And the readers for allowing me to be who had elevated libraries. [applause] let me just say that you are now a number one. I finally smacked down andrew carnegie. But when i started this book i could not have anticipated that part of it. I was drawn because they wanted to understand that happened in 1986 the epic fire that close the black one the library for seven years but more importantly i wanted to understand why i cared about it so much. I have often said if somebody said to me city hall burned down i would have thought thats too bad. I assume they will rebuild it. But hearing that a library had burned, felt like a deep profoundly personal loss. And i thought why do we feel such a connection to books . And what is so disturbing. And with the investigative curiosity with the overarching question of why do we care so much about libraries. And thats what stirs a lot of people because for many people it was a reminder to them of how much they care about libraries. So the thing that i am most interested in, is taking something that seems ordinar ordinary, and noticing how extraordinary it really is. So libraries are the perfect example of something it is ordinary in the sense we all know it libraries are and spent time there and everybody grew up in a library. But this gave me a chance to say stop and think for a minute. And the director and the staff and what they do through the observatory. This is the only library in the country that has an observatory. [applause] so this talks about everything that you were talking about. And it was a connection. This is an interesting side fact that the first time i ever came to Rancho Mirage, i began working on this book because that she was the head of Central Library at the time of the fire and then she retired to Rancho Mirage but then her plans were foiled when she was persuaded to run the Rancho Mirage library. So it is a poetic moment to be back here talking about the book when in a sense i began the book here. I make reference to sanitary but you discovered in telling the story of this particular library, you run into quite a few characters. I did indeed. I did indee. That draws people who believe that at any moment they will discover her celebrity and be elevated to fame and fortune. He moved to la dreaming of becoming an actor, discovered soon in his attempt to be an actor that he had terrible stage fright. But that didnt stop him in any way. And he really did believe that he was moments away, but the next corner he turned someone would discover him and he wouldvwouldbecome a star. But then the unexpected characters were i had gone into the book assuming that i would want to write little descriptions of the people who had run the library and its history. I thought this would be a short paragraph. Little did i know, actually let me back up and say the world of people who run libraries is perhaps skewed to the unusual. [laughter] the world of people who live in la is perhaps skewed to the unusual. So the thin diagram of people who run the la library is doubly determined to be slightly unusual. And when i dove into the stories of the people that from the librarierun thelibraries startie 18 hundreds, it was as if each one of them could have been able to. They were fascinating. They were eccentric. You had one of the first people to on the library that was a 17yearold girl at the time when women were not permitted to use the library, she was the head of the library. You have mary jones who was the first trained librarian to run the library and who was a very important figure and despise the turnofthecentury she was the post because she was called in by the Library Board and they said youve been a wonderful job. About that and we all agree that it would be better to have the library run by a man. And she said no and this was at the time when women still doesnt have the vote and she had the wherewithal to say this is absurd and refused to feed power. Eventually the City Attorney intervened, and although before this happened, thousands of people gathered in los angeles and marched in defense of her and was known as the Great Library or. [applause] and she finally left. The City Attorney basically said you have no protection in your job and if you want to get if they want to get rid of you they can. She was replaced by charles. Charles had been a journalist living in cincinnati hired by the la times. He then backed up and walked to la from cincinnati as one does. [laughter] how long did that take . It was a couple of months. He arrivehed arrived in la as e celebrity. People met him along the way cheering him on, say he was a bit of the show, you might say. He had no training at the library anas alibrarian, but asn intellectual, he was a writer and he really truly loved the library. He was a bit of an unusual man. He believed the he didnt bee in censorship. But both very strongly people shouldnt read books that he thought were stupid. [laughter] rather than removing them from the collection, he had a branding made with a skull and cross bones and he branded the books that he thought were particularly stupid and for the bookmark and then saying there are far better books on this topic. There are temptations to do that. [applause] [laughter] and i have to say if any of you want a wonderful field trip they have in the collection some of those branded books. So, there was the point where i was writing about charles and ad also engaged in the story and by the way, one other thing that has nothing to do with the library, but he had a bit of a problem and he had dozens of affairs. He kept a diary of all of these to keep straight who he told what to and he kept the diary in spanish. You know, just a way of kind of keeping it away. His wife read spanish, she was fluent in spanish and had one of the most public divorces in la. It wasnt particularly common at that time, but also this was scandalous. He had many wives over the course of his life, but he was also a brilliant man, and a lot of what