Winfrey for her book club.

...

McBride and Giggs each have strong childhood memories of libraries. McBride, a longtime New Yorker, would visit them often because they were a “safe space” and because his family couldn’t afford to buy many books. Giggs remembers her mother getting into aerobics “in a big way” and , a few nights a week, dropping off her and her sister at a library next door to the workout space.

Ghost stories were a favorite.

 

COMMENT

Authors describe using libraries as a workspace and to check out books.  

 

 

 

 

The Time is Now for Us to Sit and Listen

Sharlee Mullins Glen. "The Time is Now for Us to Sit and Listen." Deseret News. June 25, 2020, p. A6. 

One evidence of the striking singularity of this particular moment is the fact that there are currently 206 holds at the small library in Kearns, Utah on the book "White Fragility: Why it's So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism."

 COMMENT

     Library use is cited as evidence of community involvement in #BlackLivesMatter protests.  Demand for library books tracks current events. The library can help by purchasing a few extra copies so that readers can get the book faster. 

Ask Ann Cannon

Ann Cannon, "Ask Ann Cannon." Salt Lake Tribune, 5/31/2020 p. D6.

Dear Ann Cannon,
I find that during this time of social distancing, one of the activities I miss most is visiting the library. Any suggestions for borrowing books? Not e-books, not audio book, real books.

COMMENT 

I know advice columnist Ann Cannon is a book lover because last time I ran into her it was at the King's English bookshop.  I also miss the library.  We've had the same books checked out for 3 months now, and we've already read them.  During the pandemic I used the online New York Times at the public library and  some research databases at an academic library, but I've been buying books with my stimulus check because I can barely concentrate on reading at all these days, much less online reading. 

American Gods

Neil Gaiman, American Gods. Tenth Anniversary Edition. Author's preferred text. 2011.

     "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.  

As the Ball Dropped, Our Life Fell Apart

Tammy Rabideaum, "As the Ball Dropped, Our Life Fell Apart," (Modern Love) New York Times, December 29, 2019, p.ST5.

     During Kristils' freshman year of high school, she announced that she wanted to attend a high-level college and began searching what was needed to be accepted. One summer day we drove to the library to pick up books she had on order. Awaiting us were three bins and some 60 books, many of them "how-to" manuals on getting straight A's, mastering standardized tests and winning admission to Ivy League schools.
     At home, Kristil lined them up in stacks along her bedroom wall, then mapped out her reading and study plan for the summer. 

COMMENT

     Despite a period of homelessness, Kristil eventually ends up at Barnard College with a full scholarship.  Some librarians are skeptical when a student like Kristil checks out more books than a person could reasonably read.  This story illustrate that someone who checks out a lot of books might actually be using them.  The librarians would surely be pleased to know how their library books helped get their borrower into the college of her dreams.

Face it, Mom and Dad: I'm Not Special

Jenny Dolan, "Face it Mom and Dad: I'm Not Special," (Modern Love) New York Times, November 24, 2019, ST6.

     My parents owned a book called "You Can Heal Your Life" by Louise Hay along with a matching set of affirmation cards, which my mother kept in her nightstand. Hay claims all illnesses result from fear and anger.
     I went to the library and checked it out, wondering what am I afraid of?
     Confident I could solve the problem with mind power, I visualized myself as healthy.

COMMENT

     Of course, the writer is not healthy. She is diagnosed with cystic fibrosis, an incurable lung disease.  Her parents, however, are so committed to positive thinking that they are unable to offer helpful emotional support for their daughter who is facing a lifetime of chronic illness and the probability of dying young.   The self help book is worse than useless.

     The irony is that libraries are a public institution that stands against the current onslaught of fake news propaganda coming out of Washington D.C.  But library shelves offer plenty of fake news -- fake self-help, fake diet advice, fake politics.  A library would probably not buy a book by say, a Holocaust denier, but right there on the shelves was a book of science denial that places the blame for illness on the person who is sick.

    Yet even this fact-free book serves a function.  The author's parents own the book and believe it offers helpful advice.  Because the library has a copy she is able to  understand why her parents seem so dismissive of her worries. Later the parents give the author more self-help books for a Christmas present and because of what she learned from the library book her reaction to these books triggers the conversation that parents and child should have had much sooner.  

Here to Help

Tik Root, "Here to Help: One Thing You can do to Slay the Energy Vampires," New York Times, November 1, 2019, p. A3.

Another option is a Kill-a-Watt meter, which measures how much energy individual appliances are using.  they're available at most hardware stores and can sometimes be borrowed at public libraries.

COMMENT

   The library is not just for books any more! It's also a place where you could possibly borrow a  single-use tool in order to help cut energy consumption.

