Speaker 1: Guess what, mango, what's that? Will? Have you heard about
Speaker 1: this secret library that's in Syria? What is it? Well,
Speaker 1: hiding below the town of Darrayah, which is this suburb
Speaker 1: of Damascus, there's a library of over fourteen thousand books.
Speaker 1: Is he During the terrible siege of the area, people
Speaker 1: have gone into homes and the buildings that were damaged
Speaker 1: by all these attacks, and they've managed to retrieve these
Speaker 1: books to keep in this library. I mean, it's been
Speaker 1: such a heartbreaking situation there for years now, but visitors
Speaker 1: to the library have found at least a temporary escape
Speaker 1: from the devastation by coming down there to browse the
Speaker 1: shelves and and just read for a bit. As one
Speaker 1: visitor told the BBC, and as since the library gave
Speaker 1: me back my life, I would say, just like the
Speaker 1: body needs food, the soul needs books. That's incredible, it
Speaker 1: really is. And while this is obviously an extreme example,
Speaker 1: it's it's amazing how libraries have served as an escape
Speaker 1: for people for so long now, and how they've been
Speaker 1: a place for self improvement and community and entertainment for
Speaker 1: so many And that guy is thinking, how did the
Speaker 1: modern library come to be? And how our libraries evolving,
Speaker 1: So that's what we're talking about today. Let's dive in
Speaker 1: either podcast listeners. Well, from the part time genius, I'm
Speaker 1: Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good
Speaker 1: friend Man Guesh I Ticketer and on the other side
Speaker 1: of the soundproof class still on the run from library
Speaker 1: funds that are way way overdue. What did he say?
Speaker 1: It's been like seven seven years. That's our friend and
Speaker 1: producer Tristan McNeil. All right, well, Mengo, before we get
Speaker 1: into the episode, we've had more than one listener asked
Speaker 1: if I was actually saying your name correctly, and the
Speaker 1: answer is yes, So there's enough to that. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've known you for more than twenty years now, so
Speaker 1: I feel like it's kind of like when you know,
Speaker 1: kids just say a name for a grandparent, you have
Speaker 1: to accept like that it's what it is. So if
Speaker 1: they say mamma, it's in fact, Should I just call
Speaker 1: you mammal? Is that work? Anyway? We've had some requests
Speaker 1: for you to say your own name, so let's just
Speaker 1: go ahead and do this. You want to go for it,
Speaker 1: and the listeners will know how bad I am at
Speaker 1: saying your name sure, it's it's pronounced Kyle Jones really
Speaker 1: all this time. Okay, So there it is, And I
Speaker 1: wanted to actually let you know that you're saying my
Speaker 1: name incorrectly because in the part of Alabama where I'm from,
Speaker 1: it's pronounced wheel. So now we both know. Alright. Well,
Speaker 1: back to Tristan's late fees and things that are long overdue. Today,
Speaker 1: we're finally getting into a topic we wanted to cover
Speaker 1: for a while now, and that's libraries. Yeah. So you
Speaker 1: and I have learned so much throughout our lives thanks
Speaker 1: to libraries, and we really wanted to kind of return
Speaker 1: the favor by higlighting the best facts and stories about
Speaker 1: them we could find. Alright, so mego. You mentioned that
Speaker 1: you sort of feel indebted to libraries for being such
Speaker 1: a helpful resource over the years, and of course Tristan
Speaker 1: and many others are indebted in a different kind of way.
Speaker 1: But one thing that's become clear for me over the years,
Speaker 1: especially working on this episode, is that pretty much everyone
Speaker 1: feels that way about libraries. In fact, to get specific,
Speaker 1: a full percent of Americans they just sixteen and older,
Speaker 1: say that public libraries are important to their communities and
Speaker 1: that those communities would be negatively impacted if libraries were
Speaker 1: to close down, as at least according to a two
Speaker 1: thousand thirteen study from the Pew Research Center. Wow, so
Speaker 1: it's honestly a little surprisingly hear that the approval numbers
Speaker 1: are that high for libraries. I mean, maybe it's just me,
Speaker 1: but I tend to think of them as being in
Speaker 1: the same boat as like, I don't know, the postal system.
Speaker 1: You know, it's this like long running public institution that's
Speaker 1: become a little more ignored in the digital edge. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well that's the thing. I mean, the number of people
Speaker 1: who approve of libraries and theory is significantly higher than
Speaker 1: the number of people who actually use them. So even
Speaker 1: though of citizens felt libraries were good for their communities,
Speaker 1: only about fifty three percent had actually visited a library
Speaker 1: or bookmobile in the last twelve months. So, I mean,
Speaker 1: I do feel like if half a population is using
Speaker 1: a largely government funded resource like that, it's it's really
Speaker 1: not that bad. Though the visitor account has fallen further
Speaker 1: since two thousand thirteen, when Pew published another library study.
