Glad to start by carla library of congress and i just want to thank jamie and the angels and the readers for allowing me to be with someone who has elevated libraries to such an extent. [applause]. Let me just say, there have been saints in the library. You are now number one. I finally smacked down andrew carnegie. Susan you have. So how does it feel to be the patron of all of the librarian. When i started this book, i could not have anticipated that part of it. Susan i was drawn into the story because really, wanted to understand what happened in 1986 that this epic fire the close the la library for seven years, but more importantly, i wanted to understand why cared about it so much. I have often said that if someone had said to me, city hall burned down i wouldve thought, thats too bad. And i assume they will rebuild it. But hearing the library had burned, felt like this deep profoundly personal loss. And i thought, why do we feel such a connection to books. Why do we feel such a connection to libraries that the idea of one burning is so disturbing. So this combination of just the investigative curiosity of who started the Largest Library fire in american history, coupled with this over parking question of why do we care so much about libraries and i think that acknowledgment of our deep feelings about these places, is what stirred a lot of people because i think for many people, it was a reminder to them about how much they care about libraries. You and i were talking about this earlier and as a writer, the thing that i am most interested in taking something that seems ordinary and noticing how extraordinary it really is. So libraries are the perhaps perfect example of something that is ordinary in the sense that we all know what libraries are, weve all spent lots of time in libraries and everybody grew up with library this gave me a chance to say stop and think for a minute. How extraordinary it is that these places exist. Carla eight talk about extraordinary, i got a chance to tour this library and the director and the staff and when they do here. And observe. This is the only library in the country that has an observatory. [applause]. Brings programming, like being in a great place. Susan. yes the planetarium. Carla and have that and it so unique. And it exemplifies everything that youre talking about the libraries to was a connection to this library with your book. Susan this is an interesting site back. Is the first time that i ever came to Rancho Mirage when was when i began working on this book because one of the most important sources for me, was elisabeth who i dont know if she is here now. But she had been the head of Central Library at the time of the fire. And then she retired to Rancho Mirage but then her plan to retire was spoiled when she was persuaded to run the Rancho Mirage library so it is really kind of poetic moment to be back here. And when in a sense i really begin the book here. Carla i made reference to a sanitarium. [laughter]. You discovered and tell the story of this particular library. You ran into flight quite a few characters. Susan i did indeed. And when i began the book, of course books to me, rise and fall on the strength of the human characters. And simply downloading lots and lots of data about libraries would not have made this an interesting book. It really was a book that was populated literally by these characters who come from every different sort of angle of the book. There was harry peake, the young man who was accused of having started the fire. One very particular kind of character, a very la character. He embodied the school sort of aspirational mythical quality of la that draws people who believe that in any moment they will discover celebrities. And that they will be the elevated to fame and fortune. He moved to la and dreaming of becoming an actor and discovered something into his attempt to be an actor. Terrible stage fright. But that did not stop him in any way. He really did believe that he was moments away, and the next corner he turned, somebody would discover him and he would become a star. But then the unexpected characters were, i had gone into the book assuming that it would to write a little capsule descriptions of the people who had run late library and its history it seemed interesting. At that will be a short paragraph. Little did i know, actually let me back up and say. The rule world of people who run libraries is perhaps a little bit to be unusual. [laughter]. The world of people who live in la, is perhaps youd to the unusual. [laughter]. So the then diagram of people who run the la library is doubly determined to be slightly unusual. And when i dove into this stories of the people who run the libraries and starting the late 18 hundreds, it was as if each one of them couldve been a book. Date were fascinating, they were eccentric, you had one of the first people to run the library he was a 17 yearold girl. At a time when women were not permitted to use the library. She was the head of the library. You had mary jones who was the first trained librarian to run the la library and he was, very important figure in this was the turnofthecentury and she was deposed because she was called in by the Library Board and they said youve done a wonderful job but wouldnt we all agree it would be very better to have the library run by a man. And she said no. And this was at a time when women still didnt have the right to vote and she had the wherewithal to say this is absurd. And refused to feed power and eventually the City Attorney intervened. And although before this happened, thousands of women gathered in los angeles and marched in defense of her. And was known as the Great Library work. [applause]. And she finally left, the City Attorney and basically said, you know you have no protection in your job. And if they want to get rid of you, they can. And she was replaced by the Charles Lammas who is now, he had been a journalist living in cincinnati had been hired by the los angeles