Would You Rather be Unemployed or in Jail?

Kids love  the  “would you rather” game.  I actually find it pretty entertaining myself and not a bad way to foster communication and creative/critical thinking skills.  It goes like this:

“Would you rather swim with crocodiles or step on a scorpion?”
“Would you rather freeze to death or be set on fire?”
“Would you rather be stranded on a desert island alone or with someone you hate?”
(feel free to stop reading this entry and answer more questions on the Make It blog.)

The current school library crisis reminds me of this game - except no one’s playing and we are gambling with the future of our children.  In my own district we went from cutting a dedicated library period with a certified librarian to a 10 minute weekly book exchange with a part time librarian to nobody.  All our elementary school librarians were cut.  I assume that next year classroom teachers will be responsible for helping kids find materials and checking out books in our alotted 10 minutes library time.   

In Fernanda Santos New York Times article, School Eliminating Librarians as Budgets Shrink, she tells the story of Lancaster School District in Pennsylvania.  The district is in ‘Pennsylvania Dutch Country’, an area known for its slower pace, covered bridges and ‘Amish-themed attractions’ (it actually says this on the Lancaster County website.  How would you like tourists to pull into your driveway expecting to see a ‘yuppie-themed attraction’ or, in my case, a ‘frenetic mom-themed attraction’?  

Lancaster, former one day capital of the American Colonies, when the Continental Congress fled Philadelphia,  on September 27, 1777, now struggles with high unemployment and a poverty rate (21 %) that is twice the state average.  Lancaster is nicknamed ‘Spanish Rose’ for it’s high Puerto Rican population; 31% of the city’s population is Hispanic.  It is estimated that more than 900 students in the school system are homeless.   

States that don’t mandate librarians are cutting librarians faster than the administrators can pass out pink slips, leaving libraries in the dark and kids to their own devices.

Pedro Rivera, Lancaster’s superintendent, said that he had to make a choice, “it was either library or kindergarten.”  He gathered his staff and asked them what they valued most.  The leadership team placed priorities on class sizes, physical education, art, music and pre-k.  The only things left were kindergarten and library.  As a kindergarten teacher, English major, parent and obsessive reader, let me just say that this is not a choice, it is a joke.  

If American children are going to be successful in the 21st century, they need kindergarten and library.  They need to learn how to read and they need the books to do it.  If kids get out of school and can’t read well, they will not be successful - it is a simple, proven fact.

I haven’t been to Lancaster, but I have been to and worked at a lot of schools during my lifetime.  If I had to play ‘would you rather’ I might ask:

Would you rather have library or someone to empty the garbage every night?
Would you rather have library or someone to answer the phones?
Would you rather have library or someone to monitor the children while teachers get a break?
Would you rather have library or landscaping in front of the building?
Would you rather have library or another administrator pushing papers around the office? (this is an especially tough question since I’m finishing up my administration certification)

Those are the questions that we don’t ask because we don’t really value reading, librarians and the library.  Our actions speak louder than words and reveal what we value. And yes, I do value office staff, custodians, landscapers and administrators.

And if you think reading scores, graduation rates, unemployment and crime are bad now, just wait and see what happens when our population is illiterate.

Enough, already!

When is enough, enough?

Reading about the modest Brookfield library in Vermont got me thinking about the idea of good enough...a seemingly foreign concept in our ever striving culture.
I love the old fashioned simple, cozy libraries because they have everything a library really needs - a roof, comfy furniture, books and a librarian (to keep the peace and recommend the best books).  If you’re lucky you might meet a cat or stumble upon a used book sale.

But in the 21st century, what I would call simple and cozy most people would call old school and boring.  
We are always on the look out for something better, easier, faster, shinier.  It makes it hard to be satisfied with what we have.

Our latest cultural obsession is the cell phone.  I admit that I am not a big fan of cell phones in general.  With the exception of my family, I would rather not be distracted by my phone while I am driving, working, sleeping or eating.  

When phones knew their places and stayed in them, life was easier.  If you happened to be sitting near the phone when it rang you picked it up.  If you were somewhere else, doing something else you wanted to do, you wouldn’t hear the phone or answer it and the world would keep spinning.  When you were done with whatever you were doing, you could return the call.  Boring.  Old school.

The new too much are mobile apps for smart phones.