he did, the innovations he brought to the library, but his belief that the library was the Democratic Institution libraries up until that time were meant to serve educated people and his feeling is no, libraries are meant to lift everyone. And he promoted the library to factors, companies saying have your workers come to the libra library. They can better themselves. And this was very radical. Its this spirit that really transformed the la library and remains true to this day. I mean, we only have a few of his branded books, but we certainly have the spirit. Spirit. On the other hand, you have kerry, who is an aspiring actor. What was he doing in the library . Looking for plays, or what was he doing . Its unclear. This is really interesting to remember that in 1986, there were no security cameras. There was no record of who came in and out of the library. There was no way of knowing if he really was even in the library. When you think about crime in the 1980s and how limited they were in being able to figure out even was he in the library that day, his dear friend said to me you know, i dont personally remember ever seeing harry 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 plac is a place ta sort of collect your thoughts. Whether you were there to take a book out or not. Id like ti like to think that s reading movie magazines, because he was broke and he wouldnt have been able to buy or it would have been a stretch for him to spend a lot of money on movie magazines. So come he could have been in the library looking up Burt Reynolds pictures because he was he believed to be a good friend of Burt Reynolds. And he told a lot of stories. So, you have his stor stories wn into this because he fabricated a. Yes. He was an incredible fabulist. And part of it was he made up stories about everything. 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. Its the stories we tell ourselves and the stories we share with each other. Its the stories that we save and preserve and pass on to the next generation. So, having the young man at the center of this crime story being in his own way and extravagant storyteller felt like it had a great deal of resonance with the theme of the book. If this idea that our lives are old stories. So as a journalist, as an author, how did you get this out of . Most people would say like you said, a book about a library. Right. The writing i became so passionate about on this subject i felt like every aspect of it fascinated me. The science of how in the fire 400,000 were completely destroyed. 700,000 were damaged and frozen for years to keep them until it could be figured out how to possibly preserve them. So, it was just fascinating to read about this effort. It was the largest recovery effort undertaken. And the largest fire. Buthey didnt get much publicity because of this incredible kind of coincidence of timing. I went immediately to look at the New York Times from that date, because i couldnt understand how i had never heard about this fire. I pulled up the paper for that day and the headline says soviets deny meltdown at Chernobyl Nuclear plant. The same day through the accident of fate, this story which certainly would have gotten more attention. I was living in new york at the time, so thats why i looked at the New York Times because i cant believe they wouldnt cover this. I was assured that it would have gotten the attention and suddenly understood why. The one section of the paper was almost entirely devoted to chernobyl, and there was a story in the section towards the back about the fire, but it was just i even know people that lived in la at the time said to me i dont understand how i never knew about this. It was the largest fire in la at the time. Until recently it was the largest structure fire in la history. And thats saying something, because there are a lot of fires in la unfortunately. And it remains and will always remain the largest fire in history. Not in the world. Sadly, there have been a larger library fires in the world, and certainly in the course of particularly world war ii there were entire libraries with the contents were burned and the buildings destroyed. There are precedents we have burned. And why do you think . That goes back to my original impulse they have been burned because we care about him so deeply. There was a unit of that had one mission and that was to seek out and burn libraries. 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 earths memory. We all think of libraries as one of the safest places. The places that are uniquely sort of removed from the world of strife. You burn dow burned down a libru fill people with terror because they were also saying to them you are not safe, nowhere is safe. There is an incredibly chilling remark made by german philosopher which is where they burn books, next to the burn people. And unfortunately, in the history of the world, i would say there has rarely been a regime that didnt at some point begin to destroy people. Books are an extension of the human spirit. They are objects that have been treated in this most affordable way to. For people, for memory, for information, for all of the things that we are that makes us different from inanimate objec objects. One of the most chilling facts that ive learned is one of the worlds great book burners, and he began his professional life as a librarian. He knew the power. Exactly. He knew how powerful books are. And he knew in the effort to reinvent Chinese Society that the books had to be destroyed. And to clean the slate. Alberto man well in his book the history of reading has a chapter on further than reagan. And he says slave owners, dictators and others have known the easiest group of people to rule is the illiterate. And if you cannot prevent people from learning to read, you destroy the books. And its interesting because in the present day more than ever they may get a hug make itf their mission because evolution from libraries having been basically gentlemens