When I decided to become a librarian, I had already
spent the first half of my life raising my family of daughters. I had just turned 47 when I returned to
graduate school in library science. It
was a natural reinvention of my life after having spent years reading to my
children and volunteering in their school libraries. After homeschooling one of my daughters, and
serving as home librarian, I slipped effortlessly into the role of children’s
librarianship.
I was wise to subscribe to these words attributed to
Confucius (551-479 BC): Find a job that you love and you’ll never work a day in
your life. (A friend of mine left his career as a certified public accountant
because he wanted to love his job as much as I loved mine. He is a librarian today,
working as a public library director in New York State.)
A few of my favorite books published during the
years I worked as a children’s librarian were the unusually illustrated picture
books known as the Henry Books by D.B. Johnson. In them, Johnson whimsically
make sense of some of the complicated, yet paradoxically simple philosophies of
New England’s Henry David Thoreau. In
“Henry Hikes to Fitchburg” (2000), Johnson explains that Thoreau loved to take
long, long walks around New England, thinking all the way. Thoreau argued
that people should spend more of their lives doing what they love to do.
In his book "Walden", Thoreau wrote that he could walk all the
way from Concord to Fitchburg and never spend a cent. Meanwhile, his friend might toil all day
earning the train fare and arrive there without
the valuable experience that Thoreau had.
Johnson’s other books, “Henry Climbs a Mountain”
(2003), “Henry Builds a Cabin” (2002), and “Henry Works” (2004), all explain
more of Thoreau’s thoughtful living through beautiful and colorful full-page
illustrations accompanied by short, meaningful text.
As a high school student, reading Thoreau had often
confused and confounded me. D.B.
Johnson’s beautifully-created picture books were right up my alley.
Henry David Thoreau wrote in his journal on February
3, 1852 that he “sometimes imagined a library, i.e., a collection of the works
of true poets, philosophers, naturalists, etc., deposited not in a brick and
marble edifice in a crowded and dusty city … but rather far away in the depths
of a primitive forest.” The library
at the Thoreau Institute, tucked into the woods in Lincoln,
Massachusetts, is simply an marvelous place not far from the hustle and bustle
of Route 2 in Concord. Across and down the road from Walden Pond in Concord,
it is nestled on what might be described as hallowed ground. One
can imagine and almost make up the apparition of Henry David
Thoreau in the woods surrounding the complex.
Several years ago I met Jeffrey Cramer, the
curator of collections (or librarians) at the Thoreau Institute at
Walden Woods. A few springs ago, Jeff
invited a dozen or so of my librarian colleagues to spend the day at the
Thoreau Institute and gave us a tour of the unique library that is part of the
Walden Woods Project.
Amazed at such a place, my fellow librarians and I
asked Jeff how he got so darn lucky to find this ideal job in such an idyllic
library.
Jeff (formerly an archivist at the Boston Public
Library) has been reading, writing, eating, sleeping Henry David Thoreau for
much of his adult life. Reviewers and
journalists have described Jeff as one who lives and breathes Thoreau. Visiting the Thoreau Institute for research
one day, serendipity happily glanced Jeff’s way. He learned that there was an opening for the
sole librarian position, or curator of the Thoreau Institute’s
library. Jeff applied and got the job.
Earlier in his life, as a student at the University
of Massachusetts in Amherst in the 70s, Jeff became interested in
Thoreau’s writings after reading Walden and visiting the location in Concord.
It wasn’t until nearly a decade ago, thought that his first work on Thoreau was
published. In the ensuing years, he has
edited and annotated at least half a dozen more, most recently “Thoreau Essays:
A Fully Annotated Version” (2013).
With 8,000
books and 50,000 documents cataloged and filed in this idyllic library in the
woods, Jeff Cramer combines his life’s work with his life’s passion. In
his latest book Jeff acknowledges his wife and daughters for “once again”
welcoming Henry David Thoreau, “this transcendental visitor”, into their
home during his writing and research.
In addition to his works on Thoreau, Jeff has
annotated work on another beloved New Englander, poet Robert Frost. Nearly all reviewers have noted that Jeff
Cramer’s annotations and notes are readable to everyone, the non-scholar and
scholar alike. Jacqueline Blais of USA Today wrote that the side notes written
by Jeff in Walden: A Fully Annotated Edition (2004) “are like short,
illuminating conversations.”
Like many librarians, Jeff Cramer has found a way to
combine the things he loves in life with his work. In his 1863 essay, Life
without Principle, Henry David Thoreau wrote: “Do not hire a man who does your
work for money, but let him who does it for the love of it.” In reality, most
librarians manage to support themselves doing what they love. (The Thoreau Institute at Walden Woods is
supported by the wonderful efforts of Don Henley, of the Eagles. Those
fundraising efforts, along with donations by other caring celebrities, pay Jeff
a salary.)
If you’ve ever found Thoreau’s writings daunting,
you might pick up one of Johnson’s picture books or Jeff Cramer’s scholarly
editions. Libraries in the Minuteman Library Network, including our own, have
them all. Visit the library’s website
and the link to the Minuteman Library Network to put one of these books on
hold. You may also call 781-769-0200 and speak to a librarian who will place the
request for you.
