WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.200 --> 00:00:08.119 Hello, I'm welcomed stories all the time. The lad you 2 00:00:08.160 --> 00:00:11.119 are here, Let's get into it. The last of the 3 00:00:11.119 --> 00:00:14.039 paperbacks slides into place with the slow, satisfying motion that 4 00:00:14.080 --> 00:00:16.600 only a librarian or someone equally obsessed with order can 5 00:00:16.640 --> 00:00:20.239 fully appreciate. Early mornings like this belong to me alone. 6 00:00:20.320 --> 00:00:22.920 When a library's quite gathers it as a tangible hush, 7 00:00:23.079 --> 00:00:25.719 interrupted only by the soft scuff of sensible rubber sols 8 00:00:25.719 --> 00:00:28.760 and the sliding rustle of book jackets. For a few minutes, 9 00:00:28.800 --> 00:00:31.320 I am taller, stronger, more essential than at any other 10 00:00:31.359 --> 00:00:33.079 part of the day. The books must pass through my 11 00:00:33.079 --> 00:00:36.320 care to truly come home. I finish shloving the battered 12 00:00:36.320 --> 00:00:38.920 copy of The Wind in the Willows. The sum total 13 00:00:38.920 --> 00:00:41.640 of the morning's return sits back to my little rousheving cart. 14 00:00:42.359 --> 00:00:44.679 Marge will arrive at the desk soon or more after 15 00:00:44.759 --> 00:00:47.759 his first class, but for now it's just me, the books, 16 00:00:47.799 --> 00:00:50.399 the sentries or dusted the rafters, and the honey streamers 17 00:00:50.399 --> 00:00:53.520 of dawn reaching over the half shuttered windows. It's whilst 18 00:00:53.520 --> 00:00:55.799 sliding the cut back towards the staircase that I see it, 19 00:00:55.840 --> 00:00:58.439 a thin black bound volumes queezed uperate on a shelf 20 00:00:58.439 --> 00:01:00.679 so high that even my careful inventory would have missed it. 21 00:01:01.240 --> 00:01:03.560 I only glimpsed it at all because the sun sneaking 22 00:01:03.560 --> 00:01:05.920 through the east windows highlights the faintest gleam of gilt 23 00:01:05.959 --> 00:01:08.560 on the top edge. There is no title on this by, 24 00:01:08.640 --> 00:01:11.000 not even the ghost of a sticker or faded catalog number. 25 00:01:11.640 --> 00:01:14.640 A curiosity. I feel a little tug in my chest, 26 00:01:14.719 --> 00:01:17.920 a mixture of professional annoyance and genuine interest. Out of 27 00:01:17.959 --> 00:01:20.040 place objects bother me, but I can't deny I love 28 00:01:20.120 --> 00:01:23.400 hunting down their stories. I fetched the slim black book, carefully, 29 00:01:23.560 --> 00:01:26.079 rolling the wheeled steps all into place, embracing my shoulder 30 00:01:26.120 --> 00:01:28.920 against the solid frame of the shelf. As I ease 31 00:01:29.000 --> 00:01:31.159 it out, I'm struck by its coldness, as if it 32 00:01:31.200 --> 00:01:34.519 absorbed none of the surrounding warmth. It's lighter than I expect. 33 00:01:35.200 --> 00:01:37.879 Even a paper feels different. They can slightly uneven and 34 00:01:37.959 --> 00:01:41.959 faintly speckle the way quality laid paper ages, no publisher's mark, 35 00:01:42.120 --> 00:01:44.959 no barcoat. If I didn't know better, I'd think it 36 00:01:45.000 --> 00:01:48.200 was handmade. I open it, expecting blank pages or the 37 00:01:48.200 --> 00:01:50.359 point of scrollings of a teenager hiding from the world, 38 00:01:50.400 --> 00:01:53.879 and some snug alcove. Instead, I find column after column 39 00:01:53.879 --> 00:01:56.760 a small, precise handwriting, itemized and cross reference, like a 40 00:01:56.799 --> 00:02:00.040 private paper miniature of our own digital inventory. But the 41 00:02:00.079 --> 00:02:04.799 items listed on books not all. Some are missile illuminated 42 00:02:04.879 --> 00:02:07.959 rage five hundred twenty three point two, but between them 43 00:02:07.959 --> 00:02:11.439 are stranger entries copper coin eighteen seventeen nine, duck three 44 00:02:11.439 --> 00:02:15.000 B seven, status, penning, return, the photograph, Sebia, cracked storage 45 00:02:15.039 --> 00:02:18.840 closet behind lower wall, plaster, map slot east gallery, behind portrait, 46 00:02:18.840 --> 00:02:22.280 hash twenty two status unassigned, each with an OOD code 47 00:02:22.280 --> 00:02:24.680 that looks almost but not quite like our shelving system. 