Monday again so soon and still no one wants to pay me for reading nor have I found the winning lottery ticket stuck to the bottom of my shoe. Maybe by next Monday. In the meantime, there are bookish things to talk about.
Like the jaunt my Bookman and I took to the big downtown library. We’ve gone there for readings several times since it opened last May but have never gone down just to browse. So we did. We took the metrorail train. I love going downtown now that I don’t have to drive and pay extortionist parking fees. The train has a convenient stop one block from the library, couldn’t ask for better.
It is a busy place on Saturday afternoons, a wonderful thing to see. And we had several nice librarians help us find things because the library layout and shelving system is, we discovered, a little wonky. It turns out that the library has two different shelving systems. What appears to be all the old books that don’t get checked out very often are shelved under the Dewey system. The rest of the books have some sort of other system that looks like Dewey but starts with initial letters before the call number like PS 1631.R53. When the librarian explained to us where the Dewey shelves were and where the other shelves were things got a little easier. Still there was much running around like a treasure hunt and since we were hunting books that was alright.
Then there was the mystery of where the first floor stacks were. We looked through all the visible and obvious shelves on the first floor. We finally asked at the information desk. We were escorted to a closed official looking door by the circulation desk. A plaque on the wall next to the door said in tiny letters “stacks,” and above the plaque was a tiny green light. When the light is green it means we are allowed to open the door and go in. So we opened the door and inside we found the first floor stacks. We were the only ones there and it felt like we were being naughty as we scurried around through the spiffy movable track shelving.
And about that track shelving. It is a great idea for adding more books, but it isn’t so great when the room is filled with 50 long shelves all smashed together and the one you want is right in the middle. The shelves have buttons that move them open. But, we discovered, if you want the middle shelf, you have to move all the other shelves first, one by one. As you may expect, bookshelves do not move quickly. Lucky for me there was no one else between any of the shelves I had to move to get to mine, because if someone is between shelves they don’t move. The library avoids nasty crushing accidents that way, but if it’s your time to go I can’t imagine a better way than being smooshed between two heavy moving bookshelves.
I also discovered that it isn’t a good idea to jump between the shelves and try to find your book real quick as they move apart. Trying to look at the book titles as they move away makes the eyes freak out and the head go swirly because your equilibrium gets thrown off.
I checked out four books, because my in progress reading list on view over to your left is far too short. Ha! Here’s what I brought home:
- Montaigne’s Essays. Yes, yes, I know. I already read all of Montaigne. I got this one just to look at because this one, as one of you kind readers tipped me off to, has illustrations by Salvador Dali. The essays were chosen by him too. And let me say, Dali does not disappoint. Montaigne and surrealism go great together. I’m going to have to find a copy of this book that I can own for myself.
- Hesiod. I got an edition that has Works and Days, Theogony, and The Shield of Herakles all in one and translated by Richmond Lattimore
- Emerson’s Conduct of Life. Judging from all the pencil underlining in it, at least one person has enjoyed it before me.
- And finally, a proper Emerson biography, Emerson: The Mind on Fire. It is a heavy book with small print. I hope I can finish it before it must be returned. I am glad I will get two renewals on it unless someone else wants it and what are the odds of that? And for anyone who is interested, J.C. Hallman, the author of The Devil is a Gentleman, has an interview with Robert Richardson, the author of the Emerson bio, about Richardson’s new book on William James over at Bookslut.
I’d better leave off now, I’ve got lots of reading to attend to.
I love people who have at least as many books started as I do….! It sounds like your library has Library of Congress classification as well as Dewey. I think I prefer LC, but I suppose that’s because I am used to it now. Your library sounds like fun, and you are lucky to live in a midwestern city that is also cosmopolitan!! You have a metrorail?! There are places in Omaha I can’t even get to as the city buses don’t go that far! Anyway it sounds like your library is very cool and you came away with some good, meaty books!!
This sounds like a nice trip. I’ve seen moving bookshelves like those ones you describe, and I find them a little frightening
Oo, I’ll have to look up that Hesiod.
And dear, if you don’t become familiar with the Library of Congress system before you start library school the other kids will laugh at you!
I wonder if anyone has written a murder mystery involving compact storage? Seems like an interesting way to meet a grisly end.
Wow, moving bookcases! I’ve never heard of such a thing. Cool. My local library was built in 1963 so it looks it, what with the 60′s retro facade. I’ve heard plans of a new building being built, but I think I’d miss the old one.
Sylvia, neat idea for a murder mystery!
And the LC call number you provided was for Emerson: A Mind on Fire.
We have compact shelving in our library now. They installed it over the summer. Once you learn how to operate it it isn’t so bad, but what I hate is how it’s divided our collection: half the books on Emerson (the new, the recently checked out) will still be up in the tower while all those other Emerson books that no one’s bothered to check out for x number of years will be down in the basement in compact shelving. As far as I’m concerned, all the Emersons should be together one place or another instead of separated by six floors.