times. He then packed up and walked to la. From cincinnati as windows. [laughter]. [applause]. Carla how long did that take. Susan it was a couple of months. He arrived in la as a huge a celebrity. People miss him along the way cheering him on pretty soon he was a bit of a show about you might say he had no training as a librarian but he was an intellectual. He was a writer any really truly loved the library. He was a bit of an unusual man. He believed that he did not believe in censorship. But he felt very strongly that people should not read books that he thought was stupid. A rather than removing books from the collection, and a branding iron made with a skull and cross phone. [laughter]. Any branded the books that he thought were particular leaks stupid. And he put a bookmark in them saying there are far better books on this topic. [laughter]. Carla there are temptations to do that. Susan [laughter]. Carla but cant be judgmental. Susan i have to say if any of you wanted wonderful field trip, the Library Still does have in the rare book collection, some of those branded books. There is a point where i was writing about charles and i felt so engaged in historian by the way another thing which has nothing really to do with the library but he had benefit bit of a woman problem and he had dozens of extramarital affairs. He kept a diary of all of these different exhibitions. Carla yes printed. Susan and he kept the diary in spanish. Just as a way of keeping it away from his life. But his wife was fluent in spanish so they had one of the most public divorces in la. Divorce wasnt particularly common at the time but also this was scandalous. And he had many wives over the course of his life. But he was also a brilliant man and a lot of what he did, a lot of the innovations that he brought to the library im a the most importantly, his belief that the library was a democratic institution, libraries up until the time were really meant to serve educated people. And to help them become more educated in his feeling is, libraries are meant to lift everyone. And he promoted the library to factories to railroad companies, saying have your workers come to the library and they can better themselves. This was very radical. It is his spirit really transformed the la library and remains true to the state. We only have a few of his branded books we certainly have his spirit. Carla now on the other hand, you have someone who is net aspiring actor. What was he doing in the library. Was he looking for place what was he doing. Susan it is unclear. This is really interesting to remember that in 1986, there were no security cameras and there were no records of who came in and out of the library. There is no way of knowing if he really was even in the library. When you think about crime in the 1980s and how limited we were in being able to figure out even it was in the library that day. His former i should say, is dear friend said to me, i dont personally remember ever seen. Read a book. But there is also the fact that he worked as a messenger, he was downtown a lot and its entirely possible that like many people downtown, the library was a place to stop and sort of collect her thoughts. Whether you were there to take a book out or not. I like to think that he was reading movie magazines because he was a very broke. He would not have been able to buy or it wouldve been a stretch for him to spend a lot of money on movie magazines so he could have been the library, he could been looking up Burt Reynolds pictures because he believed himself to be a good friend of Burt Reynolds. Carla any a lot of stories. So you have his stories moving into this because he fabricated. Susan yes, he was in credible fabulous and part of it was harmless, he just made up stories about everything. What was interesting was realizing as i was working on this that libraries are about the essential human need for stories. It is the essential unit of Human Interaction. It is the stories we tell ourselves, it is a stories we share with each other. It is the stories they save and preserve and pass on. You pass them onto the next dinner generation. So having this young man at the center of this crime story be in his own way, an extravagant storyteller, filled like it had a great deal of resonance with the theme of the book of this idea that our lives are all stories. Carla so as a journalist, and author, just how do you get the Remote Library field. Most people would say, like you said, a book about the library. Susan right. And you know the writing, i became so passionate about the subject, i felt every aspect of it fascinated me, the science of how in the fire, 400,000 books were completely destroyed. The 700,000 were damaged and frozen for years to keep them from molding until it could be figured out how it could possibly be to preserve them. It was just fascinating to read about this effort. It was the largest book recovery effort ever undertaken. Carla and the largest fire. But i did not get much publicity because of. Susan this incredible kind of coincidence of timing. When immediately to look at the New York Times from that date. Because i cannot understand how i had never heard about this fire. I pulled up the paper for that day and the headline said that soviets denied meltdown at the nuclear plants. Carla on the same day. Susan the same day of the accident estate, this story which certainly wouldve gotten more attention and i was living in new york at the time. So that is why i look to the New York Times. I thought i cannot believe the New York Times would uncover this. Maybe not the a1 headlines but i was sure that it would have gotten attention. As an lander supply. The front section of the paper was almost entirely devoted to noble and there was a story in the a section towards the back. I was about the fire. But it was just fate that this story, i may know people who lived in la at the time who said to me, i dont understand how i never knew about this. Carla it was the largest