The Library Book

I highly recommend The Library Book by Susan Orleans. The book is about the 1986 burning of the Los Angeles Public Library and expands into fascinating discussions of libraries, LA, arson, book burning, daily life in the Library, etc. My favorite sections were her explorations of the LA Public Library archives, where she learned about the most popular books in the 1920s, the questions asked by those calling the Library info desk in the 1980s, and other hilarious and insightful fun facts. As a review in the LA Review of Books wrote, libraries are spaces we can actively cherish:

In an era of neoliberal capitalism, the “publicness” of the public library is an increasingly rare commodity. When everything is scrutinized under the cost/benefit analysis, our public libraries function like rebels, resisting the encroaching legion of policies that monetize all things in their path. 

Visit a public library in the new year and experience this publicness in all its glory. The DC Public Library has 81 copies of The Library Book waiting for you across the District branches. Anyone who resides, works, pays property taxes or attends school in the District of Columbia (and in several MD and VA countries) can get a free card (how to get a library card; if you live outside these areas, you may apply for a regular library card by visiting any library location in person. The cost is $20 and the card is good for one year).

Also visit the Library of Congress reading rooms and read a couple books there. Anyone from anywhere who is 16 years of age or older can do this!

The view from my desk

The view from my desk everyday in the European Reading Room in the Library of Congress:

The new poet laureate Joy Harjo

The Librarian of Congress has named the new poet laureate, the wonderful Joy Harjo. According to the Washington Post, "The poet laureate position, maintained through the Library of Congress, comes with a beautiful office in the Jefferson Building and a modest stipend, but no official duties. Each poet is free to design the one-year position however he or she would like." I have seen the poetry office, and I can say not only that it is beautiful, but it also has a spectacular view from the very top of the Jefferson Building.

The poet laureate position is one of the many things that make the Library of Congress great. And the poet laureate will kick off the literary season in Washington, DC.

Here is one of her poems:

'Singing Everything'

Once there were songs for everything,

Songs for planting, for growing, for harvesting,

For eating, getting drunk, falling asleep,

For sunrise, birth, mind-break, and war.

For death (those are the heaviest songs and they

Have to be pried from the earth with shovels of grief).

Now all we hear are falling-in-love songs and

Falling apart after falling in love songs.

The earth is leaning sideways

And a song is emerging from the floods

And fires. Urgent tendrils lift toward the sun.

You must be friends with silence to hear.

The songs of the guardians of silence are the most powerful —

They are the most rare.

“Singing Everything” copyright © 2019 by Joy Harjo. To be published in “An American Sunrise,” by Joy Harjo (August 2019; W. W. Norton & Company). Reprinted in the Washington Post by permission of Anderson Literary Management.

Seen near the Hispanic Reading Room on Tuesday

"The Top of My List"

I was walking up the stairwell to the Library of Congress reading room with two 50-something women in jeans outfits and baseball caps. They were going to get library cards.

One said to me: "It's pretty great that we can get library cards from The Library of Congress!"

The other said: "It's at the top of my list!"