48 00:02:24.960 --> 00:02:28.080 A flush of uncertainty rises under my collar. None of 49 00:02:28.080 --> 00:02:30.560 these codes make sense. There is no duck FREEB seven 50 00:02:30.560 --> 00:02:33.520 in our floorplans, no map slot registered, certainly not behind 51 00:02:33.520 --> 00:02:36.919 a portrait. The handwriting leaping and exacting as a fussy 52 00:02:36.960 --> 00:02:39.879 disciplinter nothing like the Wabbi inscriptions on the inside covers 53 00:02:39.879 --> 00:02:44.120 of donated texts. Someone deliberate made this, someone with a 54 00:02:44.159 --> 00:02:47.400 different plan for organizing what was worth finding. I flip 55 00:02:47.439 --> 00:02:50.560 further here and there entries are marked out for relocation 56 00:02:50.719 --> 00:02:54.879 or pending. A few are struck through. Some include people's names, 57 00:02:55.240 --> 00:02:58.599 Marge window seat three forty seven per press, flower shelve 58 00:02:58.639 --> 00:03:02.039 buy on my reading, a scavenger hunt, an old care 59 00:03:02.080 --> 00:03:05.360 diaker's joke, a crypt o'clock from years before my arrival, 60 00:03:06.000 --> 00:03:08.919 or something else entirely. I check the inside cover for 61 00:03:08.960 --> 00:03:11.560 a name. Nothing. A gust of cold air makes me shiver. 62 00:03:12.240 --> 00:03:14.960 For a moment, the library seems to be holding its breath. 63 00:03:15.360 --> 00:03:17.199 I slip this slim black book into the folds of 64 00:03:17.199 --> 00:03:20.080 my sweater, keep it pressed against my left hip. As 65 00:03:20.080 --> 00:03:22.439 footsets echo in the stair, will marge arriving. I'd know 66 00:03:22.479 --> 00:03:25.759 that briscadence anywhere by migrate toward my desk. But my 67 00:03:25.840 --> 00:03:29.680 mind keeps tracing those numbers, those impossible shelf codes. Already 68 00:03:29.800 --> 00:03:34.080 I am running through explanations, sorting plausible from preposterous, eccentric 69 00:03:34.080 --> 00:03:38.960 predecessor forgotten tradition. I will find out soon enough. All 70 00:03:39.000 --> 00:03:41.520 my morning routines have a rhythm, and the library's oddities 71 00:03:41.560 --> 00:03:45.240 provide the counterpoint. Our building, finch Hollow Public Library, oldis 72 00:03:45.240 --> 00:03:47.520 on the County Register, has a character that resists taming, 73 00:03:47.680 --> 00:03:49.919 no matter how many color could a charts are taped 74 00:03:49.919 --> 00:03:52.960 to the office wall. The library's architecture can only be 75 00:03:53.000 --> 00:03:56.840 described as a controlled accident. Corridors bend it on sable angles, 76 00:03:56.840 --> 00:03:59.520 staircases fold into half levels, and sunny nicks appear in 77 00:03:59.599 --> 00:04:02.599 unlikely corners. Like the building is always a little surprised 78 00:04:02.599 --> 00:04:05.400 with its own choices. Doors open on a dead ends, 79 00:04:05.520 --> 00:04:08.319 or more enchantingly, onto small alcoves, crowned with neglect of 80 00:04:08.400 --> 00:04:12.479 musical instruments or obscure periodicals. The original blueprints hanging behind 81 00:04:12.479 --> 00:04:15.240 my desk, annotated in twelve shades of pencil by generations 82 00:04:15.240 --> 00:04:19.079 of librarians and surveyors. The foundation, they say, rests on 83 00:04:19.120 --> 00:04:21.399 both the old mills fittings and an even older crooked 84 00:04:21.439 --> 00:04:24.439 cellar from a vanished house. I'd never found evidence of 85 00:04:24.439 --> 00:04:26.639 the latter, but a servant draft, sharp and carrying a 86 00:04:26.639 --> 00:04:29.519 scent of old apple suggests the rumor is not entirely fanciful. 87 00:04:30.079 --> 00:04:33.399 We're especially proud, I suppose, of our more eccentric collections. 88 00:04:34.000 --> 00:04:36.560 This is a shelf of antiquarian maps, which are regular 89 00:04:36.680 --> 00:04:40.439 mister Abernathy haunts if looking for berry gold. A model 90 00:04:40.439 --> 00:04:43.519 of musical instruments recorders, tin whistles to euculeles made its 91 00:04:43.519 --> 00:04:45.879 way into the catalog at some point in the nineteen eighties. 92 00:04:45.879 --> 00:04:48.560 And never left. Despite the general lack of musical programming, 93 00:04:49.160 --> 00:04:52.199 Terror decks herbals, and through shelves of transportation related on 94 00:04:52.279 --> 00:04:55.360 the NEC's insistently crowed the reference section. My job has 95 00:04:55.399 --> 00:04:58.240 always been to keep order, reconciling the sensibilities of brick 96 00:04:58.279 --> 00:05:01.560 and mortar with gigabytes of catalog Coat to day, though 97 00:05:01.639 --> 00:05:04.560 as I go through the opening routines, looking returns, checking hold's, 98 00:05:04.600 --> 00:05:08.160 slotting unreadable donations into the evaluation boxmer mind keeps reaching 99 00:05:08.160 --> 00:05:10.399 for the black book. It sits at the bottom of 100 00:05:10.439 --> 00:05:13.000 a lock drawer, nestled next to my own spiral notebook. 