Last month, as a way of exploring Garland County Library's new tagline, "Your Connection Point," I wrote about some of the libraries I've felt connected to through the years and I invited readers to do the same. I got some excellent responses and I'd like to share some of them.
Julie Dickson, who didn't write, but who reminisced in person, recalled going to the old library on Woodbine, then under the stewardship of Gordonelle Williams (whose portrait hangs in our auditorium, named in her honor) with a friend as a teenaged girl -- I won't say when -- and trying to check out Grace Metalious' "Peyton Place," the steamy (well, steamy for the Eisenhower era) blockbuster novel. The girls were thwarted by Ms. Williams, who threatened to call the girls' mothers if they dared to take "Peyton Place" home.
Kathryn Sanders, who worked at the library in the 1970s, and who was a founding member of the Friends of the Library, also recalled attempts to keep readers away from racy material: "When I worked there, we did not shelve some of the 'naughty' books but kept them under the counter and patrons had to ask for them." Kathryn also recalled a practice that seems very old-fashioned today, even though it was not all that long ago: Librarian Evelyn Belk, whose name is quaintly engraved as "Mrs. Earl Belk" on the plaque commemorating the 1971 Garland County Library Board, "had the staff gather around the front desk before we opened and have a prayer. There was no objection to this that I ever heard. In fact, it was kind of nice."
Judy Nickles, a local author (and excellent writer) whose books are available at the library, recalled the following: "In a little country cow town after WW II and into the 50s ... a trip to the library brought silent joy. I say silent because that's how libraries were in those days. Also in those days, children could be dropped off at the front door while Mom ran errands downtown without a worry in the world. We were as safe in that cavernous building as we were in our own backyards.
"The librarians were old. Probably not as old as I am now, but they seemed as old as Methuselah's aunts -- as well as being stern and forbidding. Yet they personified security as we crossed the threshold onto the non-descript faux-marble floor. Above their bastion (the check-out desk) hung an oil painting of the elegant woman who donated most of the money for the building. Perhaps she was hanging around to be sure things went well. At any rate, she was a welcoming presence.
"In summers, which is when children made most of their visits, the cool air from the evaporative cooler wrapped me in its hushed drone from somewhere on the second floor to which patrons were not admitted. Clutching my small square orange card with the magic metal tab, I automatically veered right to the children's section which shared space with the reference books which couldn't be checked out.
"Clunky wooden tables and chairs found floor space among the shelves along the walls where the world awaited a little girl whose boundaries were pretty much a two or three block radius, the back alley, and her grandmother's house next door. There, until my mother showed up a couple of hours later, I could lose myself in books with plain green, blue, black, or brown bindings. I didn't need fancy covers as they have these days to attract--the simple titles on the spine beckoned me.
"The last stop was, of course, the check-out desk where I had to stand on tiptoe to hand over my card. The ka-chunk of the machine as it stamped due dates seemed a prelude to further adventures. Carrying a precious pile of books in bare arms -- no bags available then -- I followed my mother to the car parked on the "plaza" where the city hall, the police station, and the city jail shared space with the library and the historic Presbyterian Church.
"Somehow I can't recapture in words the magic of those hours spent in the library. Sometimes feelings can't be put into words. Taking my children to the "new" library never felt the same, and I wouldn't have left them alone there for all the tea in China.
"But I remember the sounds, the smell, and the silence ... and I wish I could go back. Just for an hour ... or maybe two. "
I'd like to thank everyone who shared their library connections and I hope that you all will come by soon to make some new ones. See you at the library! Visit us online at gclibrary.com.
Local on 03/31/2015