St. Louis Central Library

In my last post I said that I needed to branch out to new branches of my local public library system.  On Saturday I visited the St. Louis Central Library in downtown St. Louis.  Designed by Cass Gilbert (who was also the architect for the United States Supreme Court) and made possible by a generous grant from Andrew Carnegie, Central Library was built in 1912.   During most of my life it was one of those libraries that was not meant to be used for browsing.  You looked up books in the voluminous card catalogs and put in requests at the central desk and waited for them to be retrieved from the stacks.   When you put in requests from your local branch, this was generally where they came from.

As a Girl Scout we went on a tour of Central Library.  The stacks had glass floors.  That sounds somewhat cooler than it was; they were heavy glass block floors not plate glass.  But still, it was unexpected.  Books were retrieved and sent to the main desk via a pneumatic tube system.

Of course glass floors aren't earthquake proof so when the Public Library system decided to do a $70 million renovation of Central Library the glass floors had to go.  As did all the central stacks.  It is now a "regular" library where you can browse the collection, which makes it much more user friendly.

I forgot to take a photo of the outside so here is a wikipedia photo taken before Central Library was shut down two years ago for the renovation:




Although the building looks like a standard building it actually is an oval shaped central hall that is connected to four surrounding rectangular galleries via "bridges", thus letting in lots of light to the interior of the building.

The above is the front entrance on Olive Street.  You walk into very formal space, all marble.  On either side of the foyer are stairs to take you up to other levels with beautiful stained glass windows:

Then you walk through a hallway that is really a "bridge" into the oval grand hall, where you used to have to ask for books.  I only took a  photo of the ceiling and the windows along one side:

  If all of this seems very stuffy for a library, you are right.  It is beautiful, but not conducive to browsing.  But that's ok, there's nothing to browse in the grand hall.  They will have special exhibitions and events in there.  From the grand hall you can walk back across another "bridge" to the back of the building into what used to be the stacks.

And here's where the surprise is:  A three story modern glass enclosed atrium that shows you where all the books are:

You can now enter the library from what used to be the back of the building and go right into the "library" part of the library, without having to climb up all those steps on the Olive Street entrance.

Here's the view from the main reading room back into the atrium - see how light it is:

I've read that NY is going to do a similar thing to its central library - replace the old stacks with a light filled atrium.  I've also read that it is very controversial.  All I can say is that I LOVE the way it was done here in St. Louis. The minute I walked into the atrium I started smiling.  In fact there was a smile on my face the entire time I walked through the building and all the people who were working in the building were smiling too.

The exterior of the building has famous quotes carved into the stone.  The ceiling in the new reading room has quotes on the ceiling.  Here it says "All this happened, more or less" (Kurt Vonnegut):

 It is very cool.  When I went down to see it I didn't think that I'd be so enamored of it and it didn't occur to me that I might make it my main library stop in the future.  After all, it isn't really convenient.  But it made me want to go back and browse.
As we were walking through I saw a copy of The Bookseller by Mark Pryor which I had been considering reading.  So I picked it up and checked it out on my way out!

Yes, yes.  I was going to read fewer mysteries in 2013, but I was also going to visit more libraries.

How was the book?  It was ok.  It's the first in a series and it shows.  A little too much explanation and a little too much serendipity.  I'm not sure I'll read the other books in the series but I was glad that I saw something to check out simply as I walked through the room.  Who knows what I'll find when I have time to browse? 

This and That

Just some miscellaneous thoughts:

• I finally read one of Sue Grafton's books, of course the "A" book:  A is for Alibi.  I can see why she sells although I guessed who the bad guy was almost immediately.  I'll probably read more.  I'm a sucker for a mystery series. I think that's why I never read her before - I just didn't want to start.
• I never finished reading Charles Dickens' The Chimes (I only got through the first part) but here's a link to the discussion about it.
• I was surprised to learn that authors in Britain get paid a royalty when books are borrowed from public lending libraries.  Check it out in this Guardian article. (h/t Book Chase)
• Something non-book related - December's production at The Rep was This Wonderful Life, a one man show in which the actor performs the entire movie It's a Wonderful Life  - yes, he plays all 32 characters.  I was doubtful during the first 20 minutes.  It reminded me a bit of a moment last summer when my little cousin Megan decided to tell us the entire story of Star Wars, but in this case the actor was not as cute as Megan.  Eventually, though, I suspended disbelief and enjoyed it.  The show was written in 2006, and oh how times change.  At the moment when the run on the bank occurs the actor (in the person of narrator) tells the kids in the audience to ask their parents what a bank run is, that it is something from the Depression - and then he throws in an extra "but they'll know ALL TOO WELL" (and the whole audience laughs knowingly).  Who knew, in 2006, that bank runs would become a worry again?
• I laughed at the beginning of this article in the Philadelphia Inquirer about the American Philosophical Association conference in Philadelphia.  Yes, it's probably unfair to reduce an entire conference to a vignette of someone using a completely true argument in a wholly impractical way.  But it made me laugh.  It reminded me of blog conversations.
• On my way back from Florida a month or so ago I picked up The Monsters of Templeton, by Lauren Groff, in the airport bookstore.  Wilhelmina "Willie" Upton has returned home to recover from an affair gone wrong.  Her former-hippie mother has been born-again and confesses to Willie that her dad wasn't an unknown person (as Willie always thought) but is a local man who is, in fact, distantly related to Willie's mom.  Willie distracts herself by trying to figure out who her "real" dad is by working out her family tree.  Oh, and the mysterious loch-ness style monster in the local lake has died.   Which I think was meant to be symbolic of ... something.  I'm not sure of what, but the monster was actually my favorite character. I never got emotionally or intellectually attached to this novel but commenter AndiF listed it as one of her top books of the year, so you might want to give it a try.  

No

The Living Library

According to the LA Times, the Santa Monica library has come up with a creative idea.

On Oct. 18, the Santa Monica Public Library hosted an unusual interactive event called "The Living Library," in which people were the books and could be checked out for half an hour's conversation. Borrowers were instructed that "the Reader must return the Book in the same mental and physical condition as borrowed. It is forbidden to cause damage to the book, tear out or bend pages, get food or drink spilled over the book or hurt her or his dignity in any other way."

What an interesting idea. I'm not sure I would want to be a book (mostly because I'd worry that no one would want to check me out). I'd like to be a patron though. But would personal issues cause me not to check out a person I was really interested in? It seems that can be a risk.

The first hurdle was the choice of book; the kids had quickly decided to take out a book together. The list offered at the Living Library desk included a Buddhist, a nudist, a raw foodist and many other specialties that didn't necessarily rhyme, such as a fat activist, a feminist, a Oaxacan American and a celebrity publicist. The children briefly considered taking out a formerly homeless person, because they always have questions for their parents about how people actually manage on the streets. However, they rejected that notion as too embarrassing.

Turns out that the idea originated in Europe where, apparently, embarrassment is less of an issue.

"The Living Library" idea originated in 2000 in Denmark, the creation of anti-violence activist Ronni Abergel, as a way to overcome prejudices, bring people face to face with others they wouldn't encounter in daily life and encourage dialogue that might dispel misconceptions. The program has been repeated in many countries, and the "bestseller" -- the most highly sought-after book -- has often been a politically charged character. At the first Living Library in Denmark, one of the hits was a young Arabic Muslim; in Hungary, a former right-wing extremist.

h/t to Bookninja