It's Not You, It's Men

Justin Chen, "It's Not You, It's Men" (Modern Love), New York Times, April 28, 2019, p. ST6.

     Several months ago, a co-worker asked me for the name of my celebrity crush.
     "Carrie Brownstein," I said.
     I didn't really have a celebrity crush, but Carrie's name jumped out. On "Portlandia," she was smart, whimsical and tough. I had checked out her memoir from the library the previous week and had just begun reading it.

COMMENT 

     Librarians like serious talk about education and life-long learning, but the library is also the perfect place to get light reading, like a celebrity memoir that you wouldn't want to actually spend money on or need to keep on your home bookshelves forever.   It's the Readers' Bill of Rights again with the right to escapism.[1]  

     There is great value to being able to borrow any library book that seems appealing.  Yet in this Modern Love essays, even this fluffiest of books got the reader thinking about the nature of his own romantic relationships (and also a publication credit in the New York Times, which is nothing to sneeze at.)

[1]See, How to Tap Your Inner Reader

Donna Leon [Interview]

“Donna Leon" (By the Book) [interview], New York Times Book Review, March 10, 2019, p. 7.

What kind of reader were you as a child?I loved books about animals (and still do: Sy Montgomery’s “The Soul of an Octopus” [1] is a dream)  and about ancient history. When I was about 7, I complained to my mother that I had nothing to do. She did not hesitate but drove me immediately to the local library and took me to the children’s room and told me I could take home five books. The first was a book about Egypt, with pictures. I remember realizing that the whole world was there, in that small room.

COMMENT

Here’s yet another coming-of-age-at-the-library story — that memorable moment when a child is allowed for the first time to chose her own library books and take them home. Leon's memory of the event is so clear she remembers the details right down to the number of books she was allowed to take and what those books were about.

Leon describes a feeing of awe to think that books contain the whole world. Perhaps it’s not just the knowledge and stories inside of books, but also a newfound sense of responsibility that creates such indelible childhood library memories.  Children given the freedom to choose books are also asked to take care of them and return them on time. In a sense,  the rules of the library make them into guardians of the whole world.

[1] Sy Montgomery, The soul of an octopus: A surprising exploration into the wonder of consciousness. Simon and Schuster, 2015.

Taking Notes on How Bibliophiles Flirt

Karla Marie-Rose Derus, “Taking Notes on How Bibliophiles Flirt” (Modern Love), New York Times, February 24, 2019, pl. ST6.

During six years of singlehood in my 20s, I became a person I did not know. Before, I had always been a reader. I walked to the library several times a week as a child and stayed up late into the night reading under my blankets with a flashlight. I checked out so many books and returned them so quickly the librarian once snapped, “Don’t take home so many books if you’re not going to read them all.” “But I did read them all,” I said, unloading them into her arms. I was an English major in college and went on t get a master’s in literature. But shortly after the spiral-bound thesis took its place on my shelf next to the degree, I stopped reading. It happened gradually, the way one heals or dies.

… 

On our seventh date, David and I visited the Central Library downtown.,
“I have a game,” he said, pulling two pens and pads of sticky notes out of his bag. “Let’s find books we’ve read and leave reviews in them for he next person.”
We wandered through the aisles for over an hour. In the end, we say on the floor among the poetry, and I read him some of Linda Pastan’s verse. 

… 

The Japanese language has a word for this: tsundoku. The act of acquiring books that go unread.

COMMENT


     Shame on the librarian. The writer describes herself as “a 5-foot-3-inch black woman born to a Caribbean mother.” It troubles me to think that the librarian was judging her appearance, not her borrowing habits. What’s more, the librarian is deeply wrong to think that taking out unread books is somehow wrong. A library is an antidote to tshundoku. Unlike the bookstore which clutters your home shelves, you can take a chance with a library book that may not turn out to be worth reading.  (See: What to Do With all the Stuff That's Cluttering your Home; Can't. Just. Stop).

     As other library stories relate, the books that people read and/or buy become deeply personal markers of who they are. Even after Karla stops reading, she considers the books she has read essential to her self perception. Her online dating profile is listed under the screen name “missbibliophile” and her taste in literature speaks for her personality. David, the boyfriend reads history and nonfiction; Karla prefers writers of color and immigrant narratives (writers on her list like  Zadie Smith, Arundhati Roy and Edward P. Jones indicate the importance of diversity to her self-image) Can they overcome their differences to combine their bookshelves?

Like the writer, I experienced a period of non-reading, but I don’t think it was related to romantic disappointment or intellectual fatigue. I believe I lost my ability to concentrate due to too much screen time. I decided it was a big problem that I had stopped reading books and I cured myself by sitting down with Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace until I had read it all the way through. A distraction-free long distance Amtrak trip was helpful to the project of becoming re-literate.