clubs for educated than then it evolved by the way i find it so funny that i was astonished to learn for many years children were not allowed in libraries. Eventually been 15yearsold and older could come. Then children 12yearsold a who had a certain grade point average. Now we think of libraries as having working with children being so essential to what they do, but they were not permitted in the library. We have mothe mother goose oe loose. [laughter] they have stroller jams as they call them at the library. They were telling me about the childrens room and at times when you have a traffic jam with strollers. It does seem so funny to look back in the history of this institution and realized that there was a point when the idea that children would be there was just but we embrace literacy. It is a natural extension of what a library is in the very best sense. And there is such a lot of outreach on that. Its literacy for adults as well as for children. You are surprised that some of the activities the libraries were doing. This library does so many things, different types of programming and things like that. You are looking at what was going on in la and other libraries. When there was this oil spill in the ranch, which i believe it is in Ventura County and people were evacuated for a long time into the library became the Community Center and they knew how stressful it was for people to be evacuated and they didnt know when they would get back into their homes, so the library started offering yoga classes in meditation classes to help the general mood of the community. This is probably a radical thing to say, but people dont have warm Fuzzy Feelings about government. And if they dont think i was going to the dmv. [laughter] they are doing better. We feel this tremendous sense that they are coming from an incredibly not only a positive place, but in efficient place that they figure out what people needed and provided and there isnt a bunch of lines and red tape and there are christie vasey and need and they move quite quickly to fill the need. You mention the stagecraft preparing for the Library Doors to open. It was like being in a theater. I spend a lot of mornings going down to the Library Early before it opened. One of the things i wanted to do is investigate the story of the fire, look at the history of libraries and the la library, explore my own relationship to them, but then also conjure up as much as i could have the feeling of what is it like from day to day in the library. So, i spend time in every department of the library and of course realizing that labor reinstalled come in at 10 a. M. When it opens but they come in earlier and get things ready and in the meantime there are all sorts of people waiting in a very antsy to get in at 10 a. M. And its a ritual everyone is sort of Milling Around and the security guards keep saying it isnt time yet. And it was a wonderful feeling of this preparation, all of this buzzing activity, preparation for the date again. Anday to begin. And then the doors open and people flooded and the library began its daily lives. And it was a wonderful thing to observe and it was so much fun for me to spend time in each department of the library. And i dont mean just the subject department, the english department, science, things i didnt even know existed like the shipping department. And the reference. There was a telephone referencreference library and hm anin here, and iwas asking the. You mean people are calling you out flex its incredible. I mean i had no idea because i would think it isnt necessary to call the library. The fact is people call the library all day long. All the time. They ask questions of some of the librarians that they are puzzled by. I ask a lot of questions that could be googled very easily and part of the creed as you know is we only ask you questions to satisfy your need even though we would love to know why you bought the special and the timer and the other thing all at once. But we cant ask you why. And that very deliberate and nonjudgmental attitude is something pretty wonderful. I sat in the reference room and ive got to admit if you want a fun field church, i recommend sitting in the reference room for a loyal because you think by and 10 07 is somebody wondering what movies dana delany has been in since 1995 . You think someone was wondering about right now. And wanted to get an answer. My favorite one is asking if what was in the pantry was safe to eat. [laughter] and the library and actually knew a website where you could google the identifying marks to find out when the food was produced and have another website to go to that said. At the same time she was worried that she might have some legal liability if she said to the woman, so it was funny. Also, i think that we are we have reached the peak lack of human contact. And i see the society moving back towards Human Interaction, and that is one of the ways libraries offer a different experience than sitting at home alone. Im not saying what is the capital of tennessee that you should call the library. But more generally, i think the way that weve all been saturated with online inanimate experiences and the place that we are heading towards a culture of its one in which Human Interaction is prized and valued and sought after. She mentioned that this library already had a Self Checkout and they took it out because people didnt want to just do Self Checkout. They wanted interaction. You mentioned the experience was similar to what you had when you investigate and looked into the supermarket. This may not seem like an important interaction, but there is a moment when you make eye contact with the library in and exchange pleasantries. I can absolutely understand how people would miss that. Its part of what they want when they are in the library is some Human Interaction and this is but what i think of as ambient social interaction. The library and may not become your best friend, but in the course of a day its