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A GOOD LIBRARY Books with people behind them – what a combination

by Karen Kurt Teal ’00G

photo illustration by Ben Barnhart IN THE SUMMER OF 1978 I was a visiting student at UMass particularly impressed by the erudition of a 19th-century scholar, our own Professor Robert Keefe. In a notable instance of undergraduate insight into cause and effect, I made my way to our towering library. First, I had to get over the fact that English literature was all the way up on the 11th floor. Then I took the gleaming elevator into the sky. My first thought upon getting off on the 11th floor was, “I can see sheep grazing, like specks of lint, far below.” Remember, in 1978 we still had farm animals just west of Bartlett Hall. My second thought was, “These books are ALL English literature?” Shelf after shelf the books stood, shining in fresh bindings. I had never been in a library with so many new editions of old books. Since I didn’t know where to start, I just walked up and down those silent aisles. The quiet and the presence of the books had a calming effect on me. I settled down to read a Thomas Hardy novel selected at random: A Laodicean. See, good lighting and fresh editions make even unlikely-sounding novels justifiably attractive. A few years later, beginning graduate work at UMass, I retreated to the stacks for comfort and direction. On the 11th floor, my priorities were straightened out. I had plenty of classwork, but I did my own reading as well. I started with Defoe, discovering for the first time the shocking novel The Journal of the Plague Year. I dipped into the poets of the 18th century, and the novels of a wonderful female novelist, Fanny Burney. I was bowled over by Fielding, and by Tobias Smollett – Smollett, who could get away with anything, including things that would get him bumped off prime-time TV today. I slowly made my way through the Brontës, Eliot, Dickens, and finally, in 1990, started reading Anthony Trollope. Beginning with The Way We Live Now, I knew I was on to something good, and Trollope’s novels became the focus of my doctoral work. It was in this library that I discovered the massive resources of a good journal collection, the vast array of scholarly publications that are the lifeblood of intellectual analysis. The second floor is the gateway to the world’s changing scholarship. I could find journals on the Elizabethans, on American Puritan writing, and on specific 19th-century writers – like Rudyard Kipling, all by himself. It sounds sappy, but I could smell current knowledge in the bindings. Occasionally I lifted my nose and noticed other journal-rats as intent as I was. The budget for this part of the library has been hard-hit over the years, which is sad. Of course, library-users get rattled. My biggest researching gripe is always, “I don’t know what to look under.” When stumped at the computer terminal, how grateful I was for that fresh suggestion from the reference librarian. Who were the popular Victorian book reviewers? Who owned most of the land in Victorian Britain? How do I find murder statistics for London ca. 1880? UMass librarians took every one of my questions seriously. When it came time to bring my own Writing 112 students in for orientation, the librarians were alert, helpful, and unpatronizing. Books with people behind them – what a great combination. The day before my doctoral defense in December 1999, I flew in from Seattle and went to – where else? – the library. Coming back through those doors was a real homecoming. I spent a few hours on the 11th floor, surrounded by familiar books and peace. I laid my hand on that copy of the Trollope novel that got me started, and got ready to finish my last degree at UMass. Looking down at students traipsing the muddy path across snowy Metawampe Lawn and the wind rippling the dark pond, I marveled at how well-connected and powerful the library at UMass Amherst really is. I saw the paths threading out in every direction and realized that those paths literally stretch out around the world, in the form of the library’s acquisitions activities, the journals streaming in, the interlibrary loan exchanges, the etherlinks, the librarians planning for the future. I thought about how critical that library was to my own growth, from visiting undergraduate to doctoral candidate. And today in Seattle, toiling on a conference talk about Trollope, I am warmed by memories of my real “home library,” the one to which thousands of UMass scholars have resorted as they prepared to embark on their own intellectual voyages.

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A GOOD LIBRARY

GOOD LIBRARY: larger image