101 00:05:13.560 --> 00:05:15.480 If anyone asked, I'd say it was found among on 102 00:05:15.600 --> 00:05:18.439 cattaloged manuscripts, a catch or category that has covered every 103 00:05:18.439 --> 00:05:22.399 form of mystery over my tenure. Marge, circulation assistant, Gray 104 00:05:22.439 --> 00:05:25.240 barb piercing look always a step ahead of me. Nabbs 105 00:05:25.240 --> 00:05:27.199 a stack of returns before I can reach for them. 106 00:05:27.680 --> 00:05:30.680 Here are on mapchuv Finch, she calls, meaning another of 107 00:05:30.720 --> 00:05:34.639 mister Abernathy's requests. Marge claims to prefer peace, but is 108 00:05:34.720 --> 00:05:37.920 universally considered the library as an official ombudsman. Chaos emits 109 00:05:37.920 --> 00:05:41.120 when she walks the stacks, oh mar our, weakened student 110 00:05:41.199 --> 00:05:43.600 page bounds in at eight one eight m back pacaf 111 00:05:43.639 --> 00:05:45.560 set and hair sticking up with the optimism of some 112 00:05:45.600 --> 00:05:49.560 one under twenty Any interesting donations if he asks every day. 113 00:05:50.160 --> 00:05:52.839 He once spent an entire Saturday catalog in a cardboard 114 00:05:52.879 --> 00:05:54.879 box of marbles and declared it the beginning of a 115 00:05:54.959 --> 00:05:59.399 tactile collection. There are other regulars. Misto Abernathi, of course, 116 00:05:59.480 --> 00:06:02.000 who spends most of his afternoons debating the provements of 117 00:06:02.000 --> 00:06:05.240 our crumbling eighteen nineties County Atlas. Miss Esselynn, a retired 118 00:06:05.279 --> 00:06:07.879 school teacher and amateur local historian who favors the reading 119 00:06:07.920 --> 00:06:10.680 alcove outside reference g and the parade of children's group 120 00:06:10.759 --> 00:06:14.560 leaders trailing sticky finger charges through story hour. They provide 121 00:06:14.560 --> 00:06:18.199 the landscape for my working days. Our procedures are finely tuned. 122 00:06:18.920 --> 00:06:22.720 Acquisitions are logged by hand an online every item receives 123 00:06:22.720 --> 00:06:26.240 at three stage and take record, inspect shell fan where possible, 124 00:06:26.279 --> 00:06:29.480 digitize at day's en The closing suite of the stacks 125 00:06:29.519 --> 00:06:32.839 is a sacred ritual. We find misplaced biographies, the odd 126 00:06:32.839 --> 00:06:35.079 stuffed animal and once a set of keys from nineteen 127 00:06:35.160 --> 00:06:39.439 seventy two reappearing between dictionaries. Marge claims buildings leos grow 128 00:06:39.439 --> 00:06:41.879 a strange crop of loose ends. There is a running 129 00:06:41.959 --> 00:06:45.959 joke in staff meetings about unexplained reappearances. Once we found 130 00:06:45.959 --> 00:06:48.399 a library card dated nineteen sixty four typed in the 131 00:06:48.439 --> 00:06:51.120 mechanics section of Popular Science, though the card holder had 132 00:06:51.160 --> 00:06:54.279 never lived in ten Another time, Omar insisted he shelved 133 00:06:54.319 --> 00:06:56.600 to donate a chess manual, only to find it replaced 134 00:06:56.600 --> 00:06:58.759 with a slim address book, trapping a press violet between 135 00:06:58.800 --> 00:07:02.560 its pages. These incidents are chalked up to miss filing overwork, 136 00:07:02.600 --> 00:07:06.199 flux entroby, and the endless shuffling of volunteers. But none 137 00:07:06.240 --> 00:07:08.360 of these recurring fleas in the system have looked or 138 00:07:08.360 --> 00:07:10.439 felt quite like the Black Book slumbering at the bottom 139 00:07:10.480 --> 00:07:12.839 of my drawer. By a lunch time, I have memorized 140 00:07:12.839 --> 00:07:15.439 half a dozen of its entries, torn between suspicion, amusement, 141 00:07:15.519 --> 00:07:18.639 and something I cannot quite name. I update my own notebook, 142 00:07:18.680 --> 00:07:21.439 which serves as both confessional and audit log for oddities. 143 00:07:22.079 --> 00:07:25.360 One entry reads Black Book and known author, cross referencing 144 00:07:25.399 --> 00:07:29.519 impossible locations not in catalog, staff ledgers or archieves possible 145 00:07:29.519 --> 00:07:32.759 prank test. I finish my sandwich in the reading room's 146 00:07:32.800 --> 00:07:37.160 northeast corner, sun slanting and curiously. The building seems RESTful today, 147 00:07:37.160 --> 00:07:39.720 at the deep quiet of a community space between major projects. 