Bob Tedeschi writes about apps for the New York Times and gave me a little education.
There are more than 300,000 apps that deliver unique “experiences” to their users.   300,000.
An experience can mean almost everything...apps that name the tune you’re humming, track your calories, name constellations, turn your phone into a musical instrument and a strobe light (just in case you’re out somewhere and really need a strobe light?)

Who has time for all this?  (Probably people who aren’t spending so much time learning about the library).

I went in search of library/book apps to see what I would waste time on if I had a smart phone (which I am wildly resisting) and found several apps that I simultaneously lusted after and was repulsed by:

• SAT Vocabulary builder -  master 250 vocabulary words from Princeton Review’s hit parade - a necessity for a mom with kid on her way to college.
• Local books - helps you find bookstores, libraries and book events in your vicinity - eliminates the needs for a google search,  a scrap of paper with scribbled address and GPS.
• BookMyne - HOLD THE PHONE - this one is super cool.  Imagine you’re at a friend’s for dinner.  You’re flipping through this ‘super-cool-I-want-it-now’ book on their coffee table.  Your blood pressure is rising and you risk being anti-social because you can’t take your eyes off the page.  THEN you whip out your phone and scan the book’s barcode and find out it’s on the shelf at your library, just waiting for you to snap it up in the morning!!  I love it.  OR use bookmyne to cross check the NYT best seller list with books available in your library system (you can also check out how many fines your racking up when you forget to return all these must have books).

Author Eric Hoffer may have been right when he wrote, “You can never get enough of what you don't need to make you happy.”

Women and a Home

First Congregational Church, Brookfield, VT

All the fun came to a screeching halt in Brookfield, VT when Selinda Griswold decided she wanted to borrow books from the library chest.  Selinda was the daughter of Howard Griswold and had been attending the library auctions to help her dad bid out the books.  After the official auctions, Selinda would look over the remaining books, make her selections and have her father borrow them.  

Howard Griswold, however, was a supporter of women’s rights and in 1850 made a motion to allow women to bid on their own books.  The other men, not wanting to be rude, but hardly jumping for joy, agreed. The Brookfield men’s club was over, invaded by the womenfolk who probably would want to discuss the books for hours over cups of strong tea.  As a gender, we seem to be determined to spoil the fun.

Selinda was criticized for being so unladylike as to appear in public alone (which I suppose means ‘without other women’ because there certainly were lots of other men present).  I suspect hanging out in the tavern with the men, even though one of them was her dad, wasn’t considered genteel.  After a few meetings, Selinda was joined by her sisters and, eventually, a few more women gathered their courage and joined them.

Fortunately, in 1867 the library chest moved from the course environment of the tavern to the more suitable setting of the vestry of the Congregational Church.  That must have been a sad day for patrons who enjoyed a beverage or two while they bid for their books.  And in 1881, it moved again, this time to the Masonic Hall.  

It wasn’t until June 7, 1902 that the library was finally made free and public.  The books were moved to the Town Hall and, in 1916, the auction format was discontinued and the library opened once a week for patrons to check out books.

In 1940 Brookfield resident Anna Clark Jones willed her home to the library. After all the years of chaos and disruption the library finally had a place of its own to call home.  The house was renovated to accommodate the books and has stayed put ever since.  No one is complaining about the lighting, the children’s room or the technology.  No one is raising taxes to get LEED certified or commission a historic sculpture in the reading garden.  There are no logos, posters or advertising campaigns convincing residents to come to the library.  There are no lattes.

There is just a small white clapboard cottage in the center of town with a large room for books, a room that is a lot bigger than a wooden box.  And after 221 years, the people in Brookfield know a perfect set up when they see it.  

The Library Chest

Before Vermont became the 14th state,  it was the Republic of Vermont, New Connecticut, New Hampshire Grants and a disputed part of New York.  At one point Ethan Allen even appealed to the Province of Quebec for admission.  

Before becoming officially anything, Vermont was the sight of battles, raids, fires and sneak attacks between the French and the British who built numerous forts over the years throughout the landscape and fought over rights to the valuable land.  It wasn’t until the conclusion of the French and Indian War in 1763 that the territory that became Vermont was officially part of England instead of New France.

After a very colorful and, I confess, confusing history, Vermont was finally granted admission to the Union in 1791 and March 4th is now known as Vermont Day.  Thanks to “Where the Books Are” by Patricia W. Belden,  I learned that a small subscription library in Brookfield was started in that very same year.  The Brookfield Free Public Library now bills itself as the oldest continually operating library in Vermont.

