DC Permafrost

About 10 years ago, I was going to start a blog called "Permafrost" to document the freezing indoor summer temperatures across DC, but I never got myself mobilized. The Library of Congress' Main Reading Room was going to be my first case study, but it is just one example of the insane air-conditioning experienced across DC offices.

Once the Main Reading Room opened again, I jumped at the possibility of ordering books from the general collection for the first time since early 2020. However, it was bitter cold in the Main Reading Room. I told others that it was colder than the Arctic. I forgot and only brought a sweater, but it wasn't enough. At lunch time, I went out into the immensely hot, mid-day sun, but could not warm up enough to return to the Main Reading Room. So, I just went home. 

When I thought about creating the blog, one colleague in the Main Reading Room daily wore a down vest, scarf, and gloves. More recently another colleague wrote: 

I could never understand why they do this. I used to bring not only sweater and pants, but gloves and scarf. It would still take me half an hour to defrost after I left. And I also took refuge in the European room (although I found it cold there, too) 

I am much happier now that the European Reading Room has opened, which is warmer. (The Hispanic Reading Room is also a more rational temperature.) My sweater keeps me warm enough. They even have a thermometer in the room, so there is some monitoring. I also very much like the community in the European Reading Room. 

Take away: Stop the insane air conditioning!!!

P.S. This might seem like a strange complaint, since the pandemic expelled us from these hyper-air-conditioned buildings. Now is exactly the right time finally to halt this insane air conditioning. 

P.P.S. Unfortunately, the European Reading Room is too cold today (8/2/2021)! I'm leaving earlier to escape and warm up. I saw that one of the employees has a big down coat in their office. Just one of more sign of how cold it can get indoors during the summer here in DC.

The Joy of Being One of the First 30 People Back in the Library

 As I exited the Newspaper and Current Periodicals reading room on June 1st, I was interviewed as one of the first 30 people back in the Library of Congress reading rooms.  

Wonderful!

On Tuesday, June 1st, 2021, I was among the very first people to return to the Library of Congress reading rooms. Since then, I have been working most days in the Newspaper and Current Periodical Reading Room. It is so very wonderful to be back. The staff is so helpful as always. The materials are amazing as always. Thank you to the Library of Congress for opening. I and many others greatly appreciate it.

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!" 

To Restore Civil Society, Start With the Library

Sociology professor Eric Klinenberg has written a great New York Times opinion piece based on his ethnographic research in public libraries and his new book. He states:

According to a 2016 survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, about half of all Americans ages 16 and over used a public library in the past year, and two-thirds say that closing their local branch would have a “major impact on their community.”

He shows the variety of ways that people use public libraries and how libraries are precious social infrastructures for civil society.

Last night I was told by someone who works for a public library that I should write the librarians and tell them why I value the library so much. Join me and write letters to your public libraries letting them know why you value them!

Libraries as Respite (and Please Vote!)

From an article by Steve Kemple, librarian and branch manager in Cincinnati:

"The people in the Price Hill community rely on the library not only as a point of access to needed information, resources and entertainment, but also a respite from a stressful existence as well as a place to gather. When people walk up the steps and through the door, this is what they carry with them, this is what they seek, and this is what we try our best to provide."

"For those of you in Cincinnati, voting starts April 10th and Election Day is May 8th. If you value the important and inherently radical work that library workers perform every day, I urge you to publicly share your support for Issue 3, and, of course, VOTE!"

Libraries are a Haven

From  Suspended Coffees:

The Wonderful World of Books

I just read Rebecca Lossin's "Against the Universal Library." Lossin argues that librarians have come to hate paper, which is fully realized in the destruction of books (and newspapers, which is disconcerting because there are often fewer saved copies in libraries) to scan them and is symbolically expressed in the names like Kindle and Kindle Fire. This is effectively the burning of books in the name of "inevitable" technological progress. The Library of Congress has taken part in this destruction process by pioneering processes that destroy books. Libraries are now "becoming something other than a library -- a brick-and-mortar portal into the private sector." Lossin concludes, "Digitization, and the digitization of books in particular, is not benign. In both its utopian and pragmatic forms, digitization conceals a destructive impulse that not only eliminates books but threatens the very freedom of discourse it purports to promote; erodes the educational and experiences of those it claims to support; and monetizes, thus commodifies, intellectual life in the name of free access. And all of this dramatically alters the writing it contains, if it doesn't practically erase it."

From my own experience, I have been immensely frustrated with Google Books. For 20th century books, I find them often completely inaccessible or I can receive only three search results in snippets or I can get some small section of the books. I can almost always go to the Library of Congress and look at the whole book, but these books are not available to most people in the world. One day in my sociological research methods course, we were looking at documents in the archive of the university. A group of students decided that the most fascinating thing in the archive was a published book. One of the students said, "It has so much information!" I believe that Lossin is right about the wonderful world of printed books, which we can read in a sustained way.  Lossin writes:

The best thing about a printed book, however, is what it does not do. I cannot use it to watch television or check my email. My mother will never call me on it. My boss will never use it to interrupt me. In an age of constant media distractions, having a single object dedicated to a single activity -- reading -- is increasingly important.

To sit and read, especially in a peaceful, quiet public library with others, is truly a wonderful experience. 

New Book about The Library of Congress

The Library of Congress is great! And it is the topic of a new book: John Y. Cole. America’s Greatest Library: An Illustrated History of the Library of Congress. According to Booklist Review:

Library of Congress historian Cole (Encyclopedia of the Library of Congress, 2005) has been with the institution for over 50 years. He utilizes his vast experience in this fact-filled history of the world’s largest library. From its inception in 1800 through the historic swearing in of Carla D. Hayden as the fourteenth Librarian of Congress in 2016, interesting and important dates and facts run throughout the book. Interspersed are plentiful black-and-white and color illustrations and brief background essays. This volume is recommended for anyone with an interest in the rich collections and cultural history that constitute the Library of Congress.— Jim Frutchey

Maybe I should now say that the Library of Congress is the greatest!

Get a Couple of Library Cards

In support of public libraries, I encourage everyone to get a library card for your local public library and the Library of Congress, as well as any other libraries you have been thinking about using. As many of you likely already know, a library is often a very pleasant place to sit, browse books, use a computer, write, etc., a place open to everyone. Everything public is potentially under attack. Local politicians look at the # of the population vs the # of library cardholders. If the % of cardholders to population isn't high, then they think, "Why are our people being taxed for this service?" Getting a library card is an act of support in ways bigger than you imagined. And you might find yourself spending even more glorious time in a glorious library. #lovemylibrary #supportlibraries #publiclibrary

New Librarian of Congress to be sworn in at noon

Watch Carla Hayden Swearing-In LIVE Sept. 14 Carla Hayden will be sworn in as the 14th Librarian of Congress by Chief Justice of the United States John G. Roberts Jr. in the Great Hall of the Library's Thomas Jefferson Building in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, September 14. Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Paul Ryan will offer remarks. Hayden will be the first woman and the first African-American to serve as Librarian of Congress. Hayden was nominated by President Barack Obama and was confirmed by the U.S. Senate. The feed begins at 11 a.m. EDT here, and the ceremony begins at noon EDT.