Transcripts For CSPAN2 Susan Orlean The Library Book 2024071

CSPAN2 Susan Orlean The Library Book July 13, 2024

Please welcome doctor hayden. [applause] i have to start. I am carl hayden, library of congress. I just want to thank jamie and angel and the readers for allowing me to be with someone who has elevated libraries to such an extent. Let me just say there have been patron saints in carnegie and things like this. I finally smacked down andrew carnegie. How does it feel to be the patron saint . When i started this book i couldnt have anticipated that part of it. I was drawn to this story because i wanted to understand what happened in 1986, this epic fire that closed the la library for twee 7 years but more importantly i wanted to understand why i cared about it so much. I often said if someone said to me city hall burns down i would have thought that is too bad and i assume they will rebuild it but hearing the library had burned felt like a deep, profoundly personal loss and i felt why do we feel such a connection to books . Why do we feel such a connection to libraries that the idea of one burning is so disturbing, the combination of the investigative curiosity, who started the Largest Library fire in American History coupled with this overarching question of why do we care so much about libraries, and i think that acknowledgment of deep feelings about these places is what stirred a lot of people. For many people it was a reminder to them about how much you care about libraries. As a writer, the thing that i am most interested in is taking something that seems ordinary and noticing how extraordinary it really is. Libraries are the perfect example of something that is ordinary in the sense that we all know what libraries are, we spend a lot of time in libraries, everybody grew up with the library but this gave me a chance to say stop and think for a minute how extraordinary is that these places exist. Think about how extraordinary. I got a chance to tour, aaron and the director and the staff, this is the only in the country that has an observatory. It is the library lets talk about that. The planetarium and to have it so unique, everything libraries do, from your book. This is interesting side fact, one of the most important sources for me was i dont know if she is in the audience dont know she is at the head of Central Library and her plan to retire was for yield when she was persuaded to run the ranchoh my rise library. It is a poetic moment talking about the book. I began the book here. I made a little reference you discovered in telling the story, you ran into quite a few characters. I did indeed. Books to me rise and fall on the strength of human characters. Simply downloading lots of data on libraries would not have made this an interesting book. It was populated by these characters who come across the different angle of the book, accused of starting the fire, one particular character, very a character who embodied this whole mythical quality, at any moment they will discover celebrity. And be elevated to fame and fortune. And and it didnt stop them in any, he was moments away. Somebody would discover him and he would become a star. The unexpected characters i had gone into the book assuming i wanted to write capsule descriptions of people who run la library, little did i know let me back up and say the world of people who run libraries, is to the unusual. And it is skewed to the unusual. Love in diagram of people who run the la library is doubly determined to be slightly unusual. Into the stories to run the whole library starting in the late 1800s, it was as if each of them could have been a book. They were fascinating, eccentric, one of the first people to run the library was a 17yearold girl at a time when women were not permitted to use the library. She was the head of the library. You had mary jones who was the first Train Library in which is very very important figure. She was deposed, called by the Library Board and said you have done a wonderful job but wouldnt we agree it would be better to have the library run by a man and she said no. This was at a time women still didnt have the vote and had the wherewithal to say this is absurd and refused to cede power. Eventually the City Attorney intervened. And to march in defense of her. She finally left to the City Attorney, basically said you had no protection your job and if they want to get rid of you, was replaced by the estimable Charles Lummus who had been a journalist living in cincinnati, had been hired by the la times, he then packed up and walked to la from cincinnati as one dog does. It was a couple months, he arrived in la is a huge celebrity, people that along the way, cheering him on. Was a little bit of a show boat. He was an intellectual, a writer, and really, and did not believe in sponsorship. He believed strongly people shouldnt read books, rather than removing those books from the collection he had a branding iron made with the skull and cross bones. He branded the books he thought were particularly stupid and put a bookmark saying there are far better books on this topic. There are temptations to do that. There are. Cant be judgmental. I have to say if any of you want a wonderful field trip, some of those branded books. There is a point i was writing about Charles Lummus and got so engaged in his story. One other thing which is nothing to do with the library, he had a bit of a woman problem in dozens of extramarital affairs, hiccup day diary of all these assignations, to keep straight who he told what to and kept the diary in spanish as a way of keeping it away from his wife. She was fluent in spanish. One of the most public divorces in la. Divorce wasnt particularly common at that time but also scandalous. He had many wives over the course of his life but was also a brilliant man and a lot of what he did, the innovations he brought to the library but most importantly his belief the library was a democratic institution, libraries were meant to serve educated people, his feeling is libraries are meant to lift everyone and he promoted the library to factories to Railroad Company saying have your