Some sterling libraries I've encountered

Jnana Hodson

March 26

No, not the Library of Congress or Manhattan's flagship facing Bryant Park, though I've been in both, or even Boston's impressive Copley Square hub. Two of those were unable to put their hands on the volumes I was seeking and had no idea where they'd gone.

Instead, let me praise some other collections that have given me joy. Unless otherwise specified, they're public libraries.

The Lilly Library at Indiana University in Bloomington. It's one of the premier rare book compilations in the New World, with impressive rotating displays in the front gallery and, for the more adventurous, access to original materials in the reverential reading room. Samuel Johnson's Ramblers, John Jacob Audubon's bird books, and Gary Snyder's poetry broadsides are a few of the treasures my fingers and eyeballs explored there, along with a lingering fondness for African violets that graced its sills. The earliest books published and the much earlier manuscripts are often breathtakingly beautiful, even when you don't understand the language.
Indiana University graduate library. On a much bigger scale, it was a wonder, opening in my senior year. Hard to imagine just how much came into my purview there, back before the Internet, especially in regard to esoteric sides of contemporary poetry as well as the pioneering field reports from the Bureau of Ethnology in the American Far West. When I returned to campus as a research associate, I had faculty access and borrowing privileges.
Dayton's classical record collection and librarian. As a youth, I wasn't the only one she guided to fantastic discoveries. Not just classical and opera, either. I still recall a very early Bob Dylan album that supposedly never existed.
Case Western Reserve Historical Society. Sitting near the Severance Hall and the Cleveland Museum of Art om University Circle, the society's genealogical collection is justly acclaimed and proved to be a great help when I set out to research my own roots. Much of the material was donated by the Trumbull County public library in Warren, Ohio, where I was living, and while that meant driving an hour away, I still have to admire the wisdom in assuring that the materials could be more appropriately curated and made more widely available. The local library, I should add, was solid – it even had a hardbound copy of John Kerouac's first novel – the one before he became Jack.
George Peabody Library, Baltimore. With its visually stunning ante bellum or art deco atrium (what I remember could be either), the collection itself was once part of the adjoining Peabody music conservatory. Its genealogical collection was impressive but didn't match my areas of research. Still, it was delightful just to sit in that airy space.
Binghamton, New York. There was something timelessly proper about this institution fronting a green.
Fostoria, Ohio. Its straight-shooting director, Dan (if I recall right), cut back on the number of best-sellers on the racks and invested instead in paperback copies of more timeless books, which he then had turned into hardbacks. The savings in cost added up. For a small blue-collar town, 16,000 population, the collection had surprising depth. For me at the time, the range of the Tibetan Buddhist volumes was unexpected. Somehow, one donor had even presented a beautiful translucent marble wall for a big part of the front of the building.
Camden, Maine. The picturesque town of 5,200 year-'round residents triples in the summer, including a large dose of old-money wealth. The town was one of the few did not have its building donated by philanthropist Andrew Carnegie in the late 1800s. When, over time, its celebrated 1927 Colonial-style brick home demanded expansion, the result was a much larger space underground in the neighboring park. The 1996 result is quite striking and delightful, almost an homage to hobbits, in fact, with the older building still sitting like a hat overhead. As one measure of the town it serves, I'll point to the opera section of the CD collection, much of it donated by patrons. It seems to have everything and then some.
Needham, Massachusetts. The large paintings by N.C. Wyeth overlooking the tables in the periodicals room was reason enough to stop by. He called the town home.
Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania. Being able to access William Wade Hinshaw's filing-card drawers of typed extracts from Quaker Meeting minute books is a genealogist's dream come true, as is the ability to examine historical microfilm pages from Ireland and England without having to leave the country.

Oh, my. I could add more. The North Carolina Quaker Meeting minutes archived at Guilford College, for one. The Chester County Historical Society's library in West Chester, Pennsylvania, for another. The community outreach in Watertown, Massachusetts, or Dover, New Hampshire, or the Peavey Memorial here in Eastport, Maine, for yet more. Meanwhile, what do we do a digital library? Consider Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, with its online historical trove of Quaker writings presents both the original page and a readable transcription to flip among. As a researcher, it's quite amazing to be able to read these books and tracts in the comfort of your own home rather than having to fly to London or some other distance for the only available copy.

Or complaints about some others where I've lived.

In my estimation, a good library is an essential component of public social vitality.