148 00:07:40.439 --> 00:07:44.240 Somewhere upstairs march clatter's trays. I consider sharing the fine 149 00:07:44.240 --> 00:07:46.879 demarge as her own suspicions about items that shouldn't be, 150 00:07:46.920 --> 00:07:49.759 but decide against it, not until I have more. At 151 00:07:49.800 --> 00:07:52.279 my next opportunity, I pulled the black book from hiding and, 152 00:07:52.560 --> 00:07:54.920 feeling somewhat ridiculous. She is the first entry I find 153 00:07:54.959 --> 00:07:56.920 that is odd enough to prove a debunk Whatever is 154 00:07:56.959 --> 00:08:00.600 going on vent Ductucy for copper Coin eighteen seventy nine 155 00:08:00.639 --> 00:08:04.279 status pending return two C four isn't a designation I 156 00:08:04.319 --> 00:08:07.759 recognize Still, I have explored the byways of this library 157 00:08:07.800 --> 00:08:10.839 longer than most. I recall that back hallway, a detO 158 00:08:10.879 --> 00:08:13.600 off the old staff lounge, where a small rarely use 159 00:08:13.680 --> 00:08:16.120 vent sits at any height. Armed with my old step 160 00:08:16.240 --> 00:08:18.319 sail and a thin bladed knife, the universal keys of 161 00:08:18.319 --> 00:08:20.839 a librarian's trade, I wheel my cargo into the corridor. 162 00:08:21.480 --> 00:08:25.560 No one else around overheat the old light flickers, dare 163 00:08:25.639 --> 00:08:30.000 spells faintly metallic and dusty with a tang of linnoleum wax. Kneeling, 164 00:08:30.079 --> 00:08:32.879 I squint at the vent cover. Its streaked with dust, 165 00:08:32.919 --> 00:08:34.960 as neglected as the rest of the forgotten hallway, But 166 00:08:35.000 --> 00:08:37.159 the screws are only lightly tarnished, testament to the fact 167 00:08:37.240 --> 00:08:40.600 that cleaning crews leave these spaces undisturbed. My hands work 168 00:08:40.600 --> 00:08:43.039 the knife under the top right screw, just a gentle pry. 169 00:08:43.639 --> 00:08:46.879 The cover gives way. Inside. Tipped awkwardly to the inner 170 00:08:46.960 --> 00:08:49.799 lip is a coin. I'm not sure which surprises me 171 00:08:49.879 --> 00:08:51.840 more that the coin is there or how exactly it 172 00:08:51.879 --> 00:08:54.600 matches the description in the black book. I tug it 173 00:08:54.679 --> 00:08:57.600 free and cradled in my palm. A u As penny 174 00:08:57.600 --> 00:09:01.399 eighteen seventy nine. It surfaces me warned them by age, 175 00:09:01.399 --> 00:09:04.480 but the date is unmistakable. Someone could have planted it, 176 00:09:04.559 --> 00:09:07.320 I reason, But who would bother and white choose vent 177 00:09:07.360 --> 00:09:10.639 in a disused corridor. More importantly, how would anyone know 178 00:09:10.679 --> 00:09:12.919 I'd find it? I pocket the corn and make my 179 00:09:12.960 --> 00:09:15.440 way back. Feeling for the first time in years, A 180 00:09:15.559 --> 00:09:18.519 shaft of anticipation cut through my routine. At my desk, 181 00:09:18.559 --> 00:09:20.919 I scanned the coin into the digital catalog, running a 182 00:09:20.960 --> 00:09:24.519 query for any related entries. The system returns an easier 183 00:09:25.120 --> 00:09:27.080 The oldest entry for coin in the library arch i've 184 00:09:27.120 --> 00:09:29.960 refers to a nineteen twenty five Liberty half dollar, now lost, 185 00:09:30.080 --> 00:09:32.840 last signed out in nineteen eighty one. There's nothing about 186 00:09:32.840 --> 00:09:35.960 an eighteen seventeen nine penny. Certainly nothing stashed an event. 187 00:09:36.720 --> 00:09:38.960 For good measure, I checked the old paper ledges, though 188 00:09:39.039 --> 00:09:42.480 stern yellowed volumes kept under a lock in Marge's office, 189 00:09:42.559 --> 00:09:45.759 Each item acquired since nineteen forty seven as a hundreton lock. 190 00:09:46.480 --> 00:09:49.759 No mention of copper coin, bent or anything close. The 191 00:09:49.799 --> 00:09:53.000 Black Book entry TC four point one bears no resemblance 192 00:09:53.000 --> 00:09:55.200 to the g decimal Tinge system we've used since the war. 193 00:09:55.799 --> 00:09:57.799 I know this because I once spent three months and 194 00:09:57.879 --> 00:10:00.600 most of a summer reading the acquisition locks. As project 195 00:10:01.240 --> 00:10:05.320 our records are exhaustive, the contradiction is total. Here in 196 00:10:05.320 --> 00:10:07.360 my hand is a coin detailed down to its hiding 197 00:10:07.360 --> 00:10:09.600 spot in a book. No one should have a book 198 00:10:09.600 --> 00:10:12.240 that describes the unfindable in tones. Only someone intimate with 199 00:10:12.240 --> 00:10:15.399 the building could know. Was this coin always there, overlooked 200 00:10:15.440 --> 00:10:18.320 for decades? Did it appear because I read about it? 201 00:10:18.799 --> 00:10:20.600 I dismissed the thought as treading too close to the 202 00:10:20.639 --> 00:10:23.879 odd logic of story hour magical thinking. But it nags 203 00:10:23.879 --> 00:10:26.240 at the edges of my mind. I slip the penny 204 00:10:26.240 --> 00:10:29.000 into an envelope, label it and lock it away. Then, 205 00:10:29.039 --> 00:10:32.279 almost guiltily, I retrieved the Black Book back at my desk. 206 00:10:32.399 --> 00:10:35.000 I start marking the entries likely to be testable. I 207 00:10:35.080 --> 00:10:37.559 know this isn't a prank. It's far too intricate for 208 00:10:37.559 --> 00:10:40.039 a prank. What I don't know yet as if the 209 00:10:40.039 --> 00:10:42.159 story this book tells will make sense in any language. 