Speaker 1: Just last year, the number of people who had visited
Speaker 1: a physical library in the past twelve months had fallen
Speaker 1: to about forty four percent, and has the popularity of
Speaker 1: libraries also dropped since two thousand team No, I mean
Speaker 1: that's the craziest part. So Pew asked the same question
Speaker 1: about community impact in two thousand fifteen and found that
Speaker 1: public support for libraries had remained at that same sky
Speaker 1: high level, which is great, but it does raise the
Speaker 1: question if if just about everyone considers libraries to be
Speaker 1: a valuable resource, why do we find fewer people using them? Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I actually did some digging on that, and at
Speaker 1: first it seemed like the reason for the decline and
Speaker 1: visitors was, you know, due to technology and these technological
Speaker 1: shifts and maybe like this growing preference for e readers
Speaker 1: and tablets. Yeah, and and that was the PEWS takeaway
Speaker 1: as well. But I guess you're saying there's something else
Speaker 1: might be at play here as well. Yeah. So, there's
Speaker 1: this independent federal agency called the Institute of Museum and
Speaker 1: Library Services, it's i MLS, and every other year it
Speaker 1: surveys libraries all over the country to get a better
Speaker 1: sense of how things are going in the industry. And
Speaker 1: one thing that the agency shows is that the revenues
Speaker 1: for libraries started dropping during the Great Recession in two
Speaker 1: thousand nine and have continued to decline ever since. And
Speaker 1: this revenue is like this money from late fees and
Speaker 1: book sales or what are we talking about here? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that's part of it, but most of the
Speaker 1: revenue lasses due to budget cuts from local and state
Speaker 1: governments and whenever they need to drum up more cash
Speaker 1: for public projects, libraries are just an easy target. And
Speaker 1: so how does that relate to fewer people visiting the library? Well,
Speaker 1: the i MLS puts it this way, and their report
Speaker 1: from two thousand twelve quote we found that as investments
Speaker 1: such as revenue, staffing, and programs increased, so did critical
Speaker 1: use measures such as visitation and circulation. In the same way,
Speaker 1: as investments were reduced, mostly in reaction to post recessionary
Speaker 1: budgetary reductions, we saw decreases in library use. So basically,
Speaker 1: the better funded to the library is the more people
Speaker 1: use it, which actually makes a lot of sense, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, more money means more staff members and longer hours,
Speaker 1: newer computers, not to mention more Harry Potter books on
Speaker 1: the shelves. So while libraries do stand a benefit from
Speaker 1: better publicizing things like their e book lending programs, which
Speaker 1: I think something like of libraries offer. Now, if we
Speaker 1: really want them to live up to their full potential,
Speaker 1: then I guess it's up to the public to make
Speaker 1: sure that we properly fund them exactly. And while we're
Speaker 1: on the subject of the library's full potential, have you
Speaker 1: ever heard of this idea called the third place? No,
Speaker 1: what's up? So it's actually a community building concept that
Speaker 1: a sociologist named h I think his name is Ray Oldenberg,
Speaker 1: and he outlined it in the late ninet eighties, and
Speaker 1: his thinking was that society foster's healthy, happy citizens if
Speaker 1: it helps them strike a balance between, you know, the
Speaker 1: time spent at home, at work, and in neutral public spaces.
Speaker 1: So the idea is that a person's home is their
Speaker 1: first space, their workplaces this second place, and their third
Speaker 1: places are the stimulating public spaces where people gather to
Speaker 1: have conversations or to take part in some shared activity,
Speaker 1: or just to be in the presence of other people.
Speaker 1: So really, everywhere except the home in the office is
Speaker 1: third place. No, I mean, so some of the historical examples,
Speaker 1: Ray sided where French cafes and maybe American taverns during
Speaker 1: their respective revolutions, and you could think of diners and
Speaker 1: coffee shops as modern standings. But third places can also
Speaker 1: be parks or rec centers and churches. The list goes on.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't mean that any place can be a
Speaker 1: third place. So, for example, it it's got a few rules.
Speaker 1: It's got to be somewhere that's universally accessible, both in
Speaker 1: terms of proximity and price, So at third places, some
Speaker 1: somewhere that costs nothing or at least not much. And
Speaker 1: the other main requirement is that it's somewhere welcoming, where
Speaker 1: social and economic status don't really matter, and where the
Speaker 1: environment is so comfortable that people develop a connection with
Speaker 1: the space. All right, I think I get it. So,
Speaker 1: so a library is kind of a third place that's
Speaker 1: focused on learning, and I guess that's always been the case,
Speaker 1: even back when libraries did little beyond lending print books,
Speaker 1: but it seems especially true under today's model, where libraries
Speaker 1: are offering community classes and provide access to things like,
Speaker 1: you know, everything from sewing machines and spinning wheels and
Speaker 1: go pro cameras, all kinds of things now right, and
Speaker 1: now more than ever, libraries are becoming places where people
Speaker 1: can learn a new skill or collaborate on a project. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess you've you've sold me on this third place thing, mango,
Speaker 1: and that that really might be the way to think
Speaker 1: of libraries as we go forward, and I think so too.
Speaker 1: So there's a British journalist named Caitlin Moran who wrote
Speaker 1: a really great piece about libraries for the Times of London.
Speaker 1: And this was back in two thousand and twelve. Apparently
Speaker 1: the British government is a little farther along with their
Speaker 1: library budget cuts than we are in the States. So
Speaker 1: nearly ten percent of England's public libraries have closed since
Speaker 1: two Yeah, and so Caitlin wrote about what it was
Speaker 1: like to see all these old public libraries being shuttered,
Speaker 1: and one pardon particular really speaks to how libraries exemplify
Speaker 1: this third place and their benefits to society. She writes, quote,
Speaker 1: a library in the middle of a community is a
Speaker 1: cross between an emergency exit, a life raft and a festival.
