Tag Archives: libraries

Another library story, again in India

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Curtis Bryant, the husband of a long-time librarian friend of mine, saw my post on Mahesh Rao’s article on libraries in India, and he wrote me about his own experience in a Delhi library.  He has given me permission to reprint it here.  I have also added a comment at the end.

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The “Elegy for the Library” article brought back memories of my time in India back in 1972. When I was staying in Delhi I stopped into the library at the University of Delhi, just to browse around. At the time I was interested in knowing more about the intersection of Eastern and Western knowledge and was particularly interested in how it was that the calendar and the constellations along the ecliptic (the astrological sun signs) pretty much correspond in both cultures.

I found my way down to a lower level where I began browsing the shelves and came across a dusty old book entitled “Early Astrology and Cosmology” by C. P. S. Menon.. The time of year was early January, which is the middle of the dry season in India. In spite of that, the effect of humidity over the years had taken its toll. The building at that time was ventilated with open tiles letting outside air in, no air conditioning. As soon as I pried open the cover the browned pages of the book began to crack and crumble in my hands as I turned them, but the subject matter was absolutely fascinating, delving into early Jain cosmology, which outlined a perfectly logical and empirical explanation for a flat, diamond shaped earth with India at the center. The shifting angle of the sun at the solstices and equinoxes had been accurately measured, and these early astronomers explained the seasonal change by proposing that the sun moved on a larger diamond shaped path, hence further south, in the winter and a smaller, tighter path further north in the summer.  The earth was divided into four quadrants, and by extension, the path of the sun went through twelve squares (or houses) that surrounded the four earthly divisions. Continuing in this manner, by adding more squares like a chess board, the next “ring” had twenty houses, then twenty eight corresponding to the lunar cycle.

Jain Cosmological Map

Jain Cosmological Map

The revelation that empirical measurement could lead to radically different views of reality, given the limitations of our instruments and perspective, struck me as having great significance, and I decided that I must copy the important parts of the book. They had no copier there, and I had no library privileges at the university, so I returned several times to the library copying significant portions of the text and illustrations. I felt like a medieval scribe who had come across one of the great lost works of ancient science, and spent the next several days compiling what I could manage into a notebook. Over the next three months I traveled around India, Nepal, and later to several countries in East Africa, including Egypt with my little treasure. Today I could dig it out again where it sits in a cabinet, certainly in a moldy state by now, down in our basement bedroom where you guys camped out with us.

So yes, the library must remain a part of our world, housing real books. I have a recurring nightmare of a coming dark age when after some unforeseen cosmic supernova sending cosmic rays that fry every electrical circuit on the planet, or even more simply, a malicious hacking of our too fragile Internet that we have come to depend on too heavily, the world plunges back into an age of fragmented knowledge and backward thinking. We are actually doing a pretty good job of this without the assistance of such catastrophes.

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Looking for images to illustrate Curtis’s letter I was very surprised to discover that Early Astronomy and Cosmology was published in 1932.  From his description of the dusty old book with brittle paper I imagined it was published in the 1800’s.  I was terribly disappointed and wasn’t sure what to do.  I wondered if Curtis after all these years had forgotten that it was a book only about 20 years older than he.  Now with the internet he could find it digitized on line and for sale at used book shops.  I almost decided not to reprint it here.  I didn’t want to ruin his memory.

But as I thought about it I realized that there is definitely something to be learned here.  Curtis’ nightmare is not inconceivable.  Librarians and archivists have done much to try to preserve originals — climate control, archival acid free storage, limiting usage of delicate items. However there is a great possibility that all of our time and energy spent on preservation, and on digitizing the great books, manuscripts, maps, and documents of civilization, may be for naught.  The digitized versions may be as fragile as the paper or parchment on which they were first written. I suppose it is possible that in the end we will be left with neither .

I recently went to see Frederick Wiseman’s documentary Ex Libris:  The New York Public Library.  Tears ran down my cheeks as certain images of the reading room, the stacks, the exhibits along the halls, the manuscript collections, the map room, the back rooms where the returns are sorted to be sent to the branches or to be put back on the shelves, and the lions flashed on the screen.  Digital books and access to digitized materials in your home while you are in your bathrobe are immediate and efficient, but there is nothing like the old, tried and true and tactical way of browsing and researching in a library.  We who are old enough to have had the experience are fortunate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes, I am in love but —

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I am also misunderstood.  I take the blame.

I am in love with Mahesh Rao who wrote an article about libraries and librarians.  I am in love with the article.  That is what unexpectedly popped up on my screen yesterday morning.