workers come to the library. They can better themselves, this was very radical. It is his spirit that really transformed the la library and becomes true to this day. Well have a few of his branded books but we have a spirit. On the other hand you have harry, and aspiring actor. What was he doing in the library . Looking for plays . What was he doing . It is unclear. It is interesting to remember that in 1986 there were no security cameras, there was no record of who came in and out of the library, no way of knowing if he really was even in the library. When you think about crime in the 1980s and how limited we were in being able to figure out even was he in the library that day, his former i should say his dear friend said to me i dont remember seeing harry reid a book. But there is also the fact he worked as a messenger. He was downtown a lot and it is possible like many people downtown the library was a place to stop and collect your thoughts. Whether you were there to take a book out or not. I like to think he was reading movie magazines. He was very broken. It would have been a stretch to spend money on movie magazines, could have been looking up Burt Reynolds pictures because he believed himself to be a good friend of Burt Reynolds. He told a lot of stories. He fabricated. Part of it was harmless made up stories about everything. And and the essential human need for story and it is the essential unit of Human Interaction. It is the stories we tell ourselves, the stories we share with each other, the stories we save and preserve and pass on. Like it had a great deal of the theme of the book had this idea that our lives are all stories. So as a journalist, as an author, just how did you get the real . Must people would say oh like you said, a book about a library. Writes, the writing, i became so passionate about this subject i felt like every aspect of it fascinated me. The science of how in the fire 400,000 books were completely destroyed but 700,000 were damaged and frozen for years to keep them from molding until it could be figured out how to possibly preserve them. It was just fascinating to read about this effort. It was the largest book recovery effort ever undertaken. And the largest fire. But it did not get much publicity because. This incredible kind of coincidence of timing, i went immediately to look at the New York Times from that date. Because i could not understand why had never heard about this fire. And i pulled up the paper for that day, and the headline says soviets deny a meltdown at Chernobyl Nuclear plant. The same day . The same day, through accident fh this story, which certainly would have gotten more attention. I was living in new york at the time, so thats why looked the New York Times because i thought i cant believe the New York Times would not cover this. And its maybe not be a one headline, but i was sure that it would have gotten attention, and suddenly understood why. The front section of the paper was almost entirely devoted to chernobyl. And there was a story in the a section towards the back about the fire. But it was just a fates, that this story ivan knows people who lived in l. A. At the time he said to me i dont understand how i never knew about this. It was the largest fire. Until very recently it was the largest structure fire in l. A. History. And that is saying something, because theres a lot of fires in l. A. Unfortunately. And it remains, and will always remain the Largest Library fire in American History. Not in the world. Sadly, there have been larger library fires in the world. And certainly in the course of particularly world war ii there were entire libraries where the contents were burned in the building destroyed. So there is precedence sadly we have burned library since we built libraries. And why do we think some more accidents and some were intentional . Many were intentional and that goes back to my original impulse for doing this book, which was they have been burned because we care about them so deeply. There was a Commando Unit they were called the brennan commandos they had one mission, and that was to seek out and burn libraries. It was an effort to send a message to people that your history is going to be obliterated. Your culture will not be remembered. You will be wiped off the earths memory. We all think of libraries is one of these safe places. The places that are uniquely, sort of removed from the world of strife. You burned down a library, you feel people with terror. Because you are also saying to them nowhere is safe, you are not safe. There was an incredible chilling remark made by a german philosopher, which is where they burn books, and next they burn people. And unfortunately, and the history of the world, i would say there has rarely been a regime that burned books, that didnt at some point begin destroying people. We are of books are an extension of the human spirit. They are human objects. And they have been treated in this most horrible way. As a sarah get four people, for memories, for information, for all of the things that we are, that makes us different from inanimate objects. One of the most chilling facts that i learned, was one of the worlds great book burners. He began his professional life as a librarian. Host he knew the power. Guest he knew how powerful books are. And he knew in the effort to reinvent chinese society, that books had to be destroyed. And clean the slate. Guest alberto monk while in his history of reading books, this chapter on forbidden reading. Guest really. Host the slave owners, dictators and other holders of power have known the easiest group of people to rule, is the illiterate. And if you cannot prevent people from learning to read, you destroy the books. Guest its interesting because libraries are so, in the present day more than ever, really make literacy a huge part of their mission. And again, this is an interesting evolution from libraries had been basically gentlemens clubs for educated men. By the way i find it so funny that i was astonished to learn that for many, many years, children were not allowed in libraries. Then children, 15 years and older could