Weasel Checks Out

Today I found myself having to run real, actual errands to the campus library. Normally my trips to the library are squeezed in during my oh-so-short lunch break, but not today. I had to make two trips over there, AND CHECK OUT BOOKS, to make sure the bar code is working on some documents I produce.

The first time, no luck; no bar code scan and no book worth reading. I was seduced by the cover of a book call ‘Brief Interviews with Horrible Men’ or something like that. They may have been wretched, or despicable, or reprehensible; I don’t know. The book didn’t stay in my possession long enough for the title to imprint on my brain. These fellows may have been horrendous, but they were not interesting. I took it back on my next trip over after scanning a few pages walking between buildings.

On my next trip, I abandoned my search for a specific book and just browsed around trying to find something that appealed to me.  No luck at first. When the 14-Day book display begins to look like my home bookshelf, and the New Books section appeals to me as much as a tooth extraction, it’s time to get inventive.

I’ll share with you my secret weapon: the reshelving area. Sometimes these shelves are just a holding cell for rebound textbooks, but sometimes there’s a real treasure waiting for its next home visit. Today was wonderful. Not only did my bar code format work perfectly on the second try, (and if you don’t know bar codes that’s a real accomplishment), I found a copy of Freakonomics waiting to go back in the stacks, and a record of clothing styles from Rome to the mid 20^th Century.

Freakonomics promises to be very clever and irreverent of our cultural collective, and the books of costumes through the ages is fascinating. I always thought those descriptions of Marie Antoinette’s three-foot high hair styles were some kind of urban legend, but no! Those chicks really piled their hair up for crazy heights and then added sea galleons, bird cages, hats or even wind up clocks. What’s really strange is to realize that Miss A. got into trouble with the locals for stopping the fashion mile high club. When she started wearing more normal clothes all hell broke loose and she lost her opportunity to go back to crazy hair styles and the head to wear them on.

Sorry, I digressed. Fashion mag’s do that to me, even ones that are fifteen centuries out of date.

So, back to my day in the library. It was awesome. There’s something very tactile about libraries. The smell for one thing is unique to the stacks. It’s not moldy and it’s not fresh. All that paper collected in one place is a not-quite-but-almost pleasant smell, kind of musty and floury.  The books are an experience, even if you don’t check them out. Just the varieties of binding fabric are attractive, the old linen feel of dusty volumes sitting right next to glossy new editions is very egalitarian. I’m very visual so I’m attracted to the newer books with the dust jacket still in place. The books that come home with me are usually colorful and have some photographs or drawings to liven up the pages. I hope that doesn’t make me superficial, but the beauty of being superficial is that if you are, you never know it.

Speaking of…, have you ever noticed what you don’t smell in libraries? It’s perfume. I usually notice when I walk by someone who’s wearing it, and often make horrible faces behind the back of anyone who wafts by in a cloud of scent. Think of Calvin in Calvin and Hobbes when it’s time for dinner. Gaakkk! Aaagg!  But it never happens in a library, at least not yet. Maybe the book smell overpowers the flowers and spice, or maybe Terry Pratchett is right about L-space and the fragrance dissipates over all those Escher aisles.  They surely feel as though they could go on forever.

Maybe someday there’ll be time to explore them all, fingers trailing along the Dewey labels. Perhaps someday I’ll stumble over the remains of some ancient artifact, tiny slip of paper with penciled DDC code grasped in it’s proto-fingers.  I’ll be friendly, ‘Hi Ardi, couldn’t you find ‘Saluki’ either?’ Then I’ll continue on my way until I meet myself coming back the other direction. I’ll have extra reading glasses, ’cause you never know, and my ID card with it’s now- perfect bar code as a talisman against overdue fines and a misplaced SF429 .S33 D84 2009.

 

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