Memoir Experiment Part Nine—Libraries

By Patrick
21 Aug 14 at 03:00 PM
In: Micellanea

I walked out of the baking sun into the cool stone shadow of what was formerly the only entrance to Pius Library at Saint Louis University, now relegated to a back entrance, the whole place having undergone extensive renovation since my days as a graduate student. I had been there since these renovations, a year or so back, after teaching an evening class. On that occasion, I enjoyed the new grand-looking entrance. But the old entrance was appropriate to this visit. The fall term was set to begin soon, and that particular end-of-summer feeling was in the air, though it was still quite hot and humid.

The library was cool and quiet and filled with that lovely bookish scent. I wandered the stacks looking for three titles. I had them written in a little notebook just as I did in the old days. Of course now you can have the call numbers texted to your phone, but I much prefer my little notebook filled with cryptic notes and ciphers, entered in a crazy-man gothic scrawl.

There were very few people about as the term was not to begin officially until the following week, and this sparsely populated vista became even more appealing as a result.

I love libraries.

It was on the third floor, heading into the stacks that I actually felt a little giddy. There’s nothing like an academic library. Public libraries have shifted more and more resources to computers, electronic media, and various technological gimcrackery, often displacing books in the process. Academic libraries have not been immune to these changes, but their collections of physical books continue to be their main draw. Libraries are still ranked by the number of volumes they hold.

I spent a great deal of time in that library while I was a graduate student. One semester I had a class that met there. We were supposed to meet in a classroom. We were also supposed to meet for three hours, but Professor Clarence H. Miller said that it was uncivilized to hold class for that long. So we met for about an hour. He preferred the rare book room for our meetings, surrounding himself with incunabula and existing, like some impossibly rare orchid, within very strict atmospheric conditions. He must have greatly preferred the specially controlled temperature and humidity necessary to protect the books in this quiet library within a library. Like most scholars, he preferred the company of books to people. We sat around a large conference table in comfortable office chairs that could roll and twist and pivot. One day he reclined too far and somehow got one of his armrests trapped beneath the conference table. He flailed about helplessly for a moment and then hollered “Oh, what the devil!” I loved this. I loved hearing this phrase one ever only encounters in stiff Victorian dialogue, along with ejaculations like “My word!” But it was quite right and quite natural coming from him.

As always, we met for less than one hour that night. CHM always wanted to hurry home for a beer. I did too.