Speaker 1: They are cathedrals of the mind, hospitals of the soul,
Speaker 1: themed parks of the imagination on a cold, rainy island.
Speaker 1: They're the only sheltered public spaces where you're not a
Speaker 1: consumer but a citizen instead a mall. The shops are
Speaker 1: places where your money makes the wealthy wealthier, but a
Speaker 1: library is where the wealthiest taxes pay for you to
Speaker 1: become a little more extraordinary instead satisfying reversal balancing of
Speaker 1: the power. That's pretty awesome, And you know, I like
Speaker 1: to house she's reflecting both on her own experiences with libraries,
Speaker 1: but also what libraries are to other people. That's ultimately
Speaker 1: what's going on with this public approval rating that we
Speaker 1: talked about before. I guess, so what do you mean
Speaker 1: by that? Well, I read in that Pew report that
Speaker 1: from last year that over three quarters of adults in
Speaker 1: the US have been to a library at some point
Speaker 1: in their lives. So to be sure, some of the
Speaker 1: goodwill people feel towards libraries comes from their own personal
Speaker 1: experiences with them. Even if someone hasn't been to a
Speaker 1: public live re since childhood, they probably have some happy
Speaker 1: nostalgia for those early visits, and I guess that gives
Speaker 1: them a positive view of libraries in the present. But
Speaker 1: I also think that people just like the idea of
Speaker 1: a public space that's set aside for reading and learning, which,
Speaker 1: you know, basically what everyone thinks of when they think
Speaker 1: about libraries, it's kind of like, even if we don't
Speaker 1: use them, we still take comfort in having the option
Speaker 1: and knowing that these places are make a difference in
Speaker 1: the lives of the people around us. I mean that
Speaker 1: sounds right to me. And there's something in the concept
Speaker 1: of the library that really speaks to us on this
Speaker 1: fundamental level. It's like, we want freedom and we want
Speaker 1: to satisfy our natural curiosity. So what could be better
Speaker 1: than this big open space to explore any avenue have
Speaker 1: thought you want? Yeah, after all, I mean that there's
Speaker 1: a reason libraries have cropped up in just about every
Speaker 1: civilization for the last few thousand years. And I guess
Speaker 1: the only problem is that we aren't always as good
Speaker 1: to them as they are to us, that's for sure.
Speaker 1: But the funding threats and reduced foot traffic that our
Speaker 1: libraries faced now don't seem nearly as bad when you
Speaker 1: look at the rest of our messy track record. But libraries. Yeah,
Speaker 1: now that we've gotten a sense of where libraries are today,
Speaker 1: we should definitely talk about their history and how they've
Speaker 1: been developed and also destroyed over the centuries. But first,
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break you listen to Part Time
Speaker 1: Genius and we're talking about the shockingly long history of libraries,
Speaker 1: and I do mean long. So in fact, libraries are
Speaker 1: so old they even pre date books. The oldest library
Speaker 1: ever discovered dates back to the seventh century BC. It
Speaker 1: was the private library of this Assyrian ruler and it
Speaker 1: contained over thirty thousand tablets inscribed with cuneiform. And many
Speaker 1: of the libraries tablets were just archival documents or religious texts,
Speaker 1: but there were some early literary work sprinkled into including
Speaker 1: the famous epic of Gilgamesh. Well, I like that literature
Speaker 1: was included in that one because it helps strengthen this
Speaker 1: claim that it's the oldest library. I mean, ancient civilizations
Speaker 1: did really distinguished between archives and libraries, so it can
Speaker 1: sometimes get a little bit dicey when we're trying to
Speaker 1: decide what should or shouldn't be considered one. Today. For example,
Speaker 1: archaeologists have uncovered similar collections of Assyrian clay tablets that
Speaker 1: date back even farther. But you know, the contents are
Speaker 1: mostly records of various business transactions and things like that,
Speaker 1: so you couldn't really call it a library. I don't think. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it sounds more like a records room or something.
Speaker 1: But another thing that might lend a bit more credit
Speaker 1: to the royal library I mentioned is thats contests were
Speaker 1: largely a mass through the conquest of other territories, So
Speaker 1: the Assyrians would loot texts from the temples of Babylonia
Speaker 1: and other nearby regions and and then just add them
Speaker 1: to the private collection. So it really was this effort
Speaker 1: to compile a wide range of knowledge and text from
Speaker 1: different sources, rather than just someone's personal business archive. I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess it was for a good cause, but you know,
Speaker 1: building something as peaceful as a library through conquest just
Speaker 1: feels a little off tonight. I think I'm more on
Speaker 1: board with the Library of Alexandria's approach. So until it
Speaker 1: was miss Lee burned to the ground during the Roman
Speaker 1: conquest of Egypt back in thirty BC, the library held
Speaker 1: something like four hundred thousand scrolls, and people had moved
Speaker 1: from clay tablets to papyrus at this point. But you know,
Speaker 1: the scrolls weren't the spoils of foreign conquest. Instead, the
Speaker 1: Egyptians waited for foreigners to bring text to them. According
Speaker 1: to the Greek physician and philosopher Galen. King Ptolemy of
Speaker 1: Egypt ordered the scrolls of any visiting ships to be
Speaker 1: seized and painstakingly copied into manuscripts. But the part that
Speaker 1: I found funniest was that Ptolemy kept all the originals
Speaker 1: and added that to the library, and then made the
Speaker 1: visitors take the copies instead. Well, one thing I was
Speaker 1: struck by while researching is how so many characteristics we
Speaker 1: associate with libraries were relatively late additions. So even when
Speaker 1: scrolls gave way to books, libraries still looked really different
Speaker 1: from how they do today. For instance, did you know
Speaker 1: the practice of shelving books vertically with their spines facing
Speaker 1: out did take hold until the Middle Ages? I mean,
Speaker 1: the closest things to public libraries and those days were monasteries.
