Dewey's Nine Lives

When the local economy turned sour in the mid-1980s, and Yvonne lost several of her weekly shifts, she moved back in with her parents. I don’t know how Yvonne really felt about this, because she wouldn’t say, but I don’t think it was much of a change. “My rent was too high” was all she told me. “I asked my parents if I could come back, and they said okay.

“Sometimes, my dad wiggled his finger under his newspaper,” she continued. “Tobi would jump for it, and dad would laugh. We called it the old newspaper game. But mostly, you know, with my parents, Tobi just sat on the back of the chair, staring out the window while dad read the paper.”

I don’t know what to make of a story like that. Was there more laughter and fun in that house than I imagined? Did Tobi break through a quiet man’s shell? Or was the old newspaper game a brief moment of levity in an otherwise quiet and dusty world? I want to hear the laughter, but I can’t help but imagine the hours and days and weeks—even months, if I understood Yvonne’s inflections correctly—between rounds of the old newspaper game. I can’t help but imagine an older man sitting silently in his chair, a newspaper shielding him from view; a little cat looking away to stare out the window; and a young woman watching them, half hidden in the doorway. Yvonne’s siblings had moved out, and I can’t believe much more than emptiness filled the long hours in the quiet house. Her mother read romance novels in her bedroom. Her father watched baseball on television. Yvonne and Tobi slunk upstairs, as quiet as mice, to play spin-the-cat-on-the-chair.

But then, only a couple blocks away, there was Dewey.

A library is more than a storeroom for books. In fact, most of the smart librarians I know believe one of its primary functions doesn’t involve books at all. That function is openness and availability. In a world where many people feel displaced by society, a library is a free place to go. How many times have you heard an impoverished child, now successfully grown up, say a library saved his life? Yes, the knowledge stored in the books, and now on the computers, expanded his universe beyond the narrow slice of world he inhabited. But the library also provided something else: space. If there was fighting at home, the child could escape into silence. If he felt neglected, he could find human interaction. It’s not even necessary, in a library, to talk to anyone. That’s a wonderful thing about the way people are wired. Often, it’s enough to simply be in the presence of one another, even if we never say a word.

When I became the director of the Spencer Public Library, my first priority was to make the library more open, accessible, and friendly. New books and materials were part of my plan, but I also wanted to change the attitude. I wanted people to feel comfortable in our space, like they were part of a community instead of visitors to a municipal building. I had the walls painted brighter colors and the imposing black furniture replaced with more comfortable tables and chairs. I started a fund to buy artwork for the walls and sculpture for the tops of the shelves. I instructed the staff to smile at every visitor and say hello. When Dewey appeared in the book return box less than six months later, I saw immediately he would fit perfectly with the plan. I knew he was a calm kitten; I knew he would never cause problems. But I thought he would just be background, like another piece of artwork to make the library feel like a home.

But Dewey had no intention of being background. From the second his paws healed (he suffered frostbite in the book return box) and he could walk the library without discomfort, Dewey insisted on being front and center. The paradox for a librarian is that, for a library to work, you can’t be too friendly. You want people to feel welcome, but you don’t want them to feel hassled. A library is not a social environment. You can enter anytime, but you only have to be as involved as you want. It’s your choice. If you want conversation, you can chat all day. If you want anonymity, the library promises that, too. Many people, especially those who are marginalized or nervous in social situations, love the library’s mix of privacy and public space—the chance to be surrounded by people without the pressure of interacting with them.

This can create a conundrum for librarians in the case of, for instance, Bill Mullenberg. For decades, Bill was the principal of Spencer High School, a job that was not only respected and important but required him to talk with hundreds of people every week. I know retirement was difficult for him, because it is always hard to leave behind your life’s work. But Bill’s transition was made much harder by the death of his beloved wife.