The
Yarborough Branch was added to my agenda by recommendation of the remarkable, indomitable CRod, even though she hates that moniker, yet it is tied to her forever and cannot be erased, unlike Microsoft Office. Microsoft Office can be erased. I heard that happened once.
Yarborough is definitely the cool kid in this Austin school of library fishies, first and foremost because it is located inside an old theater and still retains the original signage out front. What is most extraordinary, however, is the scale of the place, which is impossible to capture, though I have tried. Wanting to learn more about the library and just how it came to be, I found a great blog post that details the whole history of the place, linked
here.
Better yet is the joy of finding many tables to spread out, plug in, and start tapping away. The Yarborough is full of people doing just that, or working in the computer area, or perusing the stacks, and it is a relief to find it is a comfortable space to spend some quality time. I don't mean to pour icy Haterade down Hampton's back like some gum-cracking, hair-yanking, bleached blonde, high school pit viper, but the difference must be stated. It is quiet and gentle here. It was cacophonous and claustrophobic there. Sometimes the truth hurts, bitches.
I was considering going to the LBJ library until it occurred to me that I should probably look it up first and ensure that I understood what to expect. And sure enough, it isn't really a library, from what I can tell, anyway. It is more of a museum/research center, where people can visit just to see the place as a historical monument to LBJ, look at special collections on display, and of course researchers can apply to do LBJ-associated work and spend actual time there...but it is not for the casual patron. To me, at least, the term "library" suggests usage by the public at will (save closings for special events, holidays, etc.). And while many university libraries are closed to non-students, it wasn't like only science students could study at the Anschutz library and only liberal arts students could study at spooky old Watson. You could study wherever you damned well pleased.
The times I tried to study at Watson were complete failures: the library itself is a distraction, with its supernatural creaking and drafts from God knows where. The study cubicles were these hard little metal desks set through the stacks, so people would come up on you suddenly, from around the corner, without warning... because while there were creaks and squeaks, normal sounds like footsteps and voices echoed through the library from other floors (there are half floors, did I mention that. Jesus God Help Us, half floors), but you'd never hear someone just feet away. I can't tell you how many times I scared the living shit out of some poor grad student, already strained with stress and sleeplessness, as I wheeled a shrieking, splintery old stacks truck around the corner. Because they hadn't heard it--at least with any perception of distance--until just that moment. Because Watson is a freaking door to another dimension, I am telling y'all.
Anyway, when I really wanted to study, I'd set up shop in my dorm room first (mmm smoking section) or Anschutz second. Because it was bright, airy, and open--lots of windows, super high ceilings, and tons of places to study. Although Anschutz did have a scary place...a very dark, very grim area in the basement (where else) where the stacks were tall graymetal goliaths set too tight together, and the lights were timed. Worse yet, this is where the aforementioned, cheesecake loving librarians had sent the Dewey Decimal books to die. The rest of the building was all Library of Congress, but Anschutz still had to house some straggler Deweys and damn them to Hell for their impertinent numbering...they would languish in the basement at least as long as I worked there. The basement was also where the elderly books resided. Their leather binding was slowly going to rot, turning into this orange, fluffy powder that would stain your hands and clothes if you didn't handle them like a wet cat.
Stacks folks got along like gangbusters for the most part, until one of those basement trucks filled up and was ready to go, and then we all turned into squabbling children playing a noisy game of "Not It." While not only would you expect to come back filthy, sweaty, and orange, it would also take an entire 4-hour shift to complete one truck (As opposed to a regular truck, which could take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour).
And why would it take four hours? Well, there was one other Special Creature sent to the basement to die. And it is the one part of library work that I absolutely agree should die: Government Fucking Docs. HATE. Spitting, clawing, kicking HATE. I am sure Government Docs are Just Wonderful in other collections at other libraries, but Anschutz's were all maps and surveys, each one a skinny sliver of nothing with the classification labels on the front, not the spine. This meant that your grubby, tired ass had to stand at the end of a long, narrow row, press the button for the light (which emitted a terminal, churning buzz), then race down the aisle to find the right section, right shelf, then pull out one after the other of often tightly packed gov docs pamphlets until you found the one between .09898970 and .09898972. And even though it was cold as death down there, and you were the only person on the entire floor (except for the murderer sitting in the darkest edges of the stacks, waiting with his icy little scalpel, of course), you'd start to sweat hard. So there you are, arms full of gov docs--impossible to just slide in and out with ease because the binding on the spine was so sticky--feverishly trying to get the last few jammed in with the rest of the infernal lot when. The lights-
Go.
Out.
Since the whole side of that building has timed lights, yours was the only one on, anyway, so it is Dark. Much darker than one might think. So you race to the light of the central floor because now you can hear breathing and the scrape, scrape, scrape of a scalpel against the sticky spines behind you and God help you if you forgot there was a stool in the way and go sprawling (yes, this happened at least once) because the stacks are closing in and the light beyond is growing dim and the whisper of a thin blade is right at your nape, flick flick flick...and then you burst out of the end of the bay, smack that light on (and the two on each nearest stacks for good measure), and just sit there and breathe for a minute, letting reality reassert itself while planning your coworkers' doom.
Anyway, I like roomy, well-lit libraries. With air.
My plan was to visit the aesthetically pretty pretty State Library in Bismarck, but weather that had been in the low 60s the day before had turned bitter and mean, with a hard frost across the city and a steady, biting wind blowing snow all day. I decided that my brief visit to the Bismarck Veterans Memorial Public Library the previous day could extend to a full day of work, pretty pretty libraries be danged.
Just inside the front doors there is a collection of photos showing the past and present main libraries of Bismarck--I can't begin to guess why the city decided to go from classic to wildly pedestrian, but that's their jam and to each his own.
On the brief first day, I spent my time down in the basement, a cold collection of stacks under bright, white light. What I will never stop kicking myself over is not recording the grandfather clock positioned nonchalantly by the elevator. It was one of those more recent brass and glass types, not the old wooden classic, and it would do the usual chiming on the hour and half hour to note the passage of time, but the subsequent BONG-ing was extra special. It didn't just do a stern but melodious GONG. Oh no no no. Now, imagine being down in the basement, vast white light, almost completely alone, and the clock to your left starts tinkly winkling. You've heard it before from a hundred other grandfather clocks, it's nothing special. Then the GONG starts banging, wretched and off key, a shattering, hellscreech of a gong, Gong, GONNNNNG, that jolts you straight out of your train of thought and jettisons you to a cold, airless planet. It honestly scared me at first, it was so out of place and creepy, then the absurdity hit me and I cackled, alone in the basement of the library. Then I was creeped out again. Luckily it was time to go.
I was pleased to see that this library lends art, as well, so the weirdo Wichita Main doesn't stand alone in that offering. A staff member of another library mentioned that they used to lend art, but that it had passed out of vogue years before. I suppose some libraries just don't give up. If you ever need a fancy blue boy, they've got just the blue boy for ya.