210 00:10:42.159 --> 00:10:45.519 I know that afternoon, instead of sorting bulk returns, I 211 00:10:45.600 --> 00:10:48.080 chase done three further intries from the Black Book, quietly 212 00:10:48.080 --> 00:10:51.159 so no questions are asked. The next entry on page 213 00:10:51.200 --> 00:10:56.240 seventeen reads photograph Sebia cracked storage closet behind lower plaster 214 00:10:56.320 --> 00:11:00.120 panel status pending relocation the storage supply clause as it 215 00:11:00.159 --> 00:11:03.240 sits under the west stairs. I fetch my utility knife, 216 00:11:03.320 --> 00:11:05.600 opened the batted wooden door, and set about examining the 217 00:11:05.600 --> 00:11:08.799 lower walmorut of curiosity than belief. But after a few 218 00:11:08.840 --> 00:11:11.200 moments of gentle prodding, the loose panel at Uncle hype 219 00:11:11.200 --> 00:11:14.480 Pop's free with little effort, there wedged in the dark 220 00:11:14.679 --> 00:11:17.039 is an old photograph a boy hour old reading corner 221 00:11:17.120 --> 00:11:19.879 pre renovation visible just behind him, his smile faded by 222 00:11:19.879 --> 00:11:22.440 the years, and a faint be increasing the curled corners. 223 00:11:23.120 --> 00:11:25.799 I press a faught between two pieces of paper. The 224 00:11:25.840 --> 00:11:28.879 handwriting on the back is blowed by water damage. There 225 00:11:28.919 --> 00:11:32.279 is no inventory sticker, no acquisition stamp. I check the 226 00:11:32.279 --> 00:11:36.120 digital cattle of no match. The original photograph files lot 227 00:11:36.200 --> 00:11:39.799 during the library centennial do not include this artifact. I 228 00:11:39.919 --> 00:11:43.519 choose another entrury Matt Brittle pencil annotated behind porter Cash 229 00:11:43.559 --> 00:11:47.799 twenty two East Hall status pending review even after twenty years. 230 00:11:47.840 --> 00:11:50.519 The numbering system for the portraits in East Hall challenges me. 231 00:11:51.200 --> 00:11:54.399 Some are original, others added as dedications to departing board 232 00:11:54.399 --> 00:11:57.639 members or generous owners. Hash twenty two is a dour 233 00:11:57.679 --> 00:12:00.600 oil painting of Missus Creswell, who donated THELA Libraries for 234 00:12:00.639 --> 00:12:04.120 at set of encyclopedias. Carefully, I run my gloved handle 235 00:12:04.200 --> 00:12:06.759 on the frame's back and discover a thin folded map 236 00:12:06.799 --> 00:12:09.320 talked into a corner. The map shows the town as 237 00:12:09.320 --> 00:12:12.120 it stood in nineteen ten. Annotations in a shaky script 238 00:12:12.159 --> 00:12:15.960 identifying business as gardens. The vanished mill. Another find as 239 00:12:15.960 --> 00:12:19.639 precise as the black books. There no catalog record, no 240 00:12:19.799 --> 00:12:22.559 memory of having seen it before. I mark off a 241 00:12:22.600 --> 00:12:26.440 fourth entry. Tucked behind circulation disk ledges. In the supply closet, 242 00:12:26.480 --> 00:12:29.960 I find a sealed envelope, yellowed and marked pending. Inside 243 00:12:30.039 --> 00:12:32.440 is a library card from nineteen twenty three, issued to 244 00:12:32.559 --> 00:12:34.879 Thomas Flynn, a name I cannot find anywhere in our 245 00:12:34.879 --> 00:12:38.960 digital arcurve. Each retrieval is more unsettling and more intoxicating 246 00:12:38.960 --> 00:12:41.720 than the last. The aems are not simply hidden, They 247 00:12:41.720 --> 00:12:45.480 are placed waiting for someone with the right instructions. Whenever 248 00:12:45.519 --> 00:12:47.919 shelve the eighteen seventy nine coins, now in a padded box, 249 00:12:48.080 --> 00:12:51.480 meticulously labeled by me, it vanishes again. That evening I 250 00:12:51.559 --> 00:12:53.879 check the black book. Its entry is now annotated last 251 00:12:53.919 --> 00:12:57.679 three shelved, five Waldepham, pending next retrieval. No one entered 252 00:12:57.720 --> 00:13:01.519 my office between four enclosing. After hours, I start comparing 253 00:13:01.559 --> 00:13:04.679 the official inventory with what I've found. I'm not simply 254 00:13:04.679 --> 00:13:08.039 looking for concordance any more. I'm convinced there is none. 255 00:13:08.559 --> 00:13:11.960 The digital catalog, so proud in its completeness, fails every measure. 