The library game the two lovers play is charming. It reminds me of students who leave paper money in their dissertation to reward anyone who bothers to read their work. Other library stories feature ephemera found in books (See: Lee Israel) or marginalia (See: When Puccini Came, Saw and Conquered). In academic libraries one sometimes finds texts marked up with notes or highlighting from previous readers. Sometimes this seems like annoying defacement, but it’s also an insight into what impressed another reader. I shouldn't admit it, but I don't always mind if library books are marked up if it's done in pencil and not fluorescent-yellow ink.

The library in this story is also a meaningful place.  The two lovers go there on a date.  When David proposes he does it by tucking a note into the pages of a book.

Mythical Dangers of Democratic Socialism

Tom Huckin, "Mythical Dangers of Democratic Socialism," Salt Lake Tribune, February 26, 2019, p,. A11.

     Sometimes we go to the downtown library to enjoy an art exhibit, hear a public lecture, borrow books and videos, etc. Oddly enough, the only thing we pay for is parking.
     I belong to a civic group called Move to Amend that aims to get Big Money out of our corrupt political system and thereby have real democracy in this country.  Guess where we hold our monthly meetings. Yep, in that same (socialist) library!

COMMENT

   Huckin is not quite accurate when he writes that he doesn't pay for the library.  I use the same public library system he does and there is a line item in my property taxes,  It costs me less than $100/year.  Still, Huckin makes his point that all the services he gets from the library are a terrific bargain.

     One of those services is a meeting room.  There is nice symmetry in the fact that the tax-supported library in turn supports civic engagement and a democratic system.   Huckin's description of library use is exactly the kind of social infrastructure that sociologist Eric Klinenberg writes about in Palaces for the People (2018), which are essential to the civic life and resilience of communities.  Nonetheless, politicians often look upon libraries as luxuries.  Klinenberg asks,

Why have so many public officials and civic leaders failed to recognize the value of libraries and their role in our social infrastructure?  Perhaps it's because the founding principle behind the library -- that all people deserve free, open access to our shared culture and heritage, which they can use to any end they see fit -- is out of sync with the market logic that dominates our time. (If, today, the library didn't already exist, it's hard to imagine our society's leaders inventing it).  [p.37]

     Indeed, on the same op-ed page as Huckin's editorial, Congressman Chris Stewart (R-UT-2) announces that he has organized an Anti-Socialist Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives.  Stewart's editorial is pure nonsense, making an utterly absurd claim that offering a few government services to citizens will inevitably end in mass graves, mass emigration and starvation (Pay no attention to those socialist Nordic countries).
 
    But Stewart's nonsense shows that Klinenberg is probably right.  If libraries did not exist, dogmatic anti-tax zealots like Stewart would never allow them to exit.  No doubt they would gripe about the unfairness of  being forced to buy books, and support art and meeting spaces that harm "individual liberty" for people who choose not to read, look at art, educate themselves or vote. It's hard to say, though, what kind of freedom is actually represented by social, cultural and political isolation. As Huckin points out, the republic that Stewart claims to admire can't hold together without supporting the public infrastructure that Stewart claims to despise.

   

The Light Under the Bushel

Chigozie Obioma, "The Light Under the Bushel: A Father Ignites a Passion for Reading, " New York Times Book Review, Dec 9, 2018, P20.

     By the fifth month I had read every book my father owned.  One Saturday, he returned home and asked me to get in the car.
     "I have a surprise for you."
We drove through streets clotted with people until we got to a newly painted building with an arch over the gate that read, Ondo State Library. We walked through the arch into the building, the likes of which I had never seen. There were books everywhere, on shelves, on tables, on the floor.
     "I want to register you here and bring you every Saturday here to read, "my father said.
     I wanted breathlessly as he completed the registration at the counter with an elderly, bespectacled woman who seemed in awe of the idea of a child coming in alone to read.  My father, proud, agreed and said that it was all I wanted to do.
     "That is good," I herd the woman say. "Very, very good.  Reading is like finding light, you know.  Jesus said a light cannot be hidden under a bushel"
     "That is true," my father said, nodding as the woman wrote my name on a small, square yellow card.
     "Your son has found the light under the bushel."
     She handed me the card and my father said he would pick me up at noon.  I waved him goodbye and disappeared among the crowded shelves.

COMMENT

     The author tells the story of how he got his first library card at the Ondo State Library in Nigeria when he was eight years old. He receives the treasured card along with a literal blessing from the librarian and from his father.

     Obioma relates how his mother told folktales in Igbo language, but his father's stories, told in English, seemed far more complex and interesting. One day Obioma finds out that his father has been re-telling stories he read in books, He begins reading obsessively himself. Looking back from the perspective of an adult, he realizes that his mother had no Igbo literature to draw from.  English language books were the pathway to education, but also a way to escape the limits of his own culture. He writes, "it struck me that if I could read well, I could be like my father. I too could become a repository of stories and live in their beautiful worlds away from the dust and ululations of Akure."

