Lost in the Stacks

[mamselle]

So, I'll just ask....is 6 libraries in 4 different towns in one week any kind of record?

I'm claiming it, if so!

;--》

M.

[apl68]

I spent 14 years at an R1 university research library as first a PhD student and later a library staff member.  I never got tired of browsing the stacks there.  The most fun part of my job was running around the main and branch campus libraries pulling books and periodicals for ILL.  One day in the Education library I was pulling bound periodicals and stumbled across a children's magazine I had read at school in the 1970s.  I made a point of going back there when I was off-duty.  It was a delight (And one of the few things of interest I ever found in the stacks at Education). 

Over the years I went through volumes of assorted popular magazines like "Colliers," "The Saturday Evening Post," and "Smithsonian;" explored reference works on subjects like encyclopedias (They published an awful lot of them in the 1950s and 1960s, some of which I've since encountered at antique and thrift stores) and fictional places; and became familiar with the visual arts of Thomas Bewick and Victorian book illustrators. 

Now, as the director of a small-town library, I'm the largest fish in a very small pond, with no larger ponds for about an hour's drive in any direction.  On Friday evenings, before closing time, I still like to browse the stacks if I can.  Now and then I run across something interesting that I haven't stumbled upon before (We're not THAT small!). 

When I go to the state capital on business and stay there overnight I go to the main library downtown.  I browse the used book store on their campus until it closes at five, then spend the next hour at the library itself.  For an hour I get to just enjoy being a patron at a library, instead of being in charge of one.  Then, just before they close at six, I drive away--the evening rush has died down by then--and find a place to eat.

Once a year on a rainy weekend afternoon I drive to the nearest four-year college--about an hour away--and browse around their modest library for a couple of hours.  Even a little university library contains so much of interest!  Once every two years I go back to the big city on vacation and visit that R1 library where I used to work, to visit old colleagues and see how things are going. 

[mamselle]

Sounds very satisfying.

I think the term for us is "rat de bibliotheque"...somewhere in between "bookworm" and "churchmouse"....

M.

[Wahoo Redux]

I found what would turn out to be one of the defining passions of my life because the spine of the book was bright white. 

I discovered what would eventually become my dissertation subject via the same color.

On the other hand, my grades and social life probably would have been much better if I had not been so enthralled with the huge university library----so much bigger and more powerful than the tiny town library I'd loved in high school (probably the only student in my high school who could say that).

[nebo113]

Anyone ever have sex in the stacks?  I didn't, but wish I had.  Ah well.....

[apl68]

I'm not aware of any verifiable instances of that happening anywhere.  I do recall a colleague back at the R1 library who always wore gloves when out in the stacks, after an incident that I never heard described in detail.  For all I know something of the sort may have figured in that.

Some years ago I was talking to our mayor during a visit to City Hall.  He said to me "I probably shouldn't tell you this, but..." and went on to confess that he had once stolen kisses from his then-girlfriend, later-wife, in the stacks of the old town library.  I think she was working there at the time.  That reminiscence was either sweet or TMI--hard to say which.  Sadly, he lost his wife unexpectedly to cancer just this year.

[Vkw10]

I spent a couple of hours in the stacks of my modest public library today, checking out:
A poetry book devoted to pigs
A history of postcards
Sci-fi stories from the 1950s
A Georgette Heyer mystery
3 children's picturebooks
2 teen books
A book about molecular cuisine and one on traditional Lebanese cooking in USA
3 gorgeous exhibition catalogs
A biography of Herbert Hoover
and absolutely nothing relevant to my social science field!

[nebo113]

Save the UVA card catalog!


https://www.newsadvance.com/news/state/coalition-of-book-lovers-rushes-to-save-university-of-virginia/article_480ea230-b757-5337-99a3-cde2a8599169.html

[mamselle]

Glad someone posted that. I saw it but couldn't do it from my phone.

I <3 card catalogues.

M.