The 48 men who began the library were in search of  “knowledge and piety” (aren’t we all?) and contributed 16 shillings each for the opportunity to bid on books during quarterly auctions.  Ironically, or maybe accidentally on purpose, the library operated out of the Brookfield Center Tavern for its first 75 years of existence.  Actually the tavern was the location of the “library chest”. The chest was a plain wooden box, 4-5 feet long and 2 feet high that held the library’s first treasured volumes.  Belden writes that the chest was kept tightly padlocked in between meetings (I guess in case any drunkards went wild and wanted to read a novel or something).     

According to the Brookfield Historical Society, Reverend A.W. Wild   made a speech on the 100th anniversary of the library, in 1891, and explained how the original system worked.  The men would gather in the tavern a few times a year and pull open the cover to the chest, and “members choose books alphabetically.  But if more than one member desired the same book, the book then went to the highest bidder. This intention seems soon to have resolved itself to the present plan of placing the more popular books on sale at first and making choices afterwards, but all books not bid upon were free until 1849, since which time a charge of 1 cent has been made.”
Wild went on to explain that each member was entirely responsible for their book and if they loaned it to a non-member they were fined one shilling a day.

At first it cracked me up to imagine this kind of scene in modern America, but the more I thought about it, the more familiar it felt.  A group of men, gathering in a bar for an event...sounds exactly like football, baseball, hockey, basketball night in Western NY (or probably anywhere in America)... a great excuse to get out of the cottage or cabin, away from the womenfolk, kids and chores and do some quality bonding with the guys.  “Pray thee, good woman, I must attend to the business at the library society meeting” (we’ve all heard that one before....).

The library actually has a picture of the men surrounding the original library chest which, I am sure, looks a lot more respectable than boisterous Bills fans with their bellies painted red and blue but probably wasn’t that different - just some guys out looking for a good time while the ladies held down the fort and put the kids to bed.  The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Darkest Hour

photo from architekturezt.com

So after learning about all the blood, sweat and tears the Arkells poured into Canojarharie  (see Can-0-what? post) and then discovering that Beech Nut had been moved to Florida and the factory left empty and rotting, 

I was feeling a little depressed.

What would James and Bartlett think if they pulled off on exit 29 and saw that both their great companies had gone to greener pastures?  What would they do?

Because they were both passionate about supporting Canojoharie and the citizens who lived there, my guess is that they’d be depressed too.  But as businessmen they might understand how the world, and certainly Upstate New York, has changed.
Since they were in town anyway, I bet they’d set off for the Arkell Library and Museum to enjoy their passion - American Art.

The library in Canojoharie dates back to 1880, where it was started in the drawing room of the Arkell home.  As it grew it moved to the school and then to rented space downtown.  In 1915, sponsored by Bartlett Arkell, the library was granted a state charter.  

After another decade, and great success at Beech Nut, Bartlett decided to build a library for the town in honor of his dad, the great James Arkell.  The stone used to construct the library came from the building that James Arkell had used to first print his paper sacks for Arkell & Smiths in 1859.   A few years later he added an art gallery wing with his own personal collection.  Bartlett had a passion for art and loved visiting museums in America and Europe.  His gallery in Canajoharie was inspired by trips to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Walker Art Museum in England and Rijkesmuseum in Amsterdam.  Pretty cosmopolitan for rural New York.  Bartlett began collecting art for his gallery in earnest and particularly loved buying paintings that portrayed landscapes he experienced as a child, student and European traveller.  The result is a collection of art that includes Winslow Homer, Georgia O’Keefe and American impressionists.

The museum and library partnership is unique, they bill themselves as the place where books and art meet and their  motto is “For the joy of it”.  The combo offers the community modern library services and a broad perspective on their past.  Even though the library is public, patrons are encouraged to become members of the museum and support both institutions (if your a member you don’t have to pay fines on overdue books!).

The Museum Collection includes the Beechnut Packing Company Archive and Mohawk Valley artifacts that bring you right back to a time when Canajoharie was booming and James and Bartlett Arkell ruled the valley with optimism for the future of their community and the people who lived there.    

This week current Mayor Leigh Fuller remembers when he first moved to the town in the 1950s and Arkell & Smith was leaving, he reminded citizens that, “Everything changes. Canajoharie will have to change, we'll have to find a way to live better than when Beech-Nut was here and we're working towards that.  I think the board and myself have started moving Canajoharie, at our darkest hours, forward."

