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A-L and Beyond
The first thing that happens when you start working as a children’s librarian is that you go around looking for all the books you read as a child, or as many as you can find. (Me and Katie, the Pest is still on that list.) The second thing that happens is that you involuntarily start a mental list of all the references in children’s books to libraries and librarians. There are many.
I have a feeling that this is because 1) children’s writers want to encourage an appreciation for librarians in their young readers, or 2) they want to cultivate a secret understanding between reader and writer that librarians are actually a little bit scary on the outside but possibly human underneath, or 3) children’s writers see children’s librarians as a sort of daemon (see Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass), a little soulmate who scurries around helpfully and without whom they would not be complete. Perhaps No. 3 is the minority.
To begin an occasional series on libraries and librarians in children’s books, I’d like to introduce a fellow chained library from one of the most enjoyable new books I’ve read this year, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente (1): A-L, also known affectionately as Ell, or taxonomically as a Wyverary. (His mother was a Wyvern and his father was a Library.) Why is he chained and what will the heroine September do about it? All questions will be handled at the appropriate time and place within the workings of Fairyland. All I can say is that he is “fastened with an extremely serious-looking lock.”
A-L has the advantage, or disadvantage, of being quite knowledgeable on every subject from A-L. This is his genetic heritage. His siblings M-S and T-Z have their domains, as well. Of course, as a card-carrying member of the Dewey Decimal Conspiracy, I have to ask, if his father is a Library and his subjects are limited by the alphabet, then are libraries in Fairyland organized solely on the basis of the alphabet?
That would be all right for a limited amount of information, but, Wyverary, when a four-year-old comes up to you wanting Trucks, do you have to escort them to T, and then B for Big Rigs, then L for Lowriders, and so on and so forth? Or do you succumb to decimalization and lump them all together under 629 for Things with Wheels that Go Vroom (I’m not completely sure that’s the right subject heading)? Or is it a moot point because there are no trucks in Fairyland, and anyway your internal catalog stops at L? I think that there must be an Encyclopedia back in Ell’s family tree (or MARC record), so perhaps really he’s an Encyclo-Wyverary, to account for the alphabetical indexing.
Fortunately, Ell’s knowledge comes in handy just when September needs it, and, perhaps even more important, his great big heart does, too. I hope this means that Ms. Valente is in Group 1 above.
1. I saw Catherynne M. Valente at MythCon in July, and she was brilliant. Read some of the essays on her website, and her blog post/MythCon keynote on why we are so obssessed with medieval-style fantasy settings, “Dragon Bad, Sword Pretty.” In honor of Wyveraries and Ms. Valente’s other recent book, Deathless, (it’s for grown-ups), here’s a picture of the Russian fairytale “Maria Morevna,” on which Deathless is based. The image is from Lucy Maxym’s Russian Lacquer, Legends, and Fairy Tales, Vol. II (Siamese Imports Co., 1986). Yes, that is Koschei the Deathless lurking in the upper right corner, so watch it.
The Chained Library at Hereford Cathedral
I am completely sold on this idea. Chaining books to the library shelves? Think of the savings. Whose idea was it to let people take them home, anyway?
This lovely picture is of the chained library at Hereford Cathedral. Although many of the books are older, the shelving and chains date from the early seventeenth century (thank you, “Treasures of Hereford Cathedral” guidebook). The library was both an archive and a reading room, hence the chains. I like to imagine a conversation between a time-traveling modern library patron and a 17th-century cathedral librarian:
Patron: How many books can I check out?
Librarian: What do you mean, check out?
Patron: Well, I want to get some DVDs, too. Where are they?
Librarian: Let’s see…DVD…500, 5, 500…God, I hate Roman numerals.
Patron: Yeah, I never could understand that Roman numeral decimal system, either. Just show me where your self-check is.
Librarian: This is a public library, sir. I don’t think that’s appropriate.
When I thought about a name for this blog, I considered “The Unchained Library” because, you know, we live in such a mobile kind of society. And then I thought about how my laptop battery lasts thirty seconds when it’s unplugged and I have to drag a bunch of cords and ethernet cables around when I want to plug in the printer, and I felt a real sympathy with what may be a fading idea of permanence in our information and communication systems.
So, it’s chained because a chain is something to grab hold of and something that keeps valuable things in their rightful place. It’s chained because there are always limits on how free and unconnected we think we are, evidenced by the growing number of reasons to connect online even as we ditch our cords and cables (well, as some of us ditch them). But the number one reason it’s not “The Unchained Library”?
Because I am not the Righteous Brothers.
What I am is someone who likes to writes about books, particularly but not exclusively children’s books; new books and old books; reading; writing; um, and almost anything having to do with books and libraries. For example, did you know that in early libraries books lay flat, which is “the most comfortable position for the traditional codex structure of a book”? (Thanks again, “Treasures of Hereford Cathedral.”) So, chains and no more standing books on their ends. I’m going to have to talk to my director about this.