256 00:13:12.559 --> 00:13:15.360 The old ledgers, with their widow Gothic script only amplified 257 00:13:15.399 --> 00:13:18.600 avisibility of these finds. If these are the remnants of 258 00:13:18.639 --> 00:13:22.120 some previous age, they have coupled themselves from any traceable provements. 259 00:13:22.720 --> 00:13:26.039 I walk the building searching for patterns. I recognize the 260 00:13:26.080 --> 00:13:28.440 odd personal detail in some of the books entries. Mistori's 261 00:13:28.440 --> 00:13:30.960 tucneya spots. Marge lingers with her crossword and tea on 262 00:13:31.080 --> 00:13:33.399 ear the tall reading steel Omar likes when he shoving 263 00:13:33.440 --> 00:13:36.840 returns during lunch break, sitting on the marked up floor plans. 264 00:13:36.919 --> 00:13:39.559 Omar ambles by with an old six sided, dye yellowed 265 00:13:39.559 --> 00:13:42.759 and oddly heavy. Look what I found under the catalog console, 266 00:13:42.799 --> 00:13:44.840 he says, spinning it between his thumb and middle finger. 267 00:13:45.480 --> 00:13:48.399 Weird ray. Wonder where it came from. To him, it 268 00:13:48.440 --> 00:13:51.159 is a sign of cheerful randomness. I gnaw it, though 269 00:13:51.159 --> 00:13:54.799 the curiosity tug's deeper now. Later that week, Marge recounts, 270 00:13:54.840 --> 00:13:57.159 with half a laugh, discovering a delicate press violet in 271 00:13:57.159 --> 00:14:00.519 a nineteen fifties children's book. She shrugged it. Often these 272 00:14:00.519 --> 00:14:03.039 old buildings, they accumulate more than dust, But her tone 273 00:14:03.039 --> 00:14:06.360 betrays the smallest trace of wonder. Miss Cese Lynne perching 274 00:14:06.440 --> 00:14:09.480 on her customary window seat with a pile of genealogical charts, 275 00:14:09.480 --> 00:14:11.879 hands me a note she found tucked into her reference volume, 276 00:14:11.919 --> 00:14:13.840 a slip of yellowing paper with an inked thank you 277 00:14:13.879 --> 00:14:18.200 for noticing. Even ceses Lynn so practical grins. It's like 278 00:14:18.240 --> 00:14:22.120 the library knows me. I note this confluence. The Black Book, 279 00:14:22.159 --> 00:14:25.720 for its part, continues evolving. Some entry shift, New ones 280 00:14:25.759 --> 00:14:29.159 appear and vanish without my intervention. It has its own rhythm, 281 00:14:29.200 --> 00:14:32.399 answering a question, only half out looking for more data. 282 00:14:32.519 --> 00:14:35.240 I checked my hypothesis. Perhaps some one is placing these things, 283 00:14:35.240 --> 00:14:37.639 playing a heavily cured a game with me and by extension, 284 00:14:37.840 --> 00:14:41.159 with staff, except everything about the item's age and location, 285 00:14:41.240 --> 00:14:42.960 the cracked en, the loc glue of the faded ink, 286 00:14:43.080 --> 00:14:46.519 the press Bristol matz Robut's any modern middling. Other entries 287 00:14:46.519 --> 00:14:49.159 in the Black Book are marked with ambiguous statuses currently 288 00:14:49.159 --> 00:14:54.080 out for relocation, pending return, or temporarily shelved elsewhere. Sometimes 289 00:14:54.120 --> 00:14:56.440 after I retrieve an item, it disappears from both its 290 00:14:56.480 --> 00:14:58.559 hiding plays and the book's lock, as if my discovery 291 00:14:58.559 --> 00:15:01.039 has written its own ledger. The coin in the vent 292 00:15:01.159 --> 00:15:04.480 is especially acute after reshelving it for documentation, and returning 293 00:15:04.559 --> 00:15:06.799 just hours later. Both the coin and its book entry 294 00:15:06.840 --> 00:15:10.159 are nowhere to be found. Marge As casually remembers nothing 295 00:15:10.240 --> 00:15:12.320 unusual about the vent, except that it is cold in winter. 296 00:15:13.039 --> 00:15:16.039 One afternoon, leafing for requisitionion records and the last of 297 00:15:16.039 --> 00:15:18.720 the paper ledgers, I stumble on a repeated almost code 298 00:15:18.720 --> 00:15:21.159 of reference to untracted items and excess curios a, but 299 00:15:21.240 --> 00:15:24.399 never these particular objects. It as if the system for 300 00:15:24.480 --> 00:15:27.639 decades has been correctly logging every type of book and artifact, 301 00:15:27.720 --> 00:15:30.799 but these anomalies have always hidden just outside the system's grasp. 