I bet James and Bartlett have their fingers crossed.

Can o' what?

photo by Mike Groll, The Associated Press

A century ago, there were a couple ways to get a library in your town:  a Carnegie grant, a society of thinkers or do-gooders or a Captain of Industry looking for a legacy project.  Some of my favorite library stories come from the last group; exquisite library ‘monuments’ built by men who made their fortune when America’s economy and population were exploding.    

As they aged, many freshly minted industrialists looked around their town for ways to leave a meaningful and important personal or family legacy.  A library was a perfect combination of community philanthropy and ego boost.  Unraveling the name of a library to discover the man and industry that led to it’s birth makes for some interesting reading.

And so it went in Canajoharie, NY (exit 29 on the N.Y. Thruway, smack dab in the middle of the state).  The library is public but it’s also a joint venture with the Askell Museum (a small museum that features a well regarded collection of American artists and Mohawk Valley landscapes).  The museum and the library were built by Bartlett Askell, who is responsible for another famous thruway landmark, the Beechnut Packing Company.

Arkell’s story starts with his father, James Arkell, who might as well be called Mr. Canajohaire.  James  moved to Canajoharie from England at the age of 12 and was instrumental in building the thriving  community that still exists today.  After dabbling in the newspaper business, James Arkell partnered with Benjamin Smith to begin Arkell & Smith Company, a food stuffs paper sack company for sugar, flour and the like. 

Arkell’s innovation was making the bags from paper, instead of cotton, and developing the folded flat bottom.   Then he came up with a ‘printing press’ to print company logos on the bags.  Arkell & Smith became the main industry in the town and employed generations of citizens.  
In his spare time, James Arkell served as a state Senator and had a great interest in Art and Mohawk Valley artists.

James Arkell’s  son, Bartlett, had a tough act to follow.  Instead of riding on his father’s coat tails, he decided, in 1891, to go into business with a few friends selling ham and bacon.  First called the Imperial Packing Company, Beech Nut  grew quickly and added on an amazing diversity of products.  Arkell believed that they should expand into any market that could use improvement, and they found a lot.  Over the years they made jam, peanut butter, catsup, caramels, gum and coffee.   

Bartlett Askell believed that “perfect flavor in food will find it’s customer”.  Beech-nut has grown, morphed and been purchased countless time since Lifesavers first bought the company in 1931 but, until this year, the factory has remained in Canojoharie.  I was crushed to learn that Beech-Nut closed it’s factory doors, after 118 years, in March 2011 and moved the operations to a new plant in Florida.  The Beech-Nut headquarters remain in Albany, but the company is now owned by the Hero Group, a international corporation based in Switzerland.

Fortunately, Bartlett was planning ahead and preserved the memory of his family’s influence on the city of Canojarharie with the Askell Library and Museum which I will visit tomorrow.

Jefferson's Books

from mythofsisyphus.net

You may not realize that Thomas Jefferson and I have a lot, or indeed anything, in common.  
But honestly, we’re practically soulmates.
We both lived in the rolling countryside of Virginia (he had a plantation and I lived in a subdivision).
We both love the University of Virginia (he founded it and I was rejected from it, after attending some great parties and deciding they should accept me despite my lackluster grades.)
And, most importantly, we both have a book problem.  In Jefferson’s case he never met a book he didn’t like.  

According to James Gilreath and Douglas Wilson, by 1783 Jefferson had amassed a collection of 2640 books for his library.  He did this despite the lack of  Amazon, Barnes & Noble or reliable transportation to the mall.  He also managed not to be sidetracked from his book quest by the Revolutionary War.  

I’m guessing that Jefferson must have had a slave, or two, dedicated to the job of organizing and dusting his books because I learned a long time ago that owning too many books creates clutter that is hard to clean around.  Since I don’t have slaves (expect my daughter, in her humble opinion) I reserve my book obsession to the library (with only a bookshelf, attic and barn for books I just have to own).

When Jefferson set sail for France, in 1784, to represent America, it was like sending the fox into the chicken coop.  Jefferson bought books everywhere he went, stalked Parisian bookshops, and devoted his time away from politics to placing book orders in literary capitals across Europe.  By the time he got back to America in 1789 his library had doubled.  

