Adjustable

If I were to leave Boston, one thing about the area I would miss is the number and diversity of libraries in the area.  I am a library person. Some people hang out in bars--and I do that occasionally.  But if I have a few hours, and nothing major on the agenda, I will pack up a briefcase or knapsack, and park myself in a library.  

The Minuteman library network in eastern Massachusetts is remarkable.  Boston, like most large cities, is surrounded by one suburb after another.  Each of these communities has its own library. The Minuteman Library Network consists of forty two libraries.  There are about ten of these in my orbit and each one has a distinctive feel.  Waltham, the closest to me,  attracts children who are mesmerized by the spacious kid's area. Weston, next closest, has a sitting room with puzzles that makes you feel like you're in a very rich person's den. Newton's has three floors of stacked shelves and nearly any dvd you seek to play.  I've been to more than a half dozen others in the network.

In addition, the Boston area is home to many university libraries.  There is a collective called the Boston Library Consortium and twenty two libraries are part of it.  If you work at, or are a student in, any one of the universities in the consortium, you can obtain a card and use any library in the consortium.  Harvard is, of course, too snooty to be a member.  However, Boston College, Brandeis, Northeastern, Boston University, Tufts, and Bentley University, are among the member institutions.

I live adjacent to Brandeis and have used their library several times. About two miles from where I live is Bentley University.  I had not gone to Bentley's library since the late 1980s, for no reason other than there were many other choices.  But sometime in mid May I went to it for the first time in decades. And it is there that, during my fourth visit earlier this week, that I saw something I had never seen in all my library jaunts. Very cool.

When I walked into Bentley's library that day in mid May, I was taken aback.  It had, of course, gone through renovations in the thirty plus years since my last visit.  What they'd done, however, was transformative: all modern furniture, big tables to settle in to spread out and write, walls of current periodicals, a museum exhibit, engaging resource center, and thematic displays of books here and there--Boston related; abolition related, whatever is current related.  They'd modernized the entire space.

On Monday the 6th, for about the fourth time since my first visit, I parked myself in what I have come to think of as my spot up on the third floor. I was researching something and read that the library had a book I wanted to review with an HD call number. I traveled to the second floor where the HD Reference section is, but the HD regular books were not in the vicinity. I asked the librarian and she told me that the regular HD books were on the first floor. "Just go down the stairs" she said, "and you will walk right into them."

That I did. I walked down the stairs and saw in front of me rows of shelved books with letter pairs on the wall of each row indicating which row had which books.  The rows, however, were all jammed together, as if someone was cleaning and needed to push the rows together to get to what needed vacuuming.  

I saw where my book would be, but the slimmest person could not get through the opening between the rows to look for it.  A stick of gum, could barely get through the gap.  It seemed odd to me that the rows would be so pushed together. What good are the books if you can't get to them?  I was about to go back and ask the librarian how/when the books could be accessed, when I noticed something at the end of each row. There was a tiny computer screen with an arrow attached.  I pressed the screen at the end of one row, and the row opened so that patrons, regardless of girth, could get through and scan for their books.  Just to make sure, I pressed the button on other rows, and they opened right up as well.

This seemed so cool to me. What a clever way to conserve space. 

Later I thought of the adjustable rows metaphorically.  What if we could depress a button when encountering some closed relationship and the previously blocked relationship could open up.  Having a year long feud with your sibling and can't get through to her-?-press a button and miraculously there is a way to get in there and work through it. Haven't spoken to your spouse about an issue because it tends to trigger an avalanche of accusations, press a button and you can ease right in there to talk without setting the world on fire.  Your erstwhile best friend was, somehow, offended by something you once did and has tightened up such that any greeting is met with a terse response. Just press the button, get right in there and hug letting tears of joy flow to your knees.  We'd be well served to consider the possibility that blocked relationships can be reopened with maybe even a tiny touch that, somehow, opens up people who naturally would love to embrace.