     Concealed in this triumphant story of education is a sadder tale about the Igbo stories that were never written down and never added to any library. Literature written in English comes to seem more important simply because there is so much more of it.

But a library card is a blessing nonetheless. I got my first library card when I was 5. The school librarian didn't believe a kindergartener could read so she asked me to read aloud from a book which had the word "orphanage" in it. I read the whole book pronouncing the unfamiliar word as four distinct syllables, or-pa-ha-nage. She did not correct my pronunciation until I had read through the entire book.  I was absolutely furious at her for letting me humiliate myself like that. But still, I got the library card and after that could take home all the books I wanted from the school library.  I never asked the librarian for any suggestions.     

New in Town

Frank McCourt, "New in Town: The Initiation of a Young Irishman," New Yorker,  Dec. 3, 2018, p. 20-24 [reprinted from Feb. 33 & March 1, 1999].

     It's a warm October day and I have nothing else to do but what I'm told and what harm is there in wandering up to Fifth Avenue where the lions are. The librarians are friendly.  Of course I can have a library card, and it's so nice to see young immigrants using the library. I can borrow four books if I like as long as they're back on the due date. I ask if they have a book called "The Lives of the Poets" by Samuel Johnson, and they say, My, my, my, you're reading Johnson.  I want to tell them I've never read Johnson before, but I don't want them to stop admiring me. They tell me feel free to walk around, take a look at the Main Reading Room, on the third floor. They're not a bit like the librarians in Ireland, who stood guard and protected the books against the likes of me.
      The sight of the Main Reading Room, North and South, makes me go weak at the knees. I don't know if it's the two beers I had or the excitement of my second day in New York, but I'm near tears when I look at the miles of shelves and know I'll never be able to read all those books if I live till the end of the century.  There are acres of shiny tables where all sorts of people sit and read as long as they like, seven days a week, and no one bothers them unless they fall asleep and snore. There are sections with English, Irish, American books, literature, history, religion and it makes me shiver to think I can come here anytime I like and read anything as long as I like if I don't snore. 

COMMENT

     To this new immigrant, the freedom of America is represented by a public library where anyone can come in to sit and read as long as they like.  After an Irish bartender chides nineteen-year-old McCourt for drinking instead of educating himself he heads for the New York Public Library to find a copy of Lives of the Poets.  In the baffling big city, the library is the one place where his literary ambitions don't seem laughable.

   
   

Jill Lepore, Master of Microhistories, Tackles Endeavor of a Grander Scale

Jennifer Schuessler, “Jill Lepore, Master of Microhistories, Tackles Endeavor of a Grander Scale,” New York Times, Sept. 17, 2018, p. C1-2.

Even when filing an essay spurred by a group of books, Mr. Finder of the New Yorker said, Professor Lepore will send in detailed footnotes that sometimes include primary source documents that seem to have never been cited before.  

“Her gravitation towards dust, towards opening boxes that haven't seen light for decades, as clearly never faded, “ he said. 

… 

She also vacuumed up secondary literature.

     “I wrote strictly chronologically, and for every chapter I would check out a gazillion books,” she said.  “The security guard at the library would always ask, ‘What year are you on?”

COMMENT

It’s those “dusty” boxes again. 

Professor Lepore has written a well-reviewed new history of the U.S. [1] and her attraction to dust is the specific thing that  makes her a great historian. (When librarians say "dust" they usually mean unused materials that are a target for weeding).  Mr. Finder’s comment also carries an implication  that most historians copy from each other when they cite sources. This copying can also be a side effect of keyword search engines that highlight the most popular links. Finding new primary source documents means not using the same research strategy as everyone else. 

I notice that Professor Lepore works from the print collection. Writing a book is information-intensive.  Many researchers find that reading from print is a quicker way to scan through a lot of text, slowing down to give more attention to the interesting parts. It's also a way to find things expressed in non-keyword vocabulary-- especially important since language changes over time. Online reading enforces equivalent attention to each page in a way that I, personally, dislike.  In my own research, I find that I often use ebooks for keyword searching and almost never actually read them. 

     It's interesting to me that Lepore who is clearly a library super-user mentions a relationship with the security guard but not with any librarians. Library support staff are often the ones on the front lines interacting with patrons, while librarians, hidden in their offices, miss making connections like this. I wonder how many librarians at the Widener Library knew that professor Lepore was making such heavy use of the U.S. History Collection?  I wonder if any of them cared what year she was on?

[1] Jill Lepore, These Truths: A History of the United States, W.W.Norton (2018).