302 00:15:31.360 --> 00:15:34.879 The evidence amunts of contradiction, stacked upon contradiction. If someone 303 00:15:34.960 --> 00:15:36.799 is playing a trick, they are an archavist of the 304 00:15:36.840 --> 00:15:39.440 highest order and have outwitted nearly a century of staff. 305 00:15:40.039 --> 00:15:42.120 If not, I am forced to ask whether the very 306 00:15:42.200 --> 00:15:45.399 architecture of the collection has become self organizing, selective, or 307 00:15:45.480 --> 00:15:48.919 even self aware in some strange archival sense. The rational 308 00:15:48.960 --> 00:15:52.360 explanations dwindle with each tests I conduct. A part of me, 309 00:15:52.480 --> 00:15:55.519 perhaps the smallest, least skeptical puff, begins to wonder if 310 00:15:55.519 --> 00:15:58.759 it is my curiosity itself the desummoning these discoveries, or 311 00:15:58.759 --> 00:16:01.120 if the act of looking some ash makes the untrackable 312 00:16:01.120 --> 00:16:05.159 slide interview, and then unexpectedly a second black book appears, 313 00:16:05.159 --> 00:16:08.240 provoking a deeper mystery. It happens on a gray Tuesday, 314 00:16:08.320 --> 00:16:10.320 the kind when even the birds seem to have abandoned. 315 00:16:10.320 --> 00:16:13.519 The box would outside the main entrance. I cross indexing 316 00:16:13.559 --> 00:16:15.639 reference works, the kind of task that ties up the 317 00:16:15.679 --> 00:16:18.480 hands but leaves a mind free to wander. While going 318 00:16:18.519 --> 00:16:21.039 through a set of batter draws beneath the County record alcove, 319 00:16:21.120 --> 00:16:23.120 my hand closes on a slim volume I am certain 320 00:16:23.159 --> 00:16:25.919 has always been empty. It is smaller than the first 321 00:16:26.000 --> 00:16:28.919 bound in a dull mate black without a single distinguishing mark. 322 00:16:29.519 --> 00:16:32.000 I thumb it open and feel my breath pause. The 323 00:16:32.039 --> 00:16:34.879 handwriting match is the first book's elegance, but the content 324 00:16:34.960 --> 00:16:37.759 is different. None of the items mirror the previous log 325 00:16:37.919 --> 00:16:42.320 yet the structure is nearly identical item code location status. 326 00:16:42.919 --> 00:16:45.559 These code schemes use still another logic, some hybrid of 327 00:16:45.559 --> 00:16:49.200 staff initials, previated shelving numbers. The odd architectural note behind 328 00:16:49.240 --> 00:16:52.559 brace window at a corridored. The most unnerving aspect comes 329 00:16:52.600 --> 00:16:55.600 not from the overlap, but from the difference. Each entry 330 00:16:55.600 --> 00:16:57.879 here references locations and items. I am sure I have 331 00:16:58.000 --> 00:17:01.519 never noticed children's lot jeekes, a fresh painted edge, status 332 00:17:01.519 --> 00:17:05.519 seeking resolution or archive, Kabby far West stack and set 333 00:17:05.559 --> 00:17:09.160 type finchcov faintly on base. The code structure seems increase 334 00:17:09.160 --> 00:17:11.200 in the tune to my own habits. The very places 335 00:17:11.240 --> 00:17:13.559 I frequent, the peculiar knooks are clean, the desks and 336 00:17:13.599 --> 00:17:17.119 clippings I revisit during my wanderings. To test my suspicion, 337 00:17:17.200 --> 00:17:19.559 I select an entry at random and consciously decide not 338 00:17:19.599 --> 00:17:22.480 to check it. I wait a week, even ask Emar 339 00:17:22.519 --> 00:17:25.799 and Marge to pay careful attention when traversing. Thereby, nothing 340 00:17:25.880 --> 00:17:29.480 is found. The item remains totally invisible to even determined 341 00:17:29.680 --> 00:17:33.000 innocent searches by others. It's only when I resolved to 342 00:17:33.000 --> 00:17:35.799 look myself on a doll list's Thursday curiosity pecking that 343 00:17:35.839 --> 00:17:38.359 I find tucked behind the tinyatic window casement, a brittle 344 00:17:38.359 --> 00:17:40.640 wooden JIGX of fragment, a painter to patch, just catching 345 00:17:40.680 --> 00:17:43.960 the light. The item exists, it seems only for those 346 00:17:44.000 --> 00:17:47.359 who pursue it knowingly. At lunch approach, the subject to 347 00:17:47.440 --> 00:17:49.680 margin in the form of a gentle joke of maintenance oddities. 348 00:17:49.720 --> 00:17:53.720 I call them marge practicals. Granite offers up her own tail, 349 00:17:53.839 --> 00:17:56.519 discovering some years back a handful of marbles in the 350 00:17:56.599 --> 00:17:58.759 hint of a now vanished storage cupboard, and returning them 351 00:17:58.759 --> 00:18:02.960 to the right child. When pressed for detail, she misremembers colors, location, 352 00:18:03.200 --> 00:18:06.519 even the your, replacing memory with conjecture, she claims one 353 00:18:06.640 --> 00:18:09.160 was read. I recall only belue from my own indirect notes. 