fire in elliott that at the time printed. Susan it was a large structure fire until recently. And thats in history and that is saying something because there are a lot of fires in la unfortunately. And it remained and will always remain the Largest Library fire in american history. One of the world. Sadly, there have been larger library fires in the world. And certainly, in the course of particularly world war ii. There were entire libraries where the context were burnt in the building destroyed. So there are precedents sadly. We have burned libraries since we have built libraries pretty. Carla when you think some more accidents but some were intentional. Susan many were intentional printed and goes back to my original impulse for doing this month. And that is been they havent been burned because we care about them so deeply. The, had a Commando Unit that were called the brennan commandos. They had one mission. And that was to seek out and Learn Library sprayed it was an effort to send a message to people which is your history is going to be obliterated. Your culture, will not be remembered. You will be wiped off the memory for the earths memory. We all think of libraries is one of the safe places, the places that are uniquely sort of moved it from the world of strife. He worked at a library, you feel people with terror because you also saying to them, nowhere is safe. You are not safe. There was an incredibly chilling remark made by a german philosopher which is, when they were books, next they burn people. And unfortunately in the history of the world, i would say there is rarely been a regime that burned books the did not at some point begin destroying people. We are, while books are an extension of the human spirit. They are human objects. And they have been treated in this most horrible way. As a surrogate or people from memory, for information, for all of the things that we are. And that makes us different from inanimate objects. One of the most chilling facts that i learned, is one of the world book burners was a man who began his professional life as a librarian. Carla s of the new power, he knew how powerful books are. Then he kneeled in the effort to reinvent Chinese Society the books had to be destroyed. And clean the slate. Carla alberto in guelph in his book, he has a chapter on for been reading. And he says slave owners and dictators and other illicit holders of power, the easiest group of people to rule is the illiterate. And if you cannot prevent people from learning to read, you destroy the books. Susan is interesting because libraries are so, in the present day more than ever, really make literacy a huge part of their mission. Because again, this is an interesting evolution from libraries having been basically the gentlemans club, for educated men, then in default and by the way i find it so funny that i was astonished to learn that for many many many years, children were not allowed in libraries. And then children, 15 years old and older could come. Then children 12 years old who had certain grade point average, and then and now we think of libraries as being or having working with children and being so essential to what they do. And they are not permitted in the libraries. Carla now we have mother groups on the loose. With babies and people reading. Susan yes, they have stroller jams at the library. Carla there were telling me about the childrens sermon there were times when you have a traffic jam of strollers. Susan and i love it. It does seem so funny to look back in the history of this institution and realize that there was a point where the idea that children would be in there was just, we memories literacy and it is a natura natural extef what a library is the very best sense. There is such a lot of outreach on that. It is not just, well it is literacy for adults as well as for children. Carla you were surprised that some of the activities that libraries are doing. This library does so many things, the different types of programming and things like that. And you are finding that when you look at what was going on in la, and other libraries, you were surprised. Susan in one of my favorite things was when there was this oil spill in porter ranch, i believe it is in ventura county. People were a evacuated for a very long time in the library became the Community Center in the librarians new how stressful it was for people to be evacuated and have nowhere, for they didnt know when they would get back into their homes. So the library started offering yoga classes and meditation classes to help the general mood of the community. I loved it because this is probably radical thing to say but people dont have warm Fuzzy Feelings about government. They dont think, while i love going to the dmv. [laughter]. [applause]. Carla there doing better. Susan yes. We feel this tremendous sense of the people feel that libraries are coming from an incredibly not only a positive place but an efficient place. The figure out what people need and they provide it. And there isnt a bunch of lines in red tape and bureaucracy. If you need in a move quite quickly to fill that need. Carla you mentioned the stagecraft for pairings for Library Doors to open. It was like being at a theater. Susan i spent a lot of mornings going down to the Library Early before it opened and one of the things i wanted to do was both investigate the story of this fire and look at the whole history of libraries in the la library and explore my own relationship to them. And then also, conjure as much as i could, the feeling of what is it like day today in the library. I spent time in every did apartment of the library. And of course i realized that librarians dont come at 10 00 a. M. When the library opens income earlier and they get things ready. In the meantime there are also some people waiting and they are very antsy to get in at 10 00 a. M. So its a ritual. Everybody is sort of Milling Around the Security Guard keeps saying, it is not 10 00 oclock yet. And it