Speaker 1: But the monks who lived there didn't really want to
Speaker 1: share their books with one another, so they actually hoarded
Speaker 1: books in their private workspaces, going so far as to
Speaker 1: chain the books to their desks. I mean, we've mentioned
Speaker 1: this before in the World Records episode, but the books
Speaker 1: were later moved to communal desks where everyone could use them,
Speaker 1: but they were still chained up to keep them from disappear.
Speaker 1: I mean, everybody knows that monks have sticky fingers though, right, So,
Speaker 1: so when did the monks switch to more of a
Speaker 1: vertical storage when they got sick of hearing all those
Speaker 1: rattling chains? I think has more and more volumes were
Speaker 1: added to the monks collections. The books had to be
Speaker 1: piled on top of each other, which made it just
Speaker 1: really cumbersome and noisy to remove them from one another.
Speaker 1: But even after going vertical, books still weren't displayed with
Speaker 1: their spines out. They were stood on their edge opposite
Speaker 1: the spine, or even placed vertically but with the pages
Speaker 1: facing out instead of the spine. Oh wow, I mean,
Speaker 1: hiding the spine seems like the worst idea. You'd have
Speaker 1: to pull every book off the shelf just to find
Speaker 1: the one that you were looking for. Yeah, but you've
Speaker 1: got to think about this. Back then, like printing on
Speaker 1: book spines didn't really start appearing until so in the meantime,
Speaker 1: people had to come up with their own ways and
Speaker 1: life hacks to deal with this confusion, and one early
Speaker 1: solution was to draw identifying marks and designs on the
Speaker 1: thick of the pages, which is actually called the four
Speaker 1: edges of a book by the way. So, for example,
Speaker 1: there was this Italian doctor who had a friend's nephew
Speaker 1: illustrate all the four edges of his books, and he'd
Speaker 1: put scenes on there that depicted the book's subject matter.
Speaker 1: The other popular solution was to wrap a title label
Speaker 1: across the book and and tie it on with the chain.
Speaker 1: Again with the chain. I mean, these people must have
Speaker 1: been thrilled when printed spines finally came out. But you know,
Speaker 1: while we're on that subject, I also came across a
Speaker 1: surprisingly late addition to libraries, which is really the concept
Speaker 1: of lending or circulating books. So most of the ancient
Speaker 1: and medieval libraries we've been talking about, we're private. They
Speaker 1: were either reserved for the use of royalty or maybe clergy.
Speaker 1: And you know, even though there were some libraries that
Speaker 1: were open to the public, or at least the portion
Speaker 1: of the public that was literate, they were only allowed
Speaker 1: to reference the books, not to borrow them or read
Speaker 1: outside the library. And in fact, the lending library concept
Speaker 1: that we're so familiar with, that didn't catch on until
Speaker 1: around the eighteenth century or so. And that's when you know,
Speaker 1: public library started to crop up in in England and
Speaker 1: in France. Yeah, there's another precursor to public lending libraries
Speaker 1: in the US, and they were called subscription or membership libraries,
Speaker 1: and they were funded by fees and donations from paying members.
Speaker 1: So apparently there are still like twenty or so membership
Speaker 1: libraries left in the US. But back in the late
Speaker 1: eighteenth and nineteenth centuries they were all over the place. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I wasn't aware of these until we started doing our research.
Speaker 1: But but Ben Franklin started one in Philadelphia, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right. It was called the Library Company, and it
Speaker 1: was the first of its kind in the American colonies.
Speaker 1: Franklin started in seventeen thirty one along with a like
Speaker 1: minded group of scholars that he routinely met with, you know,
Speaker 1: talk politics or philosophy and other smart stuff. And Franklin's
Speaker 1: group needed a means of obtaining more reading material for
Speaker 1: the discussions, but books were super expensive and hard to
Speaker 1: come by, so his reading club pooled their money and
Speaker 1: they started soliciting new members who could each contribute money
Speaker 1: to help grow the library's collection. Yeah. But you know,
Speaker 1: before anybody accuses Ben Franklin of being too elitist, we
Speaker 1: we should point out that he also had a hand
Speaker 1: in establishing the country's first public library. So this was
Speaker 1: back in sevente Franklin caught wind of a town in
Speaker 1: Massachusetts that had named itself after him, so he decided
Speaker 1: to reward their flattery with a gift. Now, the town
Speaker 1: actually asked Franklin to donate a bell for their steeple,
Speaker 1: but he nixed the idea in favor of a collection
Speaker 1: of books. And he declared that rather obnoxiously, at least
Speaker 1: that since was preferable to sound. Yeah, there's nothing elitist
Speaker 1: about that, not at all. Well, the town of Franklin
Speaker 1: definitely was an elitist because the residents took a vote
Speaker 1: on what to do with those donated books, and they
Speaker 1: decided to make them available to everyone, and with that
Speaker 1: America's first public lending library was born. That's pretty great.