come. Then children 12 years old who had a certain grade point average. And now we think of libraries as working with children, being so essential to what they do. But they were not permitted in the library. Host now we have mother goose on the loose with babies and people reading. Guest they have stroller jams at my library. Host youre telling about your childrens room and there are times when you have a traffic jam of strollers. Guest yes, i love it. It does seem so funny to look back at the history of this institution and realize that there was a point where the idea of children would be in their but we have embraced literacy, you know its a natural extension of what a library is in the very best sense. There is such a lot of outreach on that. Its not just, its literacy for adults as well as for children. Host you are surprised at some of the activities libraries are doing. This library does so many things and different types of programming and things like that. Any you are finding that when you looked at what was going on in l. A. And other libraries, tell us. Guest one of my favorite things was when there was this oil spill and poured out ranch, i believe its ventura county. And people were evacuated for a very long time. And the library became the community center. And the librarians knew how stressful it was for people to be evacuated and have nowhere they didnt know when they would get back into their homes, so the library started offering goa classes in meditation classes to help, just help the general mood of the community. I loved it because nobody this piratical thing to say but people dont have a warm Fuzzy Feelings about government. And they dont think wow i love going to the dmv. [laughter] theyre doing better. Host recently the doing better. Guest but, we feel this tremendous sense of i do think people feel libraries are coming from an incredibly, not only a positive place, but an efficient place. That they figure out what people need and provide it. And there isnt a bunch of lines in red tape and bureaucracy. They see a need and they move quite quickly to fill that need. Host you mentioned the stagecraft of preparing for the Library Doors to open. It was like being in the theater you said. Guest i spent a lot of mornings going down to the library early, before it opened. One of the things i wanted to do was about to investigate the story of this fire, look at the whole history of libraries on the l. A. Library, explore my own relationship to them, but also conjure as much as i could, the feeling of what is it like a dated day in the library . So i spent time in every department of the library and of course realizing that librarians dont come at 10 00 a. M. When the library opens but come earlier and get things ready. In the meantime there all sorts of people waiting very antsy to get in at 10 00 a. M. Its a ritual, everybody is sort of Milling Around and the Security Card keep saying its not ten yet, its not ten yet and it was a wonderful feeling of this preparation of this a buzzing activity preparation for the day to begin. And then the doors opened and people flooded in. The library began its daily life. It was a wonderful thing to observe and it was so much fun for me to it spend time in each department of the library. And i dont mean just the subject department, english, science, but things that i didnt even know existed like the shipping department the reference. Host this library met the telephone reference librarian here and i said what are questions what are people asking and i say to me people are calling you up and they said oh yes. Guest its incredible i had no idea because you think while google certainly has made it not necessary to call the library. The fact is the people call the library all day long. [booing] all the time. They ask questions at some of the librarians are puzzled by, they ask a lot of questions that could be googled very easily, but they once a human being to interact with. And part of the librarians create as you know is that we only ask you questions to satisfy your need, even though we would love to know why you want this spatula and the timer and the other thing. We really do want to know but we cant ask you why. Guest that very deliberate and judgmental attitude is something pretty wonderful. I sat in the reference room and it was really funny. Ive got to admit. If you want a fun field trip i recommend sitting in the reference room for a while because you think why at 1007 on a Tuesday Morning is someone wondering what movies dana delaney has been in since 1995. You think wow, someone was wondering that right now. Host and wanted to get an answer. Guest writes, and the librarians are amazed, much of the time. My favorite one was somebody calling and asking the reference librarian if a certain can of beans in her pantry was safe to eat. [laughter] and the library actually knew a website where you can google the identifying marks on the can to find out when the food is produced. Then had another website she could go to said when foods become dangerous to eat. At the same time she was worried she might have some legal liability if she said to the woman theyre fine. And the woman ate them and got sick. So it was really funny. Its also, i think we have reached peak lack of human contact. And i see society moving back toward Human Interaction. And that is one of the ways that libraries offer a different experience than sitting at home and googling. Im not saying if you want was the capital of tennessee that you should call the library. But more generally, i think, i feel we have all been saturated with online and adamant experiences. And the place were heading towards as of culture, is one in which Human Interaction is prized. And valued and sought after. Aron mentioned they have a self check out and they took it out because people did not want to do Self Checkout. They wanted interaction. So you mention the interaction was similar when you investigated or looked into a simple market. Guest this may not seemed like an important interaction, but there is a moment when you are check

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