Feb
Your Library: A Tale Not Told in Books
Looking back, I suppose it was the shelves and spines and bindings that did it. It’s clear to me now, but as a child, I harbored the world’s most wrongheaded notion about libraries.
I thought they were built for books.
It took a librarian to teach me otherwise.
The autumn of my eighth grade year, my mom offered a deal: I could exchange my hour-plus bus ride home for a two-hour layover at Greenville Public Library, and a lift, when she left work.
I took the deal.
I was no stranger to the library. My parents dropped me there from time to time, I’d searched the shelves, and I knew the building well enough.
The head librarian was another matter.
I’d seen Mrs. Huffman in passing. In my junior high mind, she was the schoolmarm of old–stern, implacable, unyielding. Winifred Huffman: Warden of Books.
During my second week of library layovers, Mrs. Huffman stopped by my table. In a span of minutes, she’d figured out who I was, where I was from, why I’d landed at her library. In equal time, she’d shown herself to be observant, quick-witted, and radiant in the way that only someone of age can be.
Each day thereafter, she’d stop to drop a bit of gossip, ask a question, share a story.
I spoke in whispers. Mrs. Huffman’s voice carried to the edges of the building. She was in charge, after all. She could speak in any voice she chose.
She chose to speak loudly, and more important, she chose to speak to me.
Over the course of the school year, between the hours of three and five, I watched and listened, and sometimes–not in a whisper–I spoke. I completed very little homework. And I learned volumes.
Mrs. Huffman taught me that libraries weren’t built for books. They were built for people.
They weren’t storage bins for pages. They were focal points for thought.
She taught me that some of the very best stories don’t come from books. They come from the people who watch over them.
She demonstrated that a library isn’t just for solitude. It can be a place for community, for sharing passions and interests and ideas with people you would otherwise never meet.
If you haven’t been to your library lately, go. Sit. Wander the stacks. Notice the doors and columns, the windows, the nooks and breaks and seams, the engraving and the artifacts. There are stories here, too, for those who care to see them.
Touch the walls. Soak in the sounds.
Drink the atmosphere.
Notice people.
Read.
While you’re there, you may meet someone who steps into your study time with questions and stories and kindness.
You may meet a librarian who knows that libraries aren’t about books.
You may meet someone like Winifred.
Joe Richardson has written for newspapers, magazines, trade journals and broadcast media. When not at his desk, he can be found photographing his family and other forms of wildlife. He lives in rural Illinois.
February 17th, 2010 at 7:53 am
Joe, you never fail to amaze me. Now I don’t want to go to work, I want to go to my library and sit! I always seem to rush in and rush out -drifting through the book stacks like a book would jump out into my arms, Read me, Read me.
Your mom was a smart cookie.
Lynn
February 17th, 2010 at 8:54 am
Thanks Joe. I’m right there with you Lynn. Just the other day one of the librarians gave me a tour and I was surprised they had a classroom behind this wall of books. It is a fascinating place if given a chance. My library has books in other languages and I like to peruse them and perhaps one day I’ll take one home.
February 17th, 2010 at 10:20 am
I love this post, Joe, because it really hits home. I can vividly recall the library I went to as a child and it’s in a town I haven’t stepped foot in in nearly thirty-three years! I remember the smell, the sounds, the feeling.
Makes me glad I’m off to the library with my youngest this morning.
February 17th, 2010 at 10:20 am
Elementary school mostly sucked for me, but the lovely librarian (I’m so sad that I’ve forgotten her name) made many great moments for me. In middle school I used to daydream about having the library as my own apartment. As soon as I was legally allowed, I got a job as a page in the community library , and would lose myself in the stacks (luckily my section was watched by a singularly lazy librarian – never met another one). My junior & senior years of high school was made so much better because a group of us hung out after school at the library, learning about each other. And after my divorce, I moved within a short walk of my present library – a marvelous place with great librarians and is part of one of the most amazing library systems in the country. (And, I ‘illegally’ have a card for the other sytem, which is wonderful too.) I have thought for many years, that once a society comes up with written language, and makes that better with moveable type and bookmaking, the pinnacle of those achievements must end in a library.
February 17th, 2010 at 10:23 am
I love this. The library is such an important place for a community. They all want a community center for the area –they have one. The LIBRARY.
February 17th, 2010 at 10:35 am
Thanks for sharing this. The library is so important for a community in more ways than books as you noted.
February 17th, 2010 at 10:37 am
This makes me think of the library from my elemantary school. I loved going there whenever I was allowed. Unfortunately I have not gotten that feeling about the libraries where I live, so it has been awhile since I’ve been.
February 17th, 2010 at 11:16 am
Lynn, I have brilliant parents. I should be half as sharp.
For a long time, the mall at Alton, Ill., had a library outpost. It was a strange sight, stepping into a mall, seeing a library. It felt out of place. But I liked it for that very reason. I was sad to see it leave.
Dru, I’d forgotten how much I owed to that building–and the people inside–until I wrote the blog. Quite a lot, as it turns out.