Speaker 1: But you know, we can't really talk about the history
Speaker 1: of US libraries without mentioning Andrew Carnegie. His donations made
Speaker 1: a huge impact on library of all men, and not
Speaker 1: just in the States but throughout the whole world. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's true. I mean everyone remembers Carnegie as this wealthy
Speaker 1: industrialist and man about town, but he was also really philanthropic,
Speaker 1: and he gave tons of money towards projects aimed at
Speaker 1: making the world a better place. And I'd have to
Speaker 1: say his greatest gifts were the astounding two thousand, five
Speaker 1: hundred and nine so called Carnegie Libraries that he funded
Speaker 1: over just a fifty year period. Yeah, so there were
Speaker 1: thirty five hundred public libraries in the US by which
Speaker 1: is a crazy amount of expansion in the hundred fifty
Speaker 1: years so since uh the first one in Franklin. But
Speaker 1: of those thirty five hundred libraries, just shy of half
Speaker 1: were paid for by Carnegie. That's incredible, it really is.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I think what I like best
Speaker 1: about the story is why Carnegie did all this in
Speaker 1: the first place. So, according to his autobiography, he fell
Speaker 1: in love with reading as a young boy in Scotland
Speaker 1: and he would regularly borrow books from the Tradesman's subscription library,
Speaker 1: which his father helped to start. Then years later, Carnegie
Speaker 1: moved to Pittsburgh with his parents and got a job
Speaker 1: at the local telegraph company. As luck would have it,
Speaker 1: his employer actually had a private library that he allowed
Speaker 1: his workers to borrow from on Saturdays, and this just
Speaker 1: changed Carnegie's world. I mean, here was this wealthy businessman
Speaker 1: lending his personal books to a bunch of blue collar kids,
Speaker 1: you know, just so they might have a shot at
Speaker 1: bettering themselves. And Carnegie knew that without that act of kindness,
Speaker 1: all that knowledge would have stayed beyond their reach. And
Speaker 1: that's when he resolved that if he ever struck it rich,
Speaker 1: he would use his wealth to establish free libraries. And
Speaker 1: he definitely kept his word right Even today, almost all
Speaker 1: of the Carnegie libraries in the US are still standing,
Speaker 1: and over half are still in use. His active libraries,
Speaker 1: a lot of them in lower middle income areas. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and Carnegie actually had another lasting impact on libraries that
Speaker 1: I want to talk about. But before we get to that,
Speaker 1: let's break for a quiz. Okay, man, go, So, since
Speaker 1: today's episode is about libraries, we decided to look for
Speaker 1: one of our listeners that had a library card to
Speaker 1: come on and take a quiz, and we found one.
Speaker 1: He's uh. He's also somebody that spent a ton of
Speaker 1: time in libraries working on a couple of fascinating oral histories,
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about those. But Brian Abrams, Welcome to
Speaker 1: Part Time Genius. Hello, thanks for having me, and for
Speaker 1: full disclosure, Brian is one of our long time friends,
Speaker 1: worked with us on several projects in our Mental Floss days,
Speaker 1: and has also, as I mentioned, tackled a couple of
Speaker 1: really fascinating oral histories and is working on another that
Speaker 1: we can't talk about just yet. But two of them.
Speaker 1: One was an oral history of David Letterman's top ten lists,
Speaker 1: and another was an oral history of the movie die Hard,
Speaker 1: Die Hard So Cool. So actually I'm curious, Brian, can
Speaker 1: you just tell us a little bit about when you
Speaker 1: decided to tackle these, Like, how did you decide to
Speaker 1: do oral histories on these two very different things. That's
Speaker 1: a that's actually a really interesting question. It's and it's
Speaker 1: one that's easy to answer. I was given to contract
Speaker 1: to do them, and you know, you know me, um shines.
Speaker 1: Sounds like you had a real passion for them. Yes, exactly, Uh,
Speaker 1: Dinard posters all over my walls, Um. But it's it's
Speaker 1: it's amazing to me who you got to talk to?
Speaker 1: You like you got former um right, presidents of NBC
Speaker 1: for the David Letterman one and like all these celebrities
Speaker 1: for the die Hard. Can you talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about how you can actually approach those people. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: actually really difficult. I think that, you know, I think
Speaker 1: a lot of old histories are sort of done in
Speaker 1: in a very authorized way. You know, the author or
Speaker 1: the author's people, they go to, you know, the top
Speaker 1: exec right. Maybe you know, if you're gonna do it
Speaker 1: normal history on say Saturday Night Live, you kind of
Speaker 1: you get the okay from Lauren Michaels and then you
Speaker 1: can go around and talk to all the usual suspects
Speaker 1: who were there. And I did not do that. I
Speaker 1: was working on the outside in and it was very difficult,
Speaker 1: and it took a lot of time to finally wrangle
Speaker 1: one by one of all these people that sort of
Speaker 1: make up the quote story of die Hard for instance, which, um,
Speaker 1: you know, it took a long time and I probably
Speaker 1: needed you know, three dozen sources before say one of
Speaker 1: the main stars or one of the studio exacts would
Speaker 1: be willing to you know, take my phone call. Um.