was a wonderful feeling of this preparation, all of this buzzing activity, preparation for the day to begin and the doors open and people flooded in in the library began its daily life. It was a wonderful thing to observe and it was so much fun for me to spend time in each department of the library. I dont mean just the subject departments pretty english and science but things that i didnt even know existed like the shipping department and they reference. Carla im at the telephone reference librarian here. I was asking him, hope what are people asking you. Are they calling you up. And he said yes. Sue what it is incredible i had no idea because i would think, will google certainly has made it not, not necessary to call the library. The fact is the people called library all day long. Carla all of the time. Susan they ask questions that some of the librarians are puzzled by. They ask a lot of questions that could be googled very easily. Carla but they want a human being to interact with. And part of the librarians created as you know that we only ask you questions to satisfy your need. Even though we would love to know what you what those spatula and the timer and the other things, all at once. We really do want to know if we cannot ask you why. Susan and that very deliberate and judgmental attitude is something pretty wonderful. I said in the reference room and it was really funny. I have to admit it. If you want to fun field trip, i recommend sitting in the reference room for a while because you think why and ten oh seven on a Tuesday Morning is somebody wondering what movies that dana delaney has been in since 1995 and you think well someone was wondering that righ. Carla and they wanted to get an answer from you. Susan and the librarians are amazed much of the time. My favorite one was somebody calling and asking the reference librarian if a certain can of beans in our pantry were safe to eat. [laughter]. In the librarian actually knew the website where you can google the identifying marks in the can to find out when the video was produced and then had another website that you could go to that said when foods become dangerous to eat. And at the same time, she was worried that she might have some legal liability and she said to the woman, and the woman ate them and got sick. So it was really funny. It is also, i think we are or have reached peak lack of human contact. Icy society moving back towards Human Interaction. And that is one of the ways that libraries offer a different experience than sitting at home alone and giggling. Im not saying that if you want, what is the capital of tennessee, that you should call the library. But more generally, i think that or i feel that we have all been saturated with online inanimate experiences and that the place we are heading towards as a culture is one in which Human Interaction is really priced and valued and sought after. Carla derek mentioned it at this library we had a Self Checkout the ticket out because people do not want to just Self Checkout. They wanted interaction. But you mentioned that the experience was similar when you investigated looked into a super market. Susan this may not seem like an important interaction but there is a moment when youre checking on the book they make eye contact with the librarian, exchange pleasantries, i can absolutely understand how people would miss that. It is part of what they want when they are in an library. Some Human Interaction read and write absolutely, i think of this as being ambient social interaction. The librarian may not become your best friend but in the course of the day, it is rather nice to have someone say, this is a terrific book. I just read it. Check it out, done. As opposed to going and scanning and walking out of the library with the book. It is a place for the automation does not feel necessary. And it is supermarket when there is a long line of hundred people with 7000 groceries im a you know that. Then they want the automatic checkout. And i secretly always fantasized about being a cashier. So this part of me that like the Self Checkout at the grocery store. It always takes me longer. Libraries are human. That is what makes them special. Of course it is the books. But it is the human aspect of it made that is meant that they have not just endured but thrived. Carla there was tension in terms of libraries being open for all and that means all. All people who are homeless, people who are as you called lost souls. Susan when you consider the places where we interact in a completely un curated way, just wide open to anyone and everything, there are not that many places public parks, the library, i guess the public streets. And so there is always going to be an element of tension over bringing together the greatest extremes of society. It is also the fact, that is the nature of libraries is to be open to all. When you have an issue of homelessness, in our society that is not being well addressed, the places that have the flexibility to include the homeless are going to be over extended. It is not that libraries problem. It is societys problem to not be providing more places they can absorb people who need a place to go. They dont have anywhere to go. Carla and lost souls printed it might not be homeless but they are lonely. Susan they are lonely and have a lot of time on the hands and library is a warm and bracing environments. And thank goodness, that they exist because we all have the potential to feel lost at times. Simply just need somewhere to be. And not be alone. Carla want to switch a little bit back to the impact of the fire. Hundreds of thousands of books that were destroyed. To give a sense for the people who are sitting in this room, the director told me that this room was filled with books rated in monday morning, this book stacks will be back. 50000 books. Right where everybody is sitting. They were removed. How many volumes again were destroyed. Susan 400,000 were completely destroyed. 