[Publib] Why librarianship? ... a walk down Nostalgia Lane

[John]

When I was a kid, I didn't really think about being a librarian.  (Up to a certain point in childhood, I just wanted to be a train engineer.  Does *that* ever date me!)  However, my mother went to the Topeka Public Library--now, more splendiferously, the Topeka & Shawnee County Library--weekly, I went along, and we checked out books.  There was a kind of aura of mystery about the library; one could not check stuff out from the adult areas until a certain age--although a parent could check something out for a child--so I looked forward to the day when I was old enough to check out books for Old People.  When I was about ten I wanted to read The Hunchback of Notre Dame, which had to be brought up from the basement storage area on a kind of dumbwaiter, and that was mysterious, too.  My first library card was green, looked like a credit card, with raised white letters.  AND I distinctly recall that TPL used McBee cards in the circ system; I can still see them, with their poked holes along the side (?I think?), not unlike teletype ribbon.  (Boy, am I ever waxing nostalgic....)

There was a very forbidding woman who worked in the children's department; I can't remember her name, but she always seemed to have white hair and she didn't necessarily invite light conversation and other pleasantries.  On the other hand, when my brother was four years old, broke his leg, and had to be in traction at Stormont-Vail Hospital, just across the street, for six weeks (1962--again, things were different), Mrs. Whatever-Her-Name-Was faithfully selected books for my mother to pick up to read to my brother in his imprisonment.  The crusty librarian with a heart of gold....

And when I discovered opera at the age of 12 or 13, I was frustrated because the policy in the fine arts dept. was that only teachers, or mostly only teachers, were THE ones who could check out opera recordings and other boxed, multi-disk sets.  A young man who worked fine arts discovered my interest and more-or-less clandestinely let me check out operas.  He loaded me down with stuff he liked: Lohengrin, La Fanciulla del West (NOT Puccini's best), and perhaps something by Richard Strauss--way above where I was, but it didn't matter.  He continued to allow me to check out the boxed sets of LPs, and I hope he didn't lose his job over it.  At some point, he was no longer there, so perhaps he morphed into...a DIRECTOR somewhere.

So, ultimately, librarianship just seemed perfectly natural.  I was chagrined, I *must* say, when in high school I applied for a job at the Topeka Public Library, as a lowly page, and was NOT hired.  But I forgave them all, those wicked people who did not see my potential.

Just as an aside, the director of TPL when I was a child was Horace Moses--what a wonderful name--and he was an Episcopalian.  He had two sons who became priests, and I knew one of them, in later life.  "Father Moses" had a nice ring to it.

John D. Richmond, Director
Alpha Park Public Library District
3527 So. Airport Road
Bartonville, IL 61607
Ph: 309-697-3822, x. 12
Fax: 309-697-9681
Email: jrichmond at alphapark.org
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When I open my eyes I must sigh, for what I see is contrary to my religion, and I must despise the world which does not know that music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.  -- Ludwig van Beethoven