Speaker 1: But that was a I mean, not to disparage Letterman.
Speaker 1: Letterman is a great story, but you've I'll be thinking
Speaker 1: about die Hard um again because of all the posters
Speaker 1: on my wall. Um, you know, that was such a
Speaker 1: weird constellation of a story. It wasn't just about the
Speaker 1: making of the movie, which wasn't really a controversial production, um,
Speaker 1: but just sort of the ways in which the producers
Speaker 1: got to that point and the ways that sort of
Speaker 1: Bruce Willis found a stardom. It's all. It's all really. Yeah,
Speaker 1: his name wasn't even on the movie posters, right, isn't
Speaker 1: that part of the story. Yeah, that's that's true. That
Speaker 1: the original one sheet, I think they wanted the studio
Speaker 1: was worried that he Bruce Willis, who had just you know,
Speaker 1: he was leaving TV. He had a hit series, Moonlighting,
Speaker 1: but then he had a couple of movies, uh that
Speaker 1: were not great or A Blind Dade came out, it
Speaker 1: wasn't great at the box office. The second one was
Speaker 1: called Sunset and it bombed, and they were worried that
Speaker 1: he was kind of box office poison, and so they
Speaker 1: wanted to make the building the star on the on
Speaker 1: the original on the original one sheets. Yeah, that were
Speaker 1: distributed to the theaters. That's pretty crazy. That's pretty wild. Well,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's exciting to think about the ones that
Speaker 1: you're working on in the coming year. So we look
Speaker 1: forward to those. But we can't let you go without
Speaker 1: putting you to the test with a quiz. So, so
Speaker 1: what quiz do we have for Brian today? Mango? Because
Speaker 1: he has a library card, We're gonna play a game
Speaker 1: called Name that librarian. All right, that's what you've earned,
Speaker 1: So say sixty seconds on the clock. You got your
Speaker 1: time ready, Mango. We're gonna list off some clues and
Speaker 1: we'll see how many of these librarians you can name
Speaker 1: in a minute. So are you ready, Brian? Oh, I'm
Speaker 1: so glad I called yeah. Okay, here we go. You
Speaker 1: got your sixty seconds ready? Alright? The time? Does the
Speaker 1: time start with the beginning a question? Or when I
Speaker 1: finished the first question? Beginning? This is important. I've never
Speaker 1: known how your sixty second quizzes. Okay, that's the kind
Speaker 1: of power Mango has around here with the control of
Speaker 1: the time. All right, here we go, Question number one.
Speaker 1: This former librarian famously tied a key to a kite
Speaker 1: to try to understand electricity. He also invented bifocals. Well,
Speaker 1: that sounds like Benjamin Franklin. Alright. This former librarian wrote
Speaker 1: a wrinkle in time. Oh, that would be Hank Kingsley
Speaker 1: Madeline Lingo. All right. This former librarian went on to
Speaker 1: become the first director of the FBI. Oh wow, uh yeah,
Speaker 1: what's the face Hooper? You got it. This former librarian
Speaker 1: wrote several but loved children's books, including Ramona Quimby age
Speaker 1: eight and The Mouse and the Motorcycle. You got it.
Speaker 1: This former librarian became a communist revolutionary. He's known as
Speaker 1: the founding father of the People's Republic of China. Oh
Speaker 1: would that be uh? This former librarian was actually named
Speaker 1: Charles Dodgson. He wrote, Alison Wonderland, I think it's Louis Carol.
Speaker 1: All right, let's rush, Let's get one more. This former
Speaker 1: librarian and first Lady was married to the forty three
Speaker 1: president of the United States. Lash you got Brian? Do
Speaker 1: you did? Great? He only got one wrong, which entitles
Speaker 1: him to a Certificate of Genius and an official part
Speaker 1: time genius t shirt one of the smartest ways on
Speaker 1: the market to cover up your torso. Congratulations. Al right,
Speaker 1: great job, Brian, I'm honored, Thank you very much. Okay, Well, so,
Speaker 1: besides making it much bigger, what else did Carnegie do
Speaker 1: for the U S Library System? All right, Well, this
Speaker 1: is going to sound a bit exaggerated, but really he
Speaker 1: revolutionized the whole way libraries work. So before Carnegie, most
Speaker 1: libraries operated according to what's called a closed stacks policy.
Speaker 1: And under this closed model, patrons weren't allowed to browse
Speaker 1: and select books from the collection by themselves. After all,
Speaker 1: there was nothing like you know, anti theft sensors or
Speaker 1: cameras in those days to help the libraries collection keep
Speaker 1: from walking away. Instead, people had to ask a librarian
Speaker 1: or a clerk to either you know, retrieve the specific
Speaker 1: books they had in mind, or just take a gamble
Speaker 1: and leave it to the clerk's discretion to choose something
Speaker 1: for them. I love that. So you can tell library
Speaker 1: staff or i mean, the mood for a mystery and
Speaker 1: then they disappear into the back room and grabbed like
Speaker 1: a random act at the Christie or P. D. James
Speaker 1: or something to the close stacks. Yeah, I mean, that's
Speaker 1: exactly how it worked. And the first five libraries that
Speaker 1: Carnegie built actually operated this way too. But then Carnegie
Speaker 1: began to notice the closed that system had a few problems. So,
Speaker 1: for one thing, it was clunky. Employees were constantly bustling
Speaker 1: back and forth to fetch books, and more workers had
Speaker 1: to be hired to keep up, which would cause operating
Speaker 1: costs to increase. But the even bigger problem was that
Speaker 1: the closed stacks made the library feel, you know, really impersonal.
