A library is not a place to store books. That might be one of the functions it is called upon to perform, but that is not what a library is in the same way that I'm not a cook, but I can still put together a pretty good meal when I choose to (i.e. when I'm hungry). But my identity is not "cook." And a library's identity is not "place where books are when they are not being read."
A library is an open door. When you walk in, all you can see is possibility.
A library is a maze with no wrong turns.
A library is a skeleton key.
A library is a home for ideas and for people. If you are smart enough to go to one, it will invite you in with open arms.
A library is the first stop on the road to knowledge.
More than anything else, a library is the kind stranger to whom I entrust my mind, my heart and my sense of self. By the time I'm ready to take it all back, I am a better person and the library has become my friend.
The Elmer J. Bobst Building at NYU, which is referred to by the great and glorious term library, is not my friend. It stands imposingly high, like a tall and distinguished gentleman in white tie and top hat who has just realized that he is hopelessly overdressed for the occasion, and glares down at you as you enter quietly into its domain in your simple yet elegant suit. Its features are angular and cold; grey eyes watching amid the stark black and white of evening dress. Those are the only three colors to be found in Bobst itself; all the hues in between are brought in by the books and those trying to read them. There are nine floors in total and, when you walk in and gaze up at the dizzying heights afforded by the floor to rooftop view in the atrium, you can see each separate story, the staircases connecting them and the pinstripe black bars in front of the stairs. The books are all hidden behind this prison-like edifice and woe-betide the poor student who has to actually venture inside to find a book.
University libraries are, much to my disappointment, rarely like public libraries. I have very little faith in any institution that requires you to know exactly what you are looking for before you find it. Public libraries are ideal for browsing. University libraries require a bit more effort but, with the help of proper signage, decent layout and the occasional lounge with armchairs, it is possible to go in and, while looking for one book, come out with another four that you did not even know you wanted to read until you saw them on the shelves.
Bobst requires an exact call number and a very detailed map of the building before you even have a chance of finding the book you were looking for, much less anything else. And if you get lost, heaven help you because the signs in the stacks most certainly will not. And the worst part of all is that there is nothing of interest to look at on the way. When I first got lost in Bobst, I was a bit perplexed, but not unduly annoyed. After all, it would just give me a chance to browse around and see if I could find an interesting collection of works along the way. I could not. It is quite possible that I walked by any number of them as they shrank away from the garish fluorescent lights and the warehouse style "decor," for lack of a better term. After turning around twice, ending up in one restricted area and generally tripping over my own feet, I finally found the book I was looking for in its hiding place about two feet above my head.
A library is a place that has the occasional step stool so that books on the upper shelves are not entirely neglected.
I finally coaxed the recalcitrant creature down with the help of Leon Edel's biography of Henry James, which extended my reach by six inches and allowed me to hit at the book I wanted until it gave in and fell over. I didn't like treating a book that way - it wasn't its fault.
Architects of the world, if anyone ever calls on you to design a library, please try and remember that a library is a wonderful little place where readers and books can unite to become something greater than either could possibly be on their own. It should be warm and friendly, like the embrace of a loved one. It should, in short, look absolutely nothing like Bobst.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Childhood Memories and a Horseshoe Crab
When my husband and I first moved into our new apartment, we would give the following directions to people who wished to find us:
"Walk most of the way down the block and stop when you see the two windows with the Horseshoe crab shell in front. That's us. If you yell up, we'll hear you and let you in."
Now that it's getting dark earlier, we've decided that it might be more useful to simply give the address and apartment number.
But the horseshoe crab shell is still there, along with another, smaller crab shell and three clam shells that sit wistfully on the window ledge like the echo of a long ago trip to the beach. The clam shells have been bleached almost white by the sun while the larger of the two crab shells has a few distinctive white patches that seem to have gotten there by means of pigeon. The smaller (and more intact) crab shell looks out at the street below and I half expect that, one day, it will finally get bored with the view from my window ledge and wander off.
Granted, if they ever left, I would be even more puzzled by where they went than by how they got there in the first place. I'd always assumed that the tenants who occupied this apartment before us had at least one small child and, one summer day, they took this child all the way out to the beaches on the Long Island Sound. And this child probably spent a little while building sand mounds and calling them castles, then finally built up the courage to dip a toe into the ever-freezing waves of the Atlantic. Half an hour of shrieking and running to and fro later, he or she would actually be far enough in the water that it would cover a pair of chubby knees.
Assuming, of course, that this child was anything like me the first time I went to the beach. And I'm assuming he or she was...because of the clam shells; three large, unchipped, almost pure white clam shells of the sort that I (and my sister and my friends) would spend hour after hour combing the beaches to find. We usually discovered about two really fine ones per week. The rest were either broken or tiny or stained black.
