Lost in the Stacks

[Juvenal]

My undergraduate career was nothing that I look back on with great conventional(?) esteem--all that waste of "what I should have been doing."

But I can say that one of my problems was maybe something not all that much a "problem," considering "that was then and this is now..."

Anyway, my uni (that liked to call itself "The Harvard of the South," when no one north of the MD Line was listening) had a uni library that was open stacks, and the stacks were mine-like, being mostly windowless and low-ceilinged, dimly lit and scented with foxed paper.  Tables and carrels here and there, exits hard to find (but if you were lucky you could nab a tower room with access to the roof through one of the rare windows).

Often I went to the library with the firm, firm resolve to study what was needed for "success."  And what did I so often do?  Browsed the stacks for something that seemed more interesting than calculus, and invariably found something of that sort (not hard).  And there went the evening.

So, I know that while I did not do all that well in calculus, I did considerably broaden my general knowledge of things peripheral (or less so) to my major.  I don't regret this at all.  I was STEM, but if you want to ask me about 19th C. magazines (e.g., "Punch"), I could say a few more things than I can now say about derivatives.

Anyone else willing to confess to not quite keeping their eye on the ball?

[Puget]

Oh, I loved the vast stacks of my undergrad library. We could check out books for the whole semester unless someone recalled them, so I'd frequently pick something out from the oversized book area to decorate my room with-- giant coffee table books of old maps, or illuminated manuscripts, or birds or whatever. No one ever recalled them.

I was also exceedingly pleased on a few occasions to check out a book for a research paper that hadn't been checked out in so long it lacked a barcode and had to be given one. These were always for the history classes I took for fun. My actual field involves mostly PDFs of journal articles so I no longer do any creeping around library stacks.

[mamselle]

If I don't know where the breaks between the BRs and the BSs are in a given library, or where the GV1600s are, I haven't worked in it enough yet.

I used to go to the public library's reference room after school--from about jr. hi on--where I read all of the McGraw Hill Ency. of Science and Technology entries, and kept meaning to do my homework but always, ALWAYS found something more interesting...the 812s and 815s for example (they had Dewey, which I have kept in mind and use for my own books), and I would sit and read whole books over the space of a couple of days (after I couldn't take anymore out when my fines were too high).

Still getting lost (or found) in libraries--at last count I have something like 20 library cards on two continents...

M.

[cathwen]

I loved browsing the stacks.  I would go up to find a particular book (or books), then start casting my eyes on other titles.  Often, I would find something that was very relevant to what I was researching, but that hadn't attracted my attention in the card catalog.  (Card catalog!  How retro!)  Or something altogether different!

When my daughters were in high school, I would take them to the library and browse around aimlessly while they were busy looking for whatever they needed.  Once I happened to see a book that catalogued Mayflower ancestry from the area my father was from--and opening it up, found a documented trail back to a Mayflower pilgrim.  I never would have guessed that my father's ancestry went back that far if I hadn't found that book! 

[aside]

I lived in the stacks, and sometimes browsed in areas other than my own.  I read literature, art history, military history, and computer programming, among other areas.  Reading about programming languages actually helped me land my first tenure-track job in music theory, as computer-assisted instruction was the next big thing at the time, and I had been playing around with such programs on my home computer (first a TI, then an Apple II).  I am old.

[mamselle]

Reviving this thread to say how much fun it's been over the past few days to browse the stacks of a music/dance library, and then scan my findings to take home!

Heavenly bliss....

Now I just have to separate them out since the scanner batched everything...they don't have the little desktop hobbies that let you stop a file and start a new one....

But that's fine, I get to revisit all those files now.

M.

[Anselm]

I started doing this in high school when visiting libraries for term papers.   That is how you will find interesting topics that otherwise you would never know about.   My college stacks had an old elevator with a cage style door.  They were four stories tall.  You walked on translucent fiberglass floors.  I also worked in the library and had the place memorized.  If anyone needed a book on any topic I was able to walk them over to where they could find that category.

[mamselle]

I've been in 2-3 libraries in the past like that. Used to be the "in thing' in library design, I guess.

As to having the place memorized, yes, I tend to do that, too.

Like knowing the entrance and exit wings for a theatre performance... you just know where to go.

M.

[traductio]

Oh, such fond memories...

My first year of undergrad, my favorite thing to do on Friday afternoons was find a comfy chair next to the literary journals and read poetry. (Me, a nerd? What? No!) The library closed at 4:30pm on Fridays, which was such a shame, although after having been a student there and then later faculty, I recognize that the stacks would not have been well visited later than that.

But the pleasures of sitting and reading -- I miss that carefreeness.

As a grad student at a much bigger and more research-oriented university, I spent many hours in the stacks. I got to know PN 1992 really well (that will tell you what I studied!). I was thrilled when my second book was in the PN 1992 range and, during a visit to grad school town, I could go find it in my favorite corner of the library.

[sinenomine]

I had an evening job as an undergrad, re-shelving books in the university library. I used to hustle through my shift's allotment of books to be shelved and then settle down for a bit with some that looked interesting. Sometimes I checked out a few as I clocked out for the night. A bibliophile's dream!

[Cheerful]

I had an evening job as an undergrad, re-shelving books in the university library. I used to hustle through my shift's allotment of books to be shelved and then settle down for a bit with some that looked interesting. Sometimes I checked out a few as I clocked out for the night. A bibliophile's dream!

What bliss!  Browsing the stacks is the best.

Sad for many of my students who have not and may never visit the stacks.  So many nice discoveries from browsing the stacks.  Locating a particular book and then finding unexpected gems around it.  For me, browsing an electronic card catalog is nothing like browsing the stacks of a brick-and-mortar library (same with electronic vs. traditional books).

[fleabite]

I still adore browsing in stacks. I go to one of my local libraries every two or three weeks to choose several items to read. I try to go when I can spend time wandering up and down the rows. I discover all sorts of fun books that I wouldn't have known about otherwise.

[nebo113]

Not just the stacks!  I could lose myself in the no-longer-existing card catalog.  Damn!  I loved running my fingers through those cards.

[mamselle]

I was also sorry to see card catalogues go. You don't find unexpectedly useful titles otherwise.

I do notice that a couple larger libraries kept theirs along a basement wall or some other out-of-the-way place, so we aren't the only ones who value them.

M.

[ciao_yall]

I was also sorry to see card catalogues go. You don't find unexpectedly useful titles otherwise.

I do notice that a couple larger libraries kept theirs along a basement wall or some other out-of-the-way place, so we aren't the only ones who value them.

M.

There's a great anachronism, if you can call it that, in Stranger in a Strange Land where a character flies in her spaceship to a library. Upon arrival she starts going through the card catalogue.