Just because America was young, didn’t mean you couldn’t still spend money of things you didn’t need and, in Jefferson case, it was more books.  By 1814 Jefferson lorded over a library of 6, 700 books and he loved them all. He took great pride in his ability to choose the books that would be instrumental in building a collection that would be the best in America.

Just when Jefferson was beginning to consider the fact that 6,700 book might be a little over the top for a private library, the British invaded Washington, D.C and burned down America’s Capital building, including the congressional library.

Jefferson, alarmed at the idea of men running the country without access to great books, offered his Monticello collection to the Government to restart their library.  Congress argued over, but eventually made the decision to, buy Jefferson’s collection for the whopping sum of $23,950 which helped Jefferson to repay some of the enormous debts he had acquired while shopping for furnishings, art and books in Europe.  Unfortunately, he needed to sell a few libraries in order to move his finances into the black.

You can judge a person by how they organize their books.  Mine are jammed into any shelf they fit into, vertically and horizontally.  Calvin and Hobbes are neighbors with Bansky and Wicked.  When anyone in our family needs a book, they stand in front of the shelf visualizing where they last saw the spine and scan the titles until it appears, or they give up and go to the library to check it out.

Jefferson was meticulous about cataloguing his books (I didn’t think obsessive compulsive sounded very respectful).  He used a system based on Francis Bacon’s famous scheme that divided all books into categories, divisions and chapters, eventually creating 44 chapters that could encompass the world’s knowledge.  Jefferson painstakingly organized his books into each chapter and then, within the chapter, ordered books based on personal criteria and judgement of importance.  

When the books were transferred to Washington, D.C, George Watterston, the Librarian of Congress agreed to keep Jefferson’s categories but decided to alphabetized the books within each chapter - Jefferson took this as an intellectual afront.  A century and a half later, Jefferson’s library was rearranged back to what scholars believe to be his original plan - however we will never really know how it was set up because Watterston TOOK Jefferson's catalogue with him when he left his position at the Library of Congress, it seems he was confused about what was his personal property.

I love that books were floating around Jefferson’s mind as he wrote the Declaration of Independence, governed the state of Virginia, served as a diplomat and was the Vice President and President of our country.  I can imagine him scrambling to pack books in Richmond as the British closed in or taking a break from meetings in Paris to nip down to the bookshop for the  latest treasure.  Books were a constant and central part of his life.

Our country was founded by Thomas Jefferson, his ideas, values and beliefs.  And, in turn, Thomas Jefferson was shaped and formed by his books.  When we remember our Jefferson and out founding fathers we should recall not only their dignified, noble faces but brimming bookshelves behind them.

American Hero

John Jay

In 1934 the NY Society Library found a discarded box in the basement of their building at 109 University Place.  Inside was a long lost, deteriorating treasure:  the library ledger from the 1700s.

As I read through the list of borrowed books, I noticed that John Jay was a particularly avid borrower and, as William J. Dean points out in his article, he was checked out books in many different subjects, with the exception of law.  He checked out books by Johnathan Swift, a history of the Five Nations in Canada, Captain Cook’s story about his voyage to the South Pole, a book on Natural History and a book entitled Arabian Nights Entertainment.  You can tell a lot about a person by reading their library history, which is why I keep mine private.

I vaguely remembered the name John Jay from 12th grade American History class.  When I went back for a refresher course I was reminded that not only was he a founding father, but he was also the first Justice of the Supreme Court.  In fact I learned that he was a classic colonial overachiever; his roles included President of the Continental Congress, Ambassador to France and Spain, negotiator of  the Jay Treaty,  co-writer of the Federalists Papers and  Governor of New York.  But none of those roles provided him with his enduring passion:  abolishing slavery.

In 1785 owning slaves in New York was as common as having a profile on Facebook.  Jay himself bought and owned slaves whom he freed when they became a “proper age”.  According to an article by Jake Sudderth and included in the papers of John Jay at Columbia University, John Jay’s father, Peter, was one of the largest slave owners in New York. It would have been easy and acceptable for John to continue in his father’s footsteps and make things easy for himself while he was at it.

Instead he decided to fight for what he had come to believe was right.  He got together some powerful friends and established the Manumission Society in 1785 to abolish slavery in New York.  The Society set up boycotts, entered lawsuits on behalf of slaves and set up “African Free Schools”.  In a 1785 letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush Jay wrote,

“I consider education to be the soul of the republic. I wish to see all unjust and all unnecessary discriminations everywhere abolished, and that the time may soon come when all our inhabitants of every colour and denomination shall be free and equal partakers of our political liberty”

Not to be picky but how about gender?  While I’m glad that Jay can’t see the racial inequalities of education today, 225 years later, it would be something to see the look on his face when he discovered who the president was.

