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Loading... The Library Book (edition 2018)by Susan Orlean (Author)
Work InformationThe Library Book by Susan Orlean
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. The Los Angeles Central Library had a massive fire in 1986. That's the background for this book. But rather than just tell the story of the fire, Susan Orlean uses it to explore the world of libraries. You may think you know libraries. I can assure you, you will learn more about them by reading this book. The story of the fire is anti-climactic. While many think they know who started the fire, the suspected culprit was never convicted of the crime. We learn a ton about his life as a want-to-be actor who, like many who seek their fame in Tinseltown, never finds it. Instead, he becomes, and possibly always was, someone who constantly tells different stories whenever asked. When confronted with his inconsistencies, he was more than ready to say that last story I made up. This is how it happened, fill in the blank. He was gay and an early victim of AIDS. While his story is fascinating, the story of the Library is even more. Orlean has done her research. She takes us back to the beginnings, even to Alexandria. She focuses on their growth in the United States but lets us know libraries were everywhere and even today are part of every country. We learn of her personal attachment to libraries. She explains how she was drawn to her local library where she went with her mother. Those times are fond memories she shares with us. She wants to convey how special libraries are to many people. She also describes the difficulty she had trying to burn a book. She wanted to see what happened when a book burned, but it brought up too many emotions. Her husband had a solution. He gave her a paperback copy of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 specifically for the purpose. That she could handle. We also learn how totalitarian regimes focus on books and libraries. Book burning was their thing, and they saw it as a way of controlling and stifling any opposition. Libraries are just too important to people. Dictators understand. We learn of the beginnings of the Los Angeles library in 1872. Orlean describes how it evolved with the growth of the city and the early librarians that nurtured it. She describes how each person who took control expanded its mission to be more than just a place to store books. The variety of what can be found at libraries is amazing. Of course there are books and maps and periodicals. As they became communal places, more and more were added — games, computers, patent records, photographs, manuscripts, cards, documents, audio files, records, film, almost anything one could collect that others might want. As the libraries' role expanded, larger and larger buildings were needed to accommodate the collections and the patrons. In the 1920s, they finally came up with the funding to create a Central Library and commissioned a building to occupy an entire block in the center of downtown. It was a thing of beauty. Sixty years later, it was showing serious signs of aging. Its collection was bigger than the available shelf space. It lacked many of the minimum standards required of new buildings, even simple things like fire doors and sprinkler systems were nowhere. It was a major fire hazard. Its vertical stacks became chimneys in short order. All that it lacked was a simple flame. The Los Angeles Fire Department faced a major challenge. It took 70 units, hundreds of men, tons of water, special tactics such as blasting holes in a hallowed building and most importantly, more than six hours to bring the inferno under control. The damage was extensive. The Arson unit needed to find out how this started and determine whether arson was involved. After interviewing people who were there and inspecting what the fire hadn't totally destroyed, they were convinced it was arson and there was one man, Harry Peak, they were convinced was responsible. His story kept changing, admitting he was there, denying he was there, providing friends as alibi witnesses. The Arson squad felt their job was done. They were incensed when prosecutors declined to charge Harry Peak citing insufficient evidence. No one has been convicted. With the fire contained the librarians were not focused on blame. They wanted to save as much of the collections as possible. That meant rescuing what was salvageable. The water-damaged volumes needed to be protected from mold, and the main approach was freezing until restoration techniques could be developed to deal with the millions of damaged books, maps, documents, etc. Orlean interviewed many of those still available. She also described the various directors and their relations with the board controlling the library. Each director added their own approach and expanded the role of the library. They were colorful characters. Eventually, the professionalization of the directors matched the development of library science. Several of the directors came to Los Angeles after heading up a series of larger and larger systems. Each having to deal with the challenges of homeless patrons, computerization, community relations, social service needs, etc. Many librarians come to their profession with a devotion for the role of libraries as public goods. It's not just answering questions, acquiring books, and maintaining order. Orlean widens the lens to get the fuller picture of the modern library. She clearly is on board. Another great book from Susan orlean . In exploring the Los Angeles Library fire and it’s aftermath, she also explores libraries in general and their role in democracies and their still vital place in the world. From charming anecdotes about camel delivered books to a saddening history of a woman openly losing her job solely because she was a woman, the book is overflowing with riches A NF book about the 1926 Los Angeles Central Library fire and a history of the library. Very informative read. Kirkus: An engaging, casual history of librarians and libraries and a famous one that burned down.In her latest, New Yorker staff writer Orlean (Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend, 2011, etc.) seeks to ?tell about a place I love that doesn?t belong to me but feels like it is mine.? It?s the story of the Los Angeles Public Library, poet Charles Bukowski?s ?wondrous place,? and what happened to it on April 29, 1986: It burned down. The fire raged ?for more than seven hours and reached temperatures of 2000 degreesmore than one million books were burned or damaged.? Though nobody was killed, 22 people were injured, and it took more than 3 million gallons of water to put it out. One of the firefighters on the scene said, ?We thought we were looking at the bowels of hellÂ.It was surreal.? Besides telling the story of the historic library and its destruction, the author recounts the intense arson investigation and provides an in-depth biography of the troubled young man who was arrested for starting it, actor Harry Peak. Orlean reminds us that library fires have been around since the Library of Alexandria; during World War II, ?the Nazis alone destroyed an estimated hundred million books.? She continues, ?destroying a culture?s books is sentencing it to something worse than death: It is sentencing it to seem as if it never happened.? The author also examines the library?s important role in the city since 1872 and the construction of the historic Goodhue Building in 1926. Orlean visited the current library and talked to many of the librarians, learning about their jobs and responsibilities, how libraries were a ?solace in the Depression,? and the ongoing problems librarians face dealing with the homeless. The author speculates about Peak?s guilt but remains ?confounded.? Maybe it was just an accident after all.Bibliophiles will love this fact-filled, bookish journey.