Your post makes me homesick for the spacious libraries-full of books in English of my childhood and youth in Chicago. Now I live in Tokyo, and while there are many things I love about this city, I do miss the libraries of “the old country”. On my next visit, I think I’ll head straight there from the airport!
Danielle, as I was checking out my books and wondering what the heck I was doing to be adding more, I thought of you and felt immediately better because I wasn’t the only one that did stuff like that! Our metrorail is a couple of years old. It runs from downtown Minneapolis to the airport. The next phase is to have a line connecting downtown Minneapolis to downtown St. Paul.
There are lasers on the bottom of the shelves Dorothy the stop them moving if the laser bean is broken which makes them quite safe, but I think it would be more exciting if they turned the lasers off
Well now that all of you have explained it is the Library of Congress system I can do some reading so I won’t embarrass myself
And that is a great idea for a murder mystery. There could be a whole series that take place in the library!
Cat, our new library is filled with state of the art attractions. But the designers were also smart enough to bring pieces of the old library and integrate them into the new. It turned out to be a gorgeous building.
Susan, did you just know that or did you look it up? I ran into the divided collection issue too. As I was looking for my Emerson books I found them in three different places, reference, the moving Dewey stacks, and the “main” fixed shelves. Makes browsing nearly impossible.
Sorry to make you homesick for libraries Del!
Movable stacks?! Fancy and exciting!!
It sounds like your library trip was quite an adventure! How odd that they have two different classification systems going at once. All the public libraries that I have frequented have used Dewey while all the university libraries have used LC. I’ve never encountered a library that used both at once. I have encountered that track shelving however and it scares me. I don’t trust the lasers any more than I trust whatever feature of elevator doors is supposed to stop them from closing on you before you get all the way in. Mind you, the track shelving was also in the sub-sub-sub basement of a library where the lights tended to flick off on me mid-search because of some energy saving function. Pitch dark, very quiet, squashed between moveable shelves. Plenty of scope for a murder mystery indeed!
I was wondering if Susan knew or looked it up as well. Sometime in my past I recall reading a book or watching a show in which some characters had a contest about who could correctly assign classification numbers to books by heart. (Or was it the other way round?) Very interesting, though, and I don’t doubt that some people can do it.
My library has both Dewey and LC, but that’s because it’s both the main city library and the university library in one building. City materials are mostly on floors 1-4 and the university items are on 5-8. There are some things that are interfiled, though, which can get a little confusing. It is somewhat annoying to have to go to the 3rd floor for some fiction books and then up to the 7th for the rest, but it is nice to have such handy access to the university materials, so I can’t complain too much.
What fun trip. I wish I could see those moving bookcases though.
This sounds like an extraordinary library – with fantastic potential for the cinema or some other narrative treatment. Is there such a thing as a ‘library imagination’ do you think?
I looked it up. Every call number in Library of Congress is unique so it’s not likely anyone will memorize any particular call number (unless it’s an extremely popular one).
Oh, I love a good trip to the library, congrats! Now I’m just wishing you piles and piles of snow so you can stay in reading all weekend long!
If you find that job that pays you to read please pass on the info!
Yup Heather, movable stacks. Pretty spiffy.
Ohh, Kate, that sub-sub-sub basement would be the perfect setting for a murder!
What an interesting game Quillhill. But I am relieved Susan, that you didn’t just know what book the call number went to. If you did you would need to be crowned uber-librarian!
“library imagination,” I like it Litlove!
Thanks Courtney! We might get snow Sunday but nobody is making any more of an in depth prediction than that.
I’ll be sure to let you know where to send in your application when I find that job Carl!
Becky, that is cool that you have access to both public library and university library like that. But I do see how running around to the different floors can get irritating.
I’ll see what I can do about obtaining photographic footage of the moving shelves Iliana
I’m glad you’re reading Hesiod like you wanted to! Do all of that learnin’ so you can report back, and the rest of us can keep reading our fluff novels.
Heh, Sara! I’ve not begun reading him yet, but my sister who has read him, said she recalls enjoying him, so I have hopes that he won’t be dry.
You are such a wonderfully diverse reader…. I mean, you read such a wide range of stuff.
And “Death By Smooshing” I like that! Sandwiched by books.
I work at a huge-normous archive [see Jose Saramago's novel All The Names... yep, something like that] and all day long I deal with those rolling shelves of stuff. I would much sooner spend as much time in your downtown Library, it sounds like a fascinating place.
Even if there is the constant danger of being smooshed.
Ah Cip, now I’m gonna have to go and read All the Names so I can get a complete picture of what you are talking about. Reading Saramago is no punishment though
And the danger of being smooshed just makes things more interesting!