Confessions of a Mad Librarian

I didn't think she liked me very much. Luckily, I loved books more than her approval, so I kept happily going to libraries, including that branch. A cute library assistant was only a secondary motivator.

In the very late 1980s, I managed to land a very nice, college student-friendly job at the Temporary Central Library, doing database searches for the new "electronic card catalog". Around the same time, the world of art and government grants had begun the Clash of Titans: the NEA Four had been called out and the work of Robert Mapplethorpe was being tarred as obscene on a number of fronts. I had never seen Mapplethorpe's work (outside of one self-portrait that was popular with alternative newspaper photo editors -- it involves a bull whip); I wanted to find out what all of the fuss was about.

LAPL had a couple of Mapplethorpe books, all in locked stacks. I filled out an ILL request at my little neighborhood library and waited to hear back. After a few weeks, during a conversation with my boss, Juan, I mentioned my ILL request and my curiosity regarding Mapplethorpe. A couple of days later, Juan had a present for me: a friend of his worked in the locked stacks of the Central Library and agreed to loan Juan the book for the afternoon.

Mapplethorpe's Black Book became the focal point for all of the DBM crew that afternoon. It was photos of various black men, a few of whom were Mapplethorpe's lovers. As a rather sheltered, somewhat prudish (but intensely curious) person, I found some of the photos quite ... startling. The much more worldly people among us were also ... startled ... by one photo in particular: a beautiful sepia-toned print of a man in a pinstripe suit. The photo was from mid-chest to mid-thigh and might have been rather pedesterian if it wasn't for the fact that the model's fly was open and his flaccid penis was completely outside of the fly. The size of the member and the audaciousness having the model otherwise COMPLETELY clothed left even the most jaded sexual adventurers among our group blushing from shock.

That said, no one seemed grossly offended. I perused to my contentment and gave the book back to my boss, satisfied that I had come to my own conclusions about Mapplethorpe's work.

3 weeks later, I received a notice in the mail that my ILL request had come through and the book was waiting for me at my local branch. My mother insisted on coming with me to the library, but I was able to shake her off once we entered the building. Waiting for me at the circulation/information desk was the librarian of my childhood, holding the Mapplethorpe book. She explained that I could not check the book out of the library but I could keep it until closing time.

She then began opening the book to random sections and looking at the photographs. 'It's so nice when young people take an interest in art,' I remember her saying. She flipped to another section. 'Not enough young
people these days do so ...' Another flip. Right to the most titillating photograph in the whole book, the one that made all of my co-workers blush and gape and stutter.

The librarian turned 5 different shades: at least 3 of them red and the rest white. She slammed the book shut, shoved it across the desk at me, turned and never said another word to me. Ever. I don't even think she could bring herself to look at me again. After fighting very hard and quite successfully at not laughing at this fit of pique, I found a quiet corner away from 1) children and 2) my mother, and breezed through the book again. I snuck it back to the circulation desk while the librarian was away ... I could only hold a straight face if I didn't have to face her again so soon. As it turned out, I needn't have worried.

Somehow, a spell was broken. I realized that no one had to approve the choices I made about what to read ... and that librarians come in all shapes, sizes, fashions and philosophies; just because someone looked like the perfect (or stereotypical) librarian didn't mean they were perfectly suited to the task (pun intended).

I like to tell people that my decision to pursue a library career came from watching "The Music Man" too much as an impressionable teenager, but I believe that my neighborhood librarian also played a key part. While I have no plans to become a public-service librarian, I would like to find her one day and dedicate my career to her.