Library Infamy

I am a big library fan, have been ever since I learned to read in the very early 40’s in Pocatello, Idaho. In those days, lots of people (including my family) had few books in their houses because books were yet a luxury item. (And by few, I mean literally two or three books: a Bible, a dictionary, and a cookbook or two.) Once I learned to read, I also learned that I could overcome that limitation because the library brought me a whole world of books.

And thus it was that of a summer Monday morning, the 5-year-old me walked down to the local library in that small town to find three books—the most the library would let me check out--in the children’s library. This tiny, two-room library was in the basement of the real library, which (adults only admission) featured three big rooms and many more books. Once I had checked out my three books, I went back home as fast as I could and got to reading. My plan was to get these three read before the library closed and return them to the library in order to get new ones for the evening. At that age, the books I fancied were short ones, so by 3 o’clock, I was back at the library ready to carry out my plan, whose purpose was to ensure that I was never without a freshly unread book.

Upon arriving at the library, however, I was informed by the somewhat disapproving children’s librarian that the library did not allow me to check out and return books on the same day because I couldn’t possibly have read them all already. The library required me to keep those books out at least until the next day. Which I did, returning the next morning for more. But now fully aware of the possibility of crossing the library’s wants and needs, indeed of disappointing the library.

That is my first memory of coming a cropper at the public library. But it is not my last such memory. When I was ten, I received a special dispensation from the head librarian to be allowed to check books out of the upstairs, big, adult library. The books were more numerous and much longer and by then I was inclined to reread a book as soon as I had finished it. So instead of getting books back too quickly, I found myself bringing them back not quickly enough.

One day, my mother greeted me with the unhappy information that she had been at the library and found my name in the posted list on the wall at the main desk. The list was the names of those who were not loved by the lord nor the library because they had too many overdue books. And there I was: a child who had brought shame upon herself and her family and whose shame was recognized and broadcast by The Library itself. For many months, I could scarcely bring myself to go up those library steps for fear of finding some new way in which I had disappointed The Library.

I write about this because this past Tuesday, I saw both my name and my face again on the wall of a public library, along with the names and faces of the other members of the quilt group here in Point Roberts. This was on the occasion of the Point Roberts Library receiving the quilt we had made for it. The reception was wonderfully attended, with perhaps fifty people there in addition to a dozen of us quilters. There were gifts and cakes and tea and coffee and a lovely presentation speech by Lucy Williams, and much taking of photographs.

A problem with having public events in a library is, of course, that the books take up too much space. So it was crowded; nevertheless, we were all mighty pleased to be in that situation. I was also, however, sorry that my mother--dead almost a decade,--would not know that at last I had managed to get my name on a library wall under honorable circumstances.

The reception also honored Kris Lomedico’s 25th anniversary at the library. If I know anything about Kris as a librarian, it is that she would never have told me I couldn’t return books the same day I took them out. In fact, she would probably have stopped what she was doing and helped me pick out three more for the evening’s read.