700,000 were damaged. And just has a footnote to that, of the 700,000 that were damaged, the majority of those were salvaged. It is amazing. Another fact, i was going to stay another fun fact but its not a fun fact. Is the los angeles and insurance on the building. But none of the books. The building, did suffer some damage but the primary loss was the books. So all of the money needed to replace this 100,000 books, and to repair and hopefully salvage the 700,000 books, this is more than half of all of the books in the collection. That all had to be raised from the public. 22 million rate not a penny of insurance. I am not sure because i have asked the insurance people, who said well the building is durable books, i didnt even know this, complete new information to me. Is that a library buys a book and if it is a popular book and gets checked out a lot, and has to be replaced quickly because books eventually fall apart or they get soiled. So if you look like the da vinci code that gets checked out all of the time, the one you are checking out, is probably the hundreds one the library his own. This is the buy one book and have it permanently elicits a book that no one ever checked out. But my guess is that Insurance Companies would be very inhabitable ensuring something that was really such a fungible commodity. But that is the wealth of a library of books. Carla and you mentioned that summer soiled. One library to display on the things that are returned books are returned. In one had, people used very interesting things for bookmarks printed piece of bacon, photographs, when youre checking books back in, that they return them to people. And i have to ask you something, speaking of the fire and the burning of the books, and everything. You have it in the books, so this is public information. You burn the book. You became an expert in the physics of fire and i become one reading it. The types of fire and all of this but you actually burned a book. Susan let me tell you the story. I have an excuse. It was research. I thought, i am describing the side of 400,000 books burning and i never seen a book burn. It would be useful for me to know what that looks like. But secondly and probably more importantly, i thought i logically know that i burn a book, i can go and replace it easily. Just go to the bookstore and buy another copy. Im not removing from human civilization, this document. So theoretically, should not find this discomforting. I could not bear the thought of doing it. I thought this is almost superstitious. So that are right, i will pick a book to burn. One i can do this. So that, i will burn a book i dont like. [laughter]. And then he thought, that seems really wrong. [laughter]. So that will overbook i really like. And then he thought no one not going to burn a book i really like. I thought well, i will burn one of my books because i have lots of copies of my book. Carla you been one you wrote. Susan all burn the orchid thief or i have hundred of them. Then i thought, im not going to burn one of my books. [laughter]. And i finally thought, i can do this pretty know is silly bruno it is superstitious. No it does not mean what it means. When the had the book burnings. Then celebrations of it. I know i am doing this for research but i cannot bring myself to burn a book read in effect, im just not going to do it. And one day my husband came home and he was just grinning your year and he said how the book friedberg. He handed me a copy of fahrenheit 451. [laughter]. I thought will be no, there is my book. And he ray bradbury of all people, would approve of this. [laughter]. Since he was up person writing about a society in which books were banned if they were found, they were burned. He also coincidentally, did not have the money to go to college and for his education, spent over the course of 14 years, by his telling, went to the la library, the Downtown Branch every day reading his way through the library. He was passionate about the library. He had loved the la library. He wrote fahrenheit 451, in the library. In the corner o corner, he becay instrumental in raising the money to repair those destroyed books. He really truly was if there was a patron saints of libraries, it certainly was him. And i know when i burned that book, that he approved. Carla susan, have to say, ending by saying on behalf of hundreds of thousands of people working libraries every day and all of the world, we thank you for elevating libraries because it to someone with your talent to bring libraries alive in a way we talk about them, as librarians but you just put the grace and the beauty in it. Susan thank you so much printed. Carla so thank you so much pretty. [applause]. Thank you. [applause]. Weeknights this week, we are featuring book tv programs showcasing what is available every weekend on cspan2. Tonight, books on apologia, first historian matthew chronicles Robert Kennedys visit in the winter of 1967 and 1968. And how fueled his interest to run for president. Then cassie chambers once back at her grandmother aunt and mother, who grew up in poverty in kentuckys appalachian Mountain Region and the decision to remain or leave. After that, Jeannie Vance recalls his childhood in a town in ohio and at the 17th annual National Book festival in washington dc. I spoke to beat this week, and every weekend on cspan2. Television has changed and cspan began anyone years ago but her Mission Continues to provide an unfiltered view of government already this year we brought you primary coverage. And now the federal response to the coronavirus. You watch policies mass Public Affairs programming and televisions an online or listen on free radio app. And be part of the National Conversations through cspans daily washington journal program. Work your social media feed. Cspan, created by a private industry and americas Cable Television company as a Public Service and brought to you today by your television provider. In conjunction with our, we
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