Speaker 1: I guess, yes. I was just thinking it must have
Speaker 1: been hard for a library and to get a sense
Speaker 1: of what kind of book you'd like when there's this
Speaker 1: massive line of people behind you who also want to
Speaker 1: borrow something. Well, plus, there was no chance of discovering
Speaker 1: a book you'd like on your own. I mean, it
Speaker 1: was all left up to fate and the librarian, I guess.
Speaker 1: But you know, Carnegie decided to change that. He started
Speaker 1: using an open stacks policy in all of his libraries,
Speaker 1: allowing patrons to browse the shelves for the very first time.
Speaker 1: So pretty soon non Carnegie libraries all over the country
Speaker 1: switched to open stacks too. You know, I'm listening to
Speaker 1: you describe the shift to sell service libraries, and I
Speaker 1: just keep thinking back on that idea of the libraries
Speaker 1: the third place, you know, this accessible space that's open
Speaker 1: to everyone, And it sounds like this open stacks policy
Speaker 1: really helped bring that idea to fruition. And what's really
Speaker 1: exciting now is looking around and seeing all the ways
Speaker 1: librarians are picking up on that concept and just running
Speaker 1: with it. So what do you mean by that? You
Speaker 1: want to give a few examples. Yeah, So one thing
Speaker 1: is that some libraries have begune offering self publishing and
Speaker 1: print on demand services, like the Sacramento Public Library that
Speaker 1: they've got this community program called I Street Press, and
Speaker 1: it revolves around one of those really cool espresso book machines.
Speaker 1: Those are kind of like those like the all in
Speaker 1: one book robots, right exactly. It kind of looks like
Speaker 1: a copy machine, but it can actually print, bind, and
Speaker 1: trim a complete paperback in three to five minutes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so one way the library uses it is to
Speaker 1: supplement their in house book collection. The machine is connected
Speaker 1: to this database about three million titles that are either
Speaker 1: out of print or backlisted, so people can actually print
Speaker 1: their own copies if they're unable to find them anywhere else.
Speaker 1: That's pretty awesome, but it doesn't seem all that community
Speaker 1: driven though. Well, that's the other thing the library you
Speaker 1: is it for? So they offer these free writing and
Speaker 1: publishing classes where people can come and learn about the
Speaker 1: craft of writing and get a sense of whether they'd
Speaker 1: like to self publish a book on their own. Then
Speaker 1: if someone writes and designs their own book, they can
Speaker 1: pronount as many copies as they want right there in
Speaker 1: the library. And this is the coolest part. If someone
Speaker 1: donates a copy to their book to the library, it
Speaker 1: actually gets added to the local authors section and can
Speaker 1: even be requested by other libraries. Oh, that is pretty cool,
Speaker 1: and I know that'd be a lot of fun for
Speaker 1: writers to be able to see their their own work
Speaker 1: in a library's collection. But all right, so what about
Speaker 1: for libraries that can't afford their own bookmaking robots? I
Speaker 1: was looking at the cost of these things are over
Speaker 1: a hundred thousand dollars, aren't they. Yeah, they are pretty prizy,
Speaker 1: and that library only has one because it requested the
Speaker 1: funds by writing for a special grant. But don't worry.
