LIBRARY PATRON

This piece by Elinore Standard appeared in the (Bedford, Pound Ridge, NY) Record Review as another in an ongoing series "My Reading Life".



LIBRARY PATRON


In pre-computer days, when you browsed through the library, you could look at the signatures on the withdrawal card in the back of the book to see who were the previous borrowers. This was a handy bit of information, lost now to our freak-out for privacy that we know isn’t even remotely private. Those names told you the book you were considering had been read by a fellow appreciator of mystery or romance or biography. I followed the path of people I thought of as good readers and their names were an endorsement, a seal of approval. Sometimes I’d look for a cryptic smiley face or an exclamation point, or an X, and I’d know whose mark it was and from that little sign, what they thought of the book.

Every now and then, I still find a signature card in an older book. The names in ink or pencil go back maybe to the 1950’s, and I take a long look at them in remembrance of readers who have moved away or died. I wonder what was going on in their lives at the time they checked out the book and I try to think about what was happening in the world. I picture them and hear their voices.

There is another kind of silent communication among library patrons, one that librarians would certainly frown upon, and that is the faint pencil corrections or comments made by anonymous proof readers of the many and inexcusable typos so often found in newer books. A book I read recently had one outrageous typo boldly circled on the first page and I thought, “Way to go!” Some books, despite all the spellchecking in the world, don’t seem to have been edited at all. I often itch to make the little circles or checks but I resist because such practice 1.) intrudes upon the reader, 2.) seems a bit priggish, 3.) defaces the book, 4.) might get me found out.

Sometimes I find things in library books, left there as bookmarks by previous readers. In a copy of Elizabeth Bowen’s “The House in Paris” (1936), recently borrowed through the Westchester (NY) Library System from the Eastchester Public Library, I have a student rush ticket from the 2002 season of the New York City Ballet. I will use it as my own bookmark and unless it disappears behind my bed, will tuck it into the book and send it back downcounty.

I’ve found letters and shopping lists and dried leaves in books, all traces of other readers. I know that librarians purge this trash when they check books in, but what escapes them is treasure.

In pre-Google days, when I was a graduate student, I would hurry right after class to the stacks and grab all of the books I’d need to do an assigned paper. If I didn’t get there first, they’d be gone and -- worse – perhaps hidden. Books get mysteriously squirreled away. Like hiding nuts, you need to remember where you put them.

At the Hiram Halle Library in Pound Ridge, years ago there was a patron who took cookbooks. She didn’t take them out, she borrowed them permanently. The librarians knew who she was but they could never really prove it. Cookbooks have always been expensive and the library had (and still has) a fine collection, many of which were gifts. It wasn’t just one book that went missing. The thefts happened regularly. The library was relieved when suspect moved away from town, presumably to become the bane of another library.

Not all the thievery happened on the inside. Once upon a time, the Halle library had a fine, early American weathervane atop the cupola on the old schoolhouse section of the library building. Few people realized it was a treasure until the weathervane was stolen. Yes, thieves must have cased the place and one night climbed up and removed it. Insurance paid a little and a new weathervane was bought, but the original was gone forever.

When I first moved to Pound Ridge, an old tradition of Wednesday half-day closing was observed. The elementary school dismissed at Noon and Schelling’s market closed for the afternoon. The Halle Library was closed all day Tuesday and half-day on Wednesday. One closing afternoon, as a Trustee of the Library, I got a call from the Library’s security monitor to say the alarm had gone off. I threw my little .410 shot gun in the car and drove there quickly. With the gun properly broken and tucked under my arm, I raced up the path only to be followed by the local police who had arrived on my heels. I explained why I had come and they advised me to put the shot gun, away. Today I would have been blown to pieces. The front door was indeed wide open and the police entered cautiously, weapons at the ready. There, in one of the red armchairs in the foyer, a patron was sitting, reading. Except for him, the place was empty and the alarm was making an awful noise. The elderly man finally looked up, astounded, and the policemen asked him what he was doing in there.

“What?”
They faced him and asked again.
“What did you say?” He adjusted his hearing aid.
They asked once more and he responded, “I’m reading.”
“How did you get in?”
“The door was open.”
“You can’t be in here, the library is closed.”
“No, the library is open,” he insisted.

This went on, back and forth. The distinguished patron became flustered. The police were adamant. I told them I recognized the man and by this time, the officers realized that with his hearing aid turned off, he couldn’t hear a thing -- not the claxon sounding in the space all around him, not their arrival. Forgetting the days of closing, the patron had walked to the library as usual, found the door unlocked, went in, got comfortable, and had himself a read.

The policemen made the patron leave, although he did so reluctantly. They shut the library door firmly and locked it. They warned me not to run around with a shot gun. They returned to their cruiser to write up the report of another exciting small-town incident.

Nobody got arrested. Nobody was dead.

Happy Ending.

* * *
Elinore Standard is the co-editor of “Bookworms:
Great Writers and Readers Celebrate Reading” (Carroll & Graf, 1997).