John Jay did not rest until he was Governor of New York and finally passed a law gradually abolishing slavery in 1799.  Finally he had won his fifteen year fight.  Jay passed his passion to his  son, William, who was one of the most prominent abolitionists of his time (and a N.Y. Judge) and his grandson,  John Jay II,  also a part of the Anti-Slavery movement (and a founder of the Republican Party in NY).  

John Jay should be remembered in American History classes, not because he was the first Supreme Court Justice or President of the Continental Congress or even as the Governor of NY.  He should be remembered as an American Hero that stood up for his beliefs.   He should be remembered as a hero because he showed Americans that values are worth standing up for, even when they make people around you uncomfortable.  John Jay didn’t necessarily put his life at risk, like Harriet Tubman, but he did jeopardize his reputation and his ability to gain political power.  It would have been a whole lot easier to keep his mouth shut and go with the flow.

I’m so glad he didn’t.

If Walls Could Talk

NYSL in 1840, photo from NYSL website

If the New York Society Library walls could talk we’d be in for some juicy stories (see Reform and Fever posts).  Thanks to Henry Cooper and Jenny Lawerence’s book,  The New York Society Library:  250 Years, I can share a few with you.  By 1840 New York City’s population and economy had exploded.  The city had outgrown it’s modest borders and spread it’s tentacles across the island of Manhattan.  Most library patrons, prominent business men, had followed the flow and moved uptown.  The Society Library on Nassau Street needed a makeover and a facelift.  

It arrived in two forms.  First, the  New York Athenaeum (a competing private library)  entered into a real estate/merger deal with the Society Library and soon discovered it was unable to make ends meet.  The Athenaeum was forced to dissolve and its members, collections and space were absorbed by the Society.  Secondly, the library moved to a new location, far more convenient for it’s patrons and the new members from the Athenaeum, I guess what they say about location is true.

Leonard Street and Broadway was the address of the new library, and it certainly attracted some attention from the writers, readers and thinkers of the time.  In 1840 The New Yorker described the newly constructed library this way:

"The New York Society Library has lately been re-opened in its new and beautiful edifice...a new ornament of our principal avenue.  A spacious hall occupies the middle of the building. The visitor enters this and ascends a broad flight of stairs, which leads to the reading room in the rear. This is a lofty and well proportioned apartment, with windows at each end, and in it are four commodious tables covered with rich food for the literary appetite.  This room, brilliantly lighted at night, with its soft carpets deadening the sound of footsteps, its cushioned arm chairs, and its rich supplies of periodicals, renewed by every steamship, forms the perfection of literary luxury.”

The interior may have been luxurious, but the real treat came from who you might bump into:

• Ralph Waldo Emerson gave a series of six talks in 1842.  He later wrote in his diary that the audience was somewhat puzzled by his ideas and that he made about $200.
• Walt Whitman attended Emerson’s talks and the two men met. When Whitman published  Leaves of Grass, several years later, Emerson declared him “the great American poet.”
• Henry David Thoreau wrote that the librarian permitted him  to “take out some untake-out-able books, which I was threatening to read on the spot.”
• Edgar Allen Poe followed a few years later with a series of lectures on poetry in America.  The New York Herald reported that his opinions were, “venal, ignorant, and entirely unfit to form a judgment on the most humblest [sic] productions of the writers of this country—of course, his own included."
• Tourists were also spotted in among the shelves and included “Prince Bonaparte (the young Napoleon III, in temporary exile in America), Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray, James Fenimore Cooper (who afterward became a member), Francis Parkman, W. Ellery Channing, Daniel Webster, Charles Sumner, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and John James Audobon.”
• Herman Melville used the library to write and research Moby Dick.  Records show that he checked out Bougainville's Voyage Around the World in January 1848, Scoresby's Arctic Regions and North Whale Fishery in April 1850.  Moby Dick was published in 1851.

Just imagine being a mosquito on those walls...watching Dickens browse the shelves, Thoreau beg the librarian for a book, Emerson expounding or Melville scratching out his story about a whale.

Forget the books,  just let me rub some elbows.