Speaker 1: There are lots of unusual community programs and services that
Speaker 1: even the thriftiest of libraries could adopt so um. Take,
Speaker 1: for example, the four branches of the Queen's Library in
Speaker 1: New York. They operate a new lending system called the Tiberry,
Speaker 1: where patrons can check out neckties for up to three
Speaker 1: weeks at a time. The idea has spun out of
Speaker 1: the fact that of local libraries already offer online career
Speaker 1: and job related services. I mean, people have been coming
Speaker 1: to the libraries to job hunt online for years now,
Speaker 1: so why not make sure they have something stylish to
Speaker 1: wear when they actually land that job interview. That's pretty
Speaker 1: neat and it makes a lot of sense to me,
Speaker 1: I mean, although the only problem is they then have
Speaker 1: to figure out how to tie the tie right. Well,
Speaker 1: the Queen's Library has you covered there too. All the ties,
Speaker 1: which are donated by the public are distributed in these
Speaker 1: little boxes that also include this illustrated guide for how
Speaker 1: to tie half winds or not, And there's also tips
Speaker 1: for how to nail an interview just in case you
Speaker 1: need some extra pointers. Wow, I guess, I mean they
Speaker 1: they thought of everything. Yeah, surprise. Librarians are really smart
Speaker 1: and long suffering. On a slightly different topic, I don't
Speaker 1: know if you've seen this tumbler called I work at
Speaker 1: a public library where library and share some of their
Speaker 1: favorite stories and what is it? So it's this long
Speaker 1: running collection of photos and anecdotes submitted by these war
Speaker 1: weary library arians and it's been going since like two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight, I think, and there's something like sixty
Speaker 1: pages of stories at this point, and they all offered
Speaker 1: this pretty hilarious look into the weird stuff librarians have
Speaker 1: to deal with. Probably one of my favorites is this
Speaker 1: one where a librarian comes across the guy lying flat
Speaker 1: on his back in the History of Europe section of
Speaker 1: their library, and after asking if he's all right, the
Speaker 1: guy responds, I'm just contemplating life. But I understand if
Speaker 1: you need me to get off the floor then according
Speaker 1: to library, and he willingly, and with no further persuasion,
Speaker 1: gets up and moves to a chair. That's amazing. And
Speaker 1: and see you said it was off topic, but there's
Speaker 1: that open communication in sense of community we've been talking
Speaker 1: about right there right if you say so, thanks for
Speaker 1: making it connect. Yeah, but it's sadly there are also
Speaker 1: times when the community just can't help you out and
Speaker 1: a person has to make his way alone. It's time
Speaker 1: for the fact off. Wow, that's some trash talking right there. Um,
Speaker 1: But I know, as we've got into our research for
Speaker 1: this episode, we kept talking about some of the non
Speaker 1: book things we've heard libraries we're lending. So why don't
Speaker 1: we focus on those today? Ye? All right, let's see
Speaker 1: what I've got here first. Okay, Well, if you've ever
Speaker 1: thought about trying out surfing but didn't want to invest
Speaker 1: in your own board or for the price of renting one,
Speaker 1: you could just head over to the Inverlock Library and Victoria,
Speaker 1: Australia to check out the one they keep on hand
Speaker 1: for the locals. That's awesome bringing back to this hemisphere.
Speaker 1: I think it's pretty great that they are now more
Speaker 1: than a hundred libraries in the US with three D
Speaker 1: printers that library guests can use, and for many of
Speaker 1: them you actually have to take a couple of hours
Speaker 1: safety course first, which does seem reasonable to me. This
Speaker 1: some of year you'll find guests making Christmas ornaments, but
Speaker 1: you'll also find students making models for school projects and
Speaker 1: other stuff. That's pretty cool. Well, I think it's pretty
Speaker 1: funny that the Aurora Public Library in Illinois allows you
Speaker 1: to rent one of their thirty sculptures for a couple
Speaker 1: of months. So what do you do with them? You
Speaker 1: just make your house or your office look all fancy.
Speaker 1: I guess I don't know where they came from. Well,
Speaker 1: another thing you can check out that may see him
Speaker 1: a little more useful is one of the many kitchen
Speaker 1: tools available in several libraries now, so blenders, mixers, and
Speaker 1: my favorite Coventry Public Library and Rhode Island offers more
Speaker 1: than fifty different cake pans. There's even a SpongeBob one.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if it makes kids dumber like the
Speaker 1: show does. As we learned our Mr. Rogers episode, we
Speaker 1: have to test that out with our own kids. I guess. Alright, Well,
Speaker 1: back to the third place idea we talked about earlier.
Speaker 1: There are more than three hundred libraries in the US
Speaker 1: that have these little seed libraries. We're growing vegetables and flowers.
Speaker 1: And you may be wondering how this works, since you
Speaker 1: wouldn't think you could bring those seeds back, but they
Speaker 1: do invite guests to save their own seeds and donate
Speaker 1: them back to the library for others to use. I
Speaker 1: think it's pretty wild that some libraries are starting to
Speaker 1: involve dogs in their library activities. So some use them
Speaker 1: to encourage children to read by spending some quiet time
Speaker 1: reading to a therapy dog, and the Yale University Law
Speaker 1: Library has provided a dog for stressed out law students
Speaker 1: to hang out with while their study. Who knew you
Speaker 1: could check out a dog? That really is pretty cool,
Speaker 1: So I think I have to give it to you. Mango. Congratulations,
Speaker 1: you win the fact off. Oh thanks so much, I'm
Speaker 1: so honored. Well, that's it for today's episode. Honestly, there
Speaker 1: were too many great facts and stories about libraries to
Speaker 1: fit them all into one episode. So if you have
Speaker 1: any favorites you feel like we should have mentioned, let
Speaker 1: us know. You can email us at part Time Genius
Speaker 1: and How Stuff Works dot com or call our two
Speaker 1: seven fact hotline. That's one eight four four pt Genius.
Speaker 1: It is still seven, right, Mango. Oh that's great. I
Speaker 1: can't believe we keep it going that long, but we
Speaker 1: love hearing from you. Thanks for listening. Thanks again for listening.
Speaker 1: Part Time Genius is a production of How Stuff Works
Speaker 1: and wouldn't be possible without several brilliant people who do
Speaker 1: the important things we couldn't even begin to understand. Christop
Speaker 1: Neil does the editing thing. Noel Brown made the theme
Speaker 1: song and does the mixy mixy sound thing. Jerry Rowland
Speaker 1: does the exact producer thing. Gay Bluesier is our lead researcher,
Speaker 1: with support from the Research Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan
Speaker 1: Brown and Lucas Adams and Eves. Jeff Cook gets the
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Speaker 1: what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe, And if you
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Speaker 1: Jason who