On 29 April 1986 Los Angeles Central Library went up in flames. ... Susan Orlean has a knack for finding compelling stories in unlikely places. ... Orlean uses the fire to ask a broader question about just what public libraries are for and what happens when they are lost. You might not perhaps have LA pegged as the most bookish city, yet right from its inception in 1873, the central library attracted a higher proportion of citizens through its doors than anywhere else in the US. By 1921 more than a thousand books were being checked out every hour. The reason for that, Orlean suggests, is that LA has always been a city of seekers – first came the gold prospectors and the fruit growers, then the actors and the agents, and then all the refugees from the dust bowl prairies. No one was as solid or as solvent as they liked to appear, everyone was looking for clues about how to do life better. This was where the library came in, providing the instruction manual for a million clever hacks and wheezes. In the runup to prohibition in 1920 every book on how to make homemade hooch was checked out and never returned. Five years later a man called Harry Pidgeon became only the second person to sail solo around the world, having got the design for his boat from books borrowed from the LA public library. More mundanely, the library quickly became the chief centre for free English language classes in the city, a service that it continues to provide for its huge immigrant population today. It is this sense of a library as a civic junction that most interests Orlean. ... Or, as she puts it: "Every problem that society has, the library has, too; nothing good is kept out of the library, and nothing bad." “The Library Book” is, in the end, a Whitmanesque yawp, bringing to life a place and an institution that represents the very best of America: capacious, chaotic, tolerant and even hopeful, with faith in mobility of every kind, even, or perhaps especially, in the face of adversity. Belongs to Publisher SeriesAwardsDistinctionsNotable Lists
"On the morning of April 28, 1986, a fire alarm sounded in the Los Angeles Public Library. As the moments passed, the patrons and staff who had been cleared out of the building realized this was not the usual false alarm. As one fireman recounted later, "Once that first stack got going, it was 'Goodbye, Charlie." The fire was disastrous: it reached 2000 degrees and burned for more than seven hours. By the time it was extinguished, it had consumed four hundred thousand books and damaged seven hundred thousand more. Investigators descended on the scene, but more than thirty years later, the mystery remains: Did someone purposefully set fire to the library--and, if so, who? Weaving her lifelong love of books and reading into an investigation of the fire, award-winning New Yorker reporter and bestselling author Susan Orlean delivers a mesmerizing and uniquely compelling book that manages to tell the broader story of libraries and librarians in a way that has never been done before. In The Library Book, Orlean chronicles the LAPL fire and its aftermath to showcase the larger, crucial role that libraries play in our lives; delves into the evolution of libraries across the country and around the world, from their humble beginnings as a metropolitan charitable initiative to their current status as a cornerstone of national identity; brings each department of the library to vivid life through on-the-ground reporting; studies arson and attempts to burn a copy of a book herself; reflects on her own experiences in libraries; and reexamines the case of Harry Peak, the blond-haired actor long suspected of setting fire to the LAPL more than thirty years ago. Along the way, Orlean introduces us to an unforgettable cast of characters from libraries past and present--from Mary Foy; who in 1880 at eighteen years old was named the head of the Los Angeles Public Library at a time when men still dominated the role, to Dr. C.J.K. Jones, a pastor, citrus farmer, and polymath known as "The Human Encyclopedia" who roamed the library dispensing information; from Charles Lummis, a wildly eccentric journalist and adventurer who was determined to make the L.A. library one of the best in the world, to the current staff, who do heroic work every day to ensure that their institution remains a vital part of the city it serves. Brimming with her signature wit, insight, compassion, and talent for deep research, The Library Book is Susan Orlean's thrilling journey through the stacks that reveals how these beloved institutions provide much more than just books--and why they remain an essential part of the heart, mind, and soul of our country. It is also a master journalist's reminder that, perhaps especially in the digital era, they are more necessary than ever."--Dust jacket. No library descriptions found.
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)027.4794Information Library and Information Sciences General Libraries; Reports, etc. Free public; Rate supported; Endowed North America West Coast U.S.LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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This is a well-researched book that explores not only the events and aftermath of April 29, 1986, when the Central Library of Los Angeles burned but the history of the library as well. The author also becomes acquainted with current employees and the programs they offer, as well as their plans for the future. In doing so, she is able to confirm the library system's continuing importance to the communities they serve.
My only criticism is that sometimes the author sometimes gets side-tracked by minutiae. But overall it is very interesting and very readable. It makes me appreciate my home library even more.
On a recent visit, I entered it with new eyes, noticing the programs and activities offered. I also observed the patrons. Children and their parents leaving a read-aloud ventured into the Children's section. Students and tutors were quietly working. Young adults were quietly working on lap tops.
Patrons were perusing shelves or using online catalogs to find material. All in all, an important public space. ( )