We used to paint the shells too, with our little watercolor sets that, like play-doh, started out as a rainbow of colors and ended up varying shades of mud. We painted stars and butterflies and suns and anything else that required very little in the way of artistic ability and then begged our parents to be allowed to sell them on the boardwalk. Our parents, wise as they are, recognized that our work had much in the way of sentimental value, though little of any other sort, and so offered to buy the biggest and prettiest ones themselves for the princely sum of an ice cream cone or a few quarters to spend in the arcade playing foos-ball with as much energy and skill as we had devoted to painting shells.
I wonder what happened to all those badly painted butterflies.
I wonder what happened to the shells outside my window to have brought them here. Were they the biggest and nicest of all the shells found that day, the special three allowed to come home as mementos of an exciting excursion and left out on the window ledge to keep sand and seawater out of the house?
How long have they been out there? Clearly long enough for them to have been forgotten and given to a new owner, along with the apartment. I'm tempted to leave them out there when we move, assuming they survive that long, but what if the next tenants don't appreciate having a horseshoe colony at their window? What if they don't understand how important the size and purity of the shells are?
There is, however, an alternative. A Michael's Craft Store just opened down the street from me and I rather think that the time has come for me to have a new set of watercolors.
"Walk most of the way down the block and stop when you see the two windows with the Horseshoe crab shell in front. That's us. If you yell up, we'll hear you and let you in."
Now that it's getting dark earlier, we've decided that it might be more useful to simply give the address and apartment number.
But the horseshoe crab shell is still there, along with another, smaller crab shell and three clam shells that sit wistfully on the window ledge like the echo of a long ago trip to the beach. The clam shells have been bleached almost white by the sun while the larger of the two crab shells has a few distinctive white patches that seem to have gotten there by means of pigeon. The smaller (and more intact) crab shell looks out at the street below and I half expect that, one day, it will finally get bored with the view from my window ledge and wander off.
Granted, if they ever left, I would be even more puzzled by where they went than by how they got there in the first place. I'd always assumed that the tenants who occupied this apartment before us had at least one small child and, one summer day, they took this child all the way out to the beaches on the Long Island Sound. And this child probably spent a little while building sand mounds and calling them castles, then finally built up the courage to dip a toe into the ever-freezing waves of the Atlantic. Half an hour of shrieking and running to and fro later, he or she would actually be far enough in the water that it would cover a pair of chubby knees.
Assuming, of course, that this child was anything like me the first time I went to the beach. And I'm assuming he or she was...because of the clam shells; three large, unchipped, almost pure white clam shells of the sort that I (and my sister and my friends) would spend hour after hour combing the beaches to find. We usually discovered about two really fine ones per week. The rest were either broken or tiny or stained black.
We used to paint the shells too, with our little watercolor sets that, like play-doh, started out as a rainbow of colors and ended up varying shades of mud. We painted stars and butterflies and suns and anything else that required very little in the way of artistic ability and then begged our parents to be allowed to sell them on the boardwalk. Our parents, wise as they are, recognized that our work had much in the way of sentimental value, though little of any other sort, and so offered to buy the biggest and prettiest ones themselves for the princely sum of an ice cream cone or a few quarters to spend in the arcade playing foos-ball with as much energy and skill as we had devoted to painting shells.
I wonder what happened to all those badly painted butterflies.
I wonder what happened to the shells outside my window to have brought them here. Were they the biggest and nicest of all the shells found that day, the special three allowed to come home as mementos of an exciting excursion and left out on the window ledge to keep sand and seawater out of the house?
How long have they been out there? Clearly long enough for them to have been forgotten and given to a new owner, along with the apartment. I'm tempted to leave them out there when we move, assuming they survive that long, but what if the next tenants don't appreciate having a horseshoe colony at their window? What if they don't understand how important the size and purity of the shells are?
There is, however, an alternative. A Michael's Craft Store just opened down the street from me and I rather think that the time has come for me to have a new set of watercolors.
Umm, New Directions
A few weeks after starting this blog the first time, I learned of two distinct websites - Goodreads and Shelfari. Both of them are excellent ways to keep track of what you've read, rate the books and review them. Basically, they're this blog with many more people, a much easier interface and I'm not the only one doing it.
So there has to be some other use for this thing, now that I've ignored it for so long.
For now, I think I will use this to post bits of my writing. This is not for my novels or anything, but just for short little...things that come to me and demand to be written down. I might as well have them here as anywhere else.
So there has to be some other use for this thing, now that I've ignored it for so long.
For now, I think I will use this to post bits of my writing. This is not for my novels or anything, but just for short little...things that come to me and demand to be written down. I might as well have them here as anywhere else.
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