Day 8: ¿Dónde está la biblioteca? ¡Allí! ¡Vámonos!

MADRID, Spain -- Not too long ago, I was invited to be a representative of the Spanish Department in a preliminary planning meeting for the redesign of the Amherst library. We were told to let our imaginations run wild: what would our dream college library consist of? Computer centers staffed by IT professionals, film and new media pods with couches grouped around the screen, a café with WiFi and decent coffee, access from any side of the building, sweet faculty offices... When I got a word in edgewise, I agreed with some of these high-tech, 21st-century ideas, but also brought up what really concerns me: the books. Somehow, I was hoping that the books themselves would not get lost in this drive to rebuild the library into a hybrid of a Starbucks and your living room. In fact, I mentioned the need to encourage the undergraduates to spend more time with the books, maybe by putting a few comfortable chairs in the stacks and letting natural light filter down into the grotto.

At the National Library in Madrid, it's all about the books. A comfortable chair? P'shaw! A place to commune with your friends? Try the park. Space to spread out? I think not. At the Biblioteca Nacional, you check your creature comforts at the door, the librarians walk around in white scrubs, the air conditioning falters when the reading room is packed elbow-to-elbow with heated scholarship, and when the light blinks red at your assigned desk, you get up out of your straight-backed chair and go retrieve three books. When you're finished with those, you can have some more, but don't get greedy.

In fact, hold on. My light is flashing.

OK, I'm back. The Biblioteca was much more lo-fi when I first started coming in 1998. Instead of personal red lights, there was a communal board up on the wall, and you had to watch it as though you were waiting for your train track to be announced in order to know if your three books were ready. No one had laptops and there was no WiFi, so I, like everyone around me, was taking notes longhand. There were computers, but the collection hadn't been transferred entirely, so there was still a card catalog to deal with.

Ten years later, things are a little fancier, there's a digital collection, laptops are everywhere, but these chairs are still uncomfortable and the red light is blinking again and Cervantes shoots you icy stares from atop his frilly collar in every room^*, and I think it must all just be to remind us that we have to suffer a little to get anything done in this crazy, mixed-up, academic world.


^* Note to Professor T: Today I'm sitting under Seneca...