Elizabeth, I love that your main character is a librarian. I think she sees the library in much the same way as Mrs. Huffman. A library isn’t a tomb for books. It’s a safe haven, and a place for communities to congregate.
Kate, A library as your apartment….that’s an awesome idea. I think many of us spend a lifetime building that very thing.
Cheryl, Agreed! Our library hosts readings, displays community artifacts, runs a column in our community newspaper, and loans fishing tackle during the summer months. I’ve read that, in larger communities, some libraries host special event overnight lock-ins for parents and kids.
February 17th, 2010 at 11:25 am
My husband and I are in our 60s and retired … every week or so we plan our visit to the library. We leave with arms full of books and big smiles on our faces, then hurry home because we have NEW BOOKS to read! Visiting the library is a lifelong adventure for both of us! And one we have passed on to our children and grandchildren!
February 17th, 2010 at 1:38 pm
Joe, I think I’ve just brightened your day… The Alton Mall has a library still! It’s down by Sears and Penneys on the bottom floor.
And I have to admit, I have a small library at work, books I purchased at our used book sale that I didn’t want to take home. Now people come and look for lunch time reading material.
February 18th, 2010 at 3:10 pm
One of the 2 libraries in our town has an outside reading area where I heard Sarah Willis give her first talk about how she wrote book on her family and squeezed the time in between working as a pharmacy tech. The benches and plantings make you feel like you’re on vacation. There’s also pajama storyhour where I took the kids when young in PJ’s and laid down a blanket while the children’s librarian read stories. Then there’s Poetry Not in The Woods which has showcased slam poetry, and other poems read by the writers. At times a musical accompaniment and a setting in the park of like-minded souls carries the day and passion for poems. Our library and nearby libraries have a huge circulation. They are a great resource along with the helpful librarians.
February 19th, 2010 at 9:28 am
Sunnymay,
Sounds like your area has progressive libraries with exceptional people at the helm. Quite a blessing, that.
If you’re a writer as a well as a reader–or you’re just interested in the creative side of poetry–there’s a wonderful book called Poemcrazy by Susan G. Wooldridge. It shines. And so does Wooldridge.
That reminds me: I haven’t read her follow-up book, Foolsgold.
Time for a trip to the library…
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May 2nd, 2010 at 12:52 pm
Dear Joe,
You wrote about my mother. Your words brought forth all sorts of memories from my own childhood. She loved books and reading and people. And, passed on those loves to so many others, including her children. And, I love being reminded, through your perspective, that each of us touches others, in ways we cannot know at the time. For that I thank you for your recollections and the story. (It came to me in snail mail from a treasured friend of my Mom’s. Another who knew Mom had found it and sent it to her. And, in that way, she continues to touch. I thank you. Winifred’ s daughter, Linda
May 3rd, 2010 at 12:52 am
My aunt Linda sent this to my mom, who sent this on to me. I very seriously regret living so far away from where my mom grew up because strangers are able to know and spend time with my family more than I ever will be able to. Even so, though, some of my strongest childhood memories are from the few times we were able to make it out to visit my grandmother, Mrs. Huffman. She carried herself through all aspects of her life in the same manner as you described; she was the focal point of a very large network of family that stretches from coast to coast – here in California to all the way to North Carolina. It really is such a small world though when people make time to connect – my high school teacher here in CA grew up in Reno, IL, and similarly remembers my grandmother fondly.
May 5th, 2010 at 10:20 pm
I am also Winifred’s daughter and received your story in snail mail like my sister,Linda above. I read it, then tried to read it to my husband and daughter. I couldn’t finish it without tearing up. My son in Pennsylvania read it on Rebecca’s facebook and said he cried too. I guess it was reading such a wonderful story about my mom from a stranger’s perspective. The library was a very important part of her life and it became a very important part of her children’s lives. I am happy to hear that she touched you in the way she did. Your story made me feel good with the memories. Thank you.
May 6th, 2010 at 2:13 pm
Dear Linda, Rebecca and Alice:
Thank you so much for writing. It means a great deal to me, to read your words and feel like I’ve brought to life a wonderful memory of an exceptional person–someone you were fortunate enough to love, and be loved by.
When I sat down to write this post, I went to the library. My old table is still there. As is the clock, and the shelves, and feel of the place, just as I knew it, so many years ago. Let me tell you, I could see and hear your mother (your grandmother, Rebecca) as clearly as if she were standing beside me.
A wonderful thing about memories: the most important ones never leave us. Lovely gift, that.
Last month, my wife and I brought down boxes of books from our attic. Some of them we’d had since our daughter was a baby (she’s finishing up eighth grade now, a little older than I was when I met Winifred). Since we’re knit-picky about such things, almost all of our books were still like-new. With the help of our children, we sorted them into two stacks: Books that were too precious to let go, and books we would donate to the library. By day’s end, more than 100 books were in our library stack, most of them early-readers.
I dropped them off behind the circulation desk the next day. The library will keep what they want, and sell the rest. Either way, the books will benefit Greenville Public Library.
I think Winifred would be pleased.