Here is the link to that article: LINK

Not many people read Spoonbeams, so when “likes” come in, as they did for what I wrote yesterday LINK, I’m always very appreciative and try to figure out what there was about my writing that my likers liked.  Very few people who read my “love” post actually clicked on my link.  They didn’t see it?  They didn’t know it was a link?  When I realized what was happening I tried making the link more prominent but that didn’t help.  That’s why you see the awkward links above.

Does it matter what or who they thought I am in love with?  Not really.

This morning’s view from my “eerie” is nice but not as grabbing as yesterday’s. I do like the addition of fisherman down at the landing — especially when, like these two, they are quiet and don’t start fires in the night.  But the sky is not as blue, there are a few stink bugs and flies crawling on the windows, and that clear-cut box in the trees shows up ugly as sin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Prologue to Listening to JBKO

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Shirley and I started work at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library on the same day, September 13th, 1971.  We worked together in the library’s temporary quarters in Waltham, although not on the same projects.  We were still colleagues when the Library moved to its new building – stunning, out of the way, and leaky – on Columbia Point in Boston.  I left in ’83 to have my first son, and Shirley left for the Boston Globe in ’84.

Waltham staff at JFK Library / 2008

The Waltham staff of the JFK Library gets together for reunions about once every two years – when someone who has moved far away is back in town, when the JFK Library Foundation puts on a big bash, sometimes unfortunately at funerals.  I go because my work there was over-the-top and my colleagues, for the most part, were very bright and interesting people. I’d go to more of the events, including the Hemingway Awards in the spring, but I live more than 3 hours away, and I’m very content at home.

I am so happy that Shirley and I are still friends.  The date of our meeting, September 13th is a very significant day in my life. It is also my marriage date, the date I started work as librarian at Lowell National Historical Park, and the date that my husband found out he had lymphoma.  Meeting Shirley is in there with some of my biggies.

For my 65th birthday Shirley gave me the book of Jacqueline Kennedy’s interviews with Arthur Schlesinger.  They were recorded  just four months after the President’s death in 1964.  The book bears Caroline’s signature.  It was a wonderful present.  I don’t know if I would have bought or read the book otherwise.  It was a boxed set with CD’s.

With Jacqueline Kennedy at the opening of the Hemingway Room 7/18/1980

I met Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, or JBKO, as we referred to her in the library, several times.  The staff thought it undignified and too familiar to call the former First Lady “Jackie,” but Mrs.Kennedy or Mrs. Onassis was too formal.  I was curator of the Ernest Hemingway Collection and I would see her at Hemingway events, which she often attended.

At one of these events I introduced JBKO to my husband. The next time we saw her — a year, two years later — she amazed us by remembering him and our conversation.  She asked us about our house that we had told her we were building. Even after I left the library Clark and I would return and see her.  We told her we had opened a children’s bookstore, Book Nooks & Krannies in New Hampshire.  Months later a big unmarked box of The Fisherman’s Song by Carly Simon, illustrated by Margot Datz, arrived at the store.  They were all signed “Love, Carly Simon.”

I think I walked around in a daze for a week or two.  I was overwhelmed.  Where did these books come from?  Were they a mistake?  What should I do about them?  There was no note, no paperwork, no bill.  I didn’t want to be presumptuous but I thought perhaps JBKO asked Carly to sign them and  had Doubleday send them to me.  JBKO was Carly Simon’s editor at Doubleday, and the editor, songwriter, and artist knew each other on Martha’s Vinyard.  Wondering how to thank her, and still not being sure if I should thank her for fear of embarrassing both of us if she hadn’t, I did nothing.  I thought next time I see her . . .

Of course, next time never came.  And that is one of my regrets.  How does one thank someone who has passed away for having done something so thoughtful?

I have lots of books in piles around the house waiting to be read.  I wondered when I would get to Jackie’s.

Then I remembered.  I used to love listening to books when I was by myself on a long car ride.  I would occasionally be so engrossed, in Water for Elephants for example, that I missed my exit to Moultonborough and almost made it to Canada.   I eventually wore out the player and turned to NPR and singing with my ipod.

Now I have a new car with a functional CD player, and a new 2-hour each way drive to visit my mom in New Jersey every week.  I could listen to the book.

And I am.  My first thoughts were about JBKO’s voice.  It is very feathery, and reminds me, unfortunately, of Marilyn Monroe.  She has an accent.  I cringe when I hear myself saying “cawfee” for coffee, but if JBKO can speak with a somewhat unflattering accent, I can too.  I hope it is endearing.

I’m more than half way through.  It’s sometimes hard to hear what they are saying.  I’ve got to fill in the blanks in my memory.  I’m curious to compare the book and the CDs.

In the meantime I’m going to send a copy of The Fisherman’s Song off to Shirley this afternoon, and start writing about my impressions of what I have heard so far.