I
started out in the basement, two afternoons every week, all summer long.
It was hot that year, and I rode my bike downtown, but it was a good
chance to get out of the house. And I got all of my volunteer hours out
of the way before my freshman year of high school even started in the fall.
It was dusty down in the basement, but cool and quiet, and all I had to do
was rip barcodes off of old magazines, stamp them “WITHDRAWN,” and wheel my
booktruck down through the stacks to get a new batch.
The
Morse Institute Library in Natick (http://morseinstitute.org/)
was being renovated that fall, and the librarians were asking that the whole
community pitch in. I also helped the way that most people did - by
carrying an armload or pulling a wagonload of books three blocks down the
street to the office building that would be a temporary home to some of the
library’s collection. But before that bibliographic exodus, I was already
feeling at home. The old library had been an odd assortment of two and a
half buildings awkwardly conglomerated around the original 1874 structure.
But by the end of the summer I felt like I knew how to navigate the maze
of Dewey Decimal numbers and Large Print books and children’s books on
audiocassette.
After
helping to move the books into the cramped little office building down the
street, I felt like I belonged there with them, and volunteered and worked
there as a page, putting away books. I was a shy kid, and I jumped when
the phone rang and practically ducked down behind the counter if I happened to
be there when a patron asked the librarians a question. It was a shock
when I’d been there a few months and people asked me where to find an author,
or books on gardening, or the Hardy Boys, and I could answer them easily.
It wasn’t just that I knew where things were now, but that I liked
knowing and looked forward to sharing that knowledge.
I
grew up along with the new building which opened two years later, with its big
open spaces and welcoming atmosphere. I helped behind the circulation
desk or in the children’s department sometimes, as well as paging, and feeling
more than ever like it was my library. I knew our regulars and rode out
with the bookmobile, and I knew I’d be back even after I went off to college.
The
Connecticut College campus is right across the street from the US Coast Guard
Academy in New London, CT, and the libraries of both institutions are similar.
There were flat slabs of brick and concrete with narrow slit windows,
buzzing fluorescent lights, and the depths of the Library of Congress-labeled
stacks where no one ever seemed to go. They all served as reminders that these
buildings meant serious, academic business. I never worked much with my
fellow students or with the cadets and it was a relief to return to the Morse
Institute during summer and winter breaks. The silence of the basement in
Natick had been great when I was fourteen, but I didn’t welcome the solitude as
much anymore.
After
graduation, the Morse Institute sadly didn’t have a full-time position
available, but the Framingham Public Library did (http://www.framinghamlibrary.org/).
With its cozy children’s room in the basement and its atrium above the
bustling circulation desk opening into the reference section, Framingham was a
welcoming new opportunity - but also a challenging one! Framingham has
generally been the fifth busiest public library in the state behind Boston,
Cambridge, Newton, and Brookline. Every day seemed to fly by and, before
I knew it, I was off again, this time much further away, to the University of
Minnesota, where I pursued a PhD in medieval history and spent my library time
studying and writing rather than helping patrons.
On
the other side of the desk, I still loved to go to all the different libraries
around the Twin Cities, finding books, audiobooks, movies, and music to enjoy
in my (limited) spare time! Two of my favorites were the new central
Minneapolis library, a gleaming glass and steel structure in the heart of the
city, and the Walker library near my apartment, with only the lobby on the
ground floor and the rest of the building buried below ground with skylights
providing illumination from above. Later, I spent day after day writing
at the Northfield Public Library, a beautiful Georgian revival building
constructed with a Carnegie grant in the early 20th century.
After
moving back to Massachusetts, I returned to my roots at the circulation desk of
the Upton Town Library (http://www.uptonlibrary.org/)
while teaching history as an adjunct at Framingham State University.
Upton is an amazing, close-knit community and the library, in the ground
floor of a nineteenth century historical building, soon felt as comfortably
like home as the Morse Institute had. With only six staff members, all of us
did a little of everything. I helped answer reference questions, put
covers on books, and found picture books for kids,
Almost
every one of these libraries has recently undergone or is about to undergo
major changes. The Morse Institute Library has added a new archival space.
Framingham was forced to undergo a major refit after being damaged by
fire, and has also rebuilt their McAuliffe branch. The Minneapolis
Central library is still brand new, the Walker library has been completely
replaced (above ground!), and Northfield just completed a $1 million renovation
to expand shelving and programming space and to improve accessibility.
Even Upton is working on a plan to build a new town library to
accommodate the growing needs of the community in the 21st century.
Throughout my library career, I’ve seen newspapers saying that new technology
will replace libraries, that no one needs books now that we have the Internet,
or that our culture doesn’t value reading anymore. Years of experience
tell me that none of this is true. People need libraries more than ever -
to use a public computer, to solve a home improvement challenge, to pick out
movies for their family, to learn from a distinguished speaker, or even to pick
out that perfect novel or work of nonfiction.
Above
all, these libraries provide spaces for all of us to grow up and to learn about
ourselves, and the world around us. They have brought together a town or
a city or school and created the opportunities for patrons and staff to have
conversations and experiences that change all their lives. I’m thrilled to be
joining the Morrill Memorial Library here in Norwood and seeing what the future
brings to all of us.
