Library Laureates

Last night at the San Francisco Main Library I was thrilled to be honored as a Library Laureate, one of 35 writers selected as part of an annual tribute to the local literary community -- and as a way to fundraise for the Friends of the Library. It was quite a schmancy night -- the wine flowed, the catered hors d'œuvres kept coming and folks were dressed to kill. The theme of the night was Evolution -- in honor of the Darwin bicentenary. A handful of men wore Darwin garb -- bowlers and beards -- and there were women dressed with feathery references to various exotic and endangered species. (Someone dressed as Annie Oakley and someone else as Indiana Jones, and though I didn't really get the evolutionary connection there, I do love a costume.)

After a group photo -- how do you corral thirty five adults onto a stage for a posed pic? very slowly -- and a wine reception, they sent everyone off to different wings of the library to eat dinner at tables for ten, with five tables in a room. I don't travel in the major-donor circle a whole lot, so I didn't know what to expect, but Kevin and I were at a lively table, which included another writer, an literary agent and a number of library volunteers. The two women I sat between were great conversationalists. (I learned a lot about Andrew Carnegie's role in creating free public libraries. "He wasn't very good to his workers," I was told, "but he was good to the public.")

The "laureates" had been asked to prepare five-minutes worth of remarks to deliver during the (very pretty) dessert course; our subject was to be evolution, or our own work, or libraries in general, and as is often the case with a rather loose assignment, some folks were quite prepared and held the room's attention, others didn't and rambled. The highlight for me was author and critic Jonathon Keats's commentary about how evolution has actually been a somewhat "stupid" process; he cited such evidence as the fallible human eye and our awkward spinal column, which doesn't make it very easy for folks to sleep at night.

For my remarks, I had put out a call via email and Facebook asking for "what the library means to you." Within a few hours I was flooded with replies -- everyone, it seems, had specific memories to share. I pieced them together and added my own; I even dug out my 1974 summer reading card, issued by the Westwood Public Library. Here's what I said:

In preparation for tonight, I polled a few family members and friends for their memories of the library as a way to stimulate my own memories.

I got some wonderful responses – my editor at Kensington Books, John Scognamiglio, wrote: "The library is where I first fell in love with books and why I have a career in publishing. My mom took me there when I was either four or five and we checked out HARRY THE DIRTY DOG and I was hooked …"

A couple of my friends who are now mothers bemoaned the fact that their children find everything online now, because they’re missing out on the more sensory aspects of the physical building. One wrote: "I was in love with it — the smell, the quiet, the shiny gloss of the card catalog. I really don't think kids get that love any more with electronic searches."

In fact the sensory, or even sensual aspect of the library was commented on by a few. One female friend wrote:
"The library meant a place where I could read what I want, uncensored, while still being able to make out with my high school boyfriend in the stacks… Libraries = rite of passage coupled with freedom of speech. Not easily re-created online..."
 
A male friend expressed how the library was the site of a recurring fantasy of coming upon one particular high school hunk – a lifeguard at the local swim club – in the stacks where a particular book with homosexual content could be found.

And of course like many young, closeted kids, for me the library was a place where I could learn about things that back then weren’t discussed in the government or the media, much less classroom.

But even before the library became associated with the sensual and illicit, the library was really important to me as a kid – our town library in Westwood, New Jersey was only three blocks from my house, and there was a large and active children’s room. The two librarians were sort of like good cop and bad cop – Mrs. B who always smiled and hugged you, and Miss T. who was more likely to shush you.

My sister Kim remembered that she was working at the library at one point, shelving books, and she heard Miss T’s “horrified voice saying…. 'Oh no!  Not the card catalogue!' and I knew she was talking about the movie, The Breakfast Club, which had just come out.  Perhaps you remember the scene where Judd Nelson is pulling index cards of out the drawer and stuffing them back in randomly.”

The library had a summer reading program. You’d read a book, then go in and report back on it to Mrs. B., and she’d mark it down on your card and at the end of the summer you’d get a certificate. I actually have my summer reading card from 1974, when I was in 4th grade and read 15 books. Here's what I read:

1. Encyclopedia Brown & the Case of the Secret Pitch
2. Franklin Delano Roosevelt
3. Paul Revere
4. Crazy Horse
5. Encyclopedia Brown Solves the [something?]
6. John F. Kennedy
7. Encyclopedia Brown Gets His Man
8. Nathan Hale
9. Encyclopedia Brown Keeps the [something?]
10. Encyclopedia Brown Shows the Way
11. Encyclopedia Brown Tracks Them Down
12. Johnny Appleseed
13. If You Sailed on the Mayflower
14. Farmer Boy
15. Abraham Lincoln

Apparently I was into mysteries and history. I don’t read as many mysteries as I used to, or as many biographies. But I still keep track of the books I read every year. There’s no librarian to report back to, no hug from Mrs. B, but that’s OK. Reading has become its own reward.

After I spoke, a woman at my table told me that the summer reading program still goes on at her local branch library in Noe Valley, in much the same way it did in Westwood. I was also told that the services the library provides are, since the economy tanked last year, in greater demand than ever. The good news from last night is that the Laureates dinner is going to help meet that demand: $250,000 was raised. That's a lot of Friends for the library.

Comments

[Lauren John]

I am a librarian who sat at another table in the African studies room at SFPL the night that you spoke, and you were great! Thanks for talking about us and giving us our props. You could have been all "me me me" but you were about "us us us".
Now I am going to read your books!
Lauren John M.L.S.
P.S. The wonderful and hilarious Firoozah Dumas, who gave the closing speech, thought you were great, too!