354 00:18:09.880 --> 00:18:12.039 The narrative slips and shakes, as if built not on 355 00:18:12.119 --> 00:18:16.359 fat but on interlocking, shifting recollections. The implications are unsettling 356 00:18:16.440 --> 00:18:19.960 but fascinating. What if, I wonder, every person who spends 357 00:18:20.039 --> 00:18:22.480 long enough in the library receives their own tailored inventory, 358 00:18:22.519 --> 00:18:24.400 a secret log, but keyed to the rooms and routines 359 00:18:24.440 --> 00:18:27.799 of their own, making something in me shivers, not with fear, 360 00:18:27.839 --> 00:18:31.240 but with recognition. Is this a co operative illusion, a 361 00:18:31.319 --> 00:18:34.200 room built from the leanings of each new inhabitant? Or 362 00:18:34.240 --> 00:18:36.559 something suller in architecture, not of bricks, but of attention, 363 00:18:36.839 --> 00:18:39.920 inflecting the very pattern of discovery. As a days pass, 364 00:18:39.960 --> 00:18:43.359 the phenomenon expands. More entries appear in each book, each 365 00:18:43.400 --> 00:18:46.160 one echoing spaces that feel lately, as if they complicit 366 00:18:46.200 --> 00:18:48.599 in the ritual, especially those corners have claimed as my own. 367 00:18:49.160 --> 00:18:51.960 The library, it seems, is not only storing objects I find, 368 00:18:52.000 --> 00:18:54.559 but shaping the rhythm, the tempo of my looking. With 369 00:18:54.640 --> 00:18:57.559 this growing suspicion, I dig deeper into the library's driest, 370 00:18:57.720 --> 00:19:00.920 least entered storms, intend on opening the final frontier of paperwork. 371 00:19:01.039 --> 00:19:04.559 Those masty, batted envelopes every one else considers lost causes 372 00:19:05.160 --> 00:19:07.400 I do not discard. They worn and faded blue ink 373 00:19:08.000 --> 00:19:10.160 lot draws yield to my key. Even the old sailing 374 00:19:10.200 --> 00:19:13.279 fan closet behind the circulation desk surrenders a battered box 375 00:19:13.319 --> 00:19:16.279 of papers, tide with string older than my tenure. Inside 376 00:19:16.319 --> 00:19:19.240 amidless receipts and drafts of acquisition forms, I find a 377 00:19:19.240 --> 00:19:23.200 treasure trove that seizes my pulse. Handritten legislated back as 378 00:19:23.200 --> 00:19:26.319 far as the nineteen fifties. Some pen in a fully script, 379 00:19:26.400 --> 00:19:29.599 others careful blocky caps. Each volume is a relic of 380 00:19:29.640 --> 00:19:32.240 their error. But what unites them is amistakable list of 381 00:19:32.240 --> 00:19:34.880 objects that mirror and spirit, but not in substance. Those 382 00:19:34.880 --> 00:19:38.839 are my own black books, bakeolct com s, subwing coroda, 383 00:19:38.960 --> 00:19:41.720 marble playing cart, designated I F Minies twelve stack and 384 00:19:41.759 --> 00:19:45.400 unmatched Gloabe Children's Alcoho passed by twice. The handwriting and 385 00:19:45.440 --> 00:19:48.680 coding systems differ. One librarian makes ornate notations ano though 386 00:19:48.720 --> 00:19:52.720 less sixcinct debreviations, but the underlying pattern is consistent. Each 387 00:19:52.759 --> 00:19:56.160 cataloga seems to have forged an idiosyncratic, deeply personal pattern 388 00:19:56.200 --> 00:19:58.880 of referencing notes on places they alone seem to have 389 00:19:58.960 --> 00:20:03.039 known best. Some locations are no longer available. Tout subwing 390 00:20:03.160 --> 00:20:06.680 now bricked off one margin notes with delicate frustration, scold 391 00:20:06.680 --> 00:20:08.759 and margins or queries and admissions. Did I find to 392 00:20:08.759 --> 00:20:11.960 see yesterday or only remember searching for it? Missus Hildebrand 393 00:20:11.960 --> 00:20:14.599 says she once saw a gold button, but no record exists. 394 00:20:15.279 --> 00:20:18.519 Emotions flicker fraught, joy in the successful find, irritation at 395 00:20:18.559 --> 00:20:21.720 lost objects, melancholy for the spaces that no longer exist. 396 00:20:22.440 --> 00:20:25.279 When I consult Marge, she squints at the handwriting. Old 397 00:20:25.279 --> 00:20:27.279 mister Keyes used to sit by the fire door writing 398 00:20:27.279 --> 00:20:30.680 his secret system, she muses, half amused. He always said 399 00:20:30.680 --> 00:20:32.799 you had to keep track of what the library collects itself, 400 00:20:32.920 --> 00:20:35.039 not just the intake. Used to mutter that sometimes the 401 00:20:35.039 --> 00:20:37.400