A Library Memory
This is just a little exercise in nostalgia. Stems from a number of things:
1) It's my birthday ... I'm officially in my mid-30s (cue thundering minor key music over really loud tick tocks)
2) As I attempt to finish my studies and become "a professional", I find it interesting to look back and see if/how my relationship with libraries have evolved (although the incident below did not directly influence my decision to study library science)
3) I don't have a bunch of really good library stories. In fact, I have two. Here's one.
The librarian at the information desk of my one-time neighborhood library in South-Central Los Angeles was not only the stereotypical librarian, she was the archetype from which the stereotype had devolved. Very mannered and aloof, with very straight posture ... like teachers from the earlier part of 20th century. She had the hair in a bun, cat-eye glasses from the 60's on a chain and lots of beige and peach and rose cardigan and skirt sets. She was very disapproving. When I was a kid, she seemed to remember every fine I accumulated, and looked on with disapproval when she saw my pre-pubescent self creeping through the adult non-fiction stacks and checking out such material as The Sixties Report and The Autobiography of Lucky Luciano. When I was 14, she would not let me check out The Color Purple because I was not yet 16 and LAPL in its wisdom gave the book restricted access (or so I was told by her). I was convinced it was revenge.
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.
Comments
*grin!*
Happy birthday, darling.
Posted by: Chip Unicorn | December 8, 2003 04:22 PM
Hey, you're a mere chick in the scheme of things. Happy belated birthday, and thanks for encouraging me to blog.
birdie
not quite a stewing chicken
Posted by: Robin/aka "birdie" | December 9, 2003 06:43 AM
I'm glad that you reached that point of realization about librarians. We are all different, and that is our strength--and our weakness, when we forget that fact. I do regret that librarian’s reaction to the book, I try very hard not to just anything that crosses my desk. Each book its reader, each reader their book. I hope you enjoyed Mapplethorpe's work. While some of his works are not my cup of tea, I do think his floral prints are very excellent.
Posted by: Curmudgeony Librarian | December 13, 2003 10:25 PM
His floral prints are excellent. I once gave my virtual aunt a desk diary/calendar with his floral prints as the theme. She made appropos noises, if I remember correctly.
I suppose there was even more controversial works of his that I could have tried to access: the child nudes or the S&M/graphic homoerotic stuff. But I just wanted a sense of his work, and I got that.
Actually, this is why notions of limiting or giving parental access to children's circulation records sort of gives me a chill. I read just about anything I could get my little hands on, if it interested me, from "Encyclopedia Brown" mysteries to "Wifey," "Mandingo," and "Breakfast of Champions". As it turns out, I'm a fairly orthodox Protestant prude (but one who can appreciate Anais Nin). I think if someone had tried to prevent me from reading certain material, then I might have considered causing some trouble.
Posted by: misseli | December 14, 2003 01:00 AM