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 --> 00:00:11.080 are here, Let's get into it. They say that a 3 00:00:11.080 --> 00:00:13.640 decent catalogy should believe at least a little that there 4 00:00:13.679 --> 00:00:15.880 was an order to things. I used to beat at 5 00:00:15.880 --> 00:00:18.600 sort of cattleger pencils lined above my ledger cards filed 6 00:00:18.600 --> 00:00:21.399 by the hundreds in their neat warden coffins, every faded heading, 7 00:00:21.440 --> 00:00:24.359 scrupulously observed cross references, laid like the lines on a 8 00:00:24.440 --> 00:00:27.640 city map. My name is Martha Feld, and most days 9 00:00:27.679 --> 00:00:29.839 I'd have said that everything that could be cataloged had been. 10 00:00:30.320 --> 00:00:33.479 But these days I sometimes find myself reaching for explanations 11 00:00:33.479 --> 00:00:35.600 that slip like a dropped indexed card under the stacks. 12 00:00:36.280 --> 00:00:38.560 It began with the favorite to Missess Alberson, who at 13 00:00:38.600 --> 00:00:40.479 eighty three, moved like a moth through light at one, 14 00:00:40.520 --> 00:00:42.880 shy and startling, showing up with some sudden request just 15 00:00:42.880 --> 00:00:45.359 as I had settled into the check in desk. The 16 00:00:45.399 --> 00:00:47.920 main room was lively that morning, sunlight pulling on the 17 00:00:47.920 --> 00:00:50.399 patterned parquet floor, the air humming gently with the morning 18 00:00:50.399 --> 00:00:53.479 crowd's skull shilterned yank through by hurried appearance retirees circling 19 00:00:53.520 --> 00:00:56.759 the newspaper. Stand students barricaded in study cubicles with coffee 20 00:00:56.799 --> 00:01:00.960 cups sweating on the sconces. Oh, Martha, missus, says Alberton said, 21 00:01:01.039 --> 00:01:02.640 her hands in the pockets of a coat that had 22 00:01:02.640 --> 00:01:04.799 seen better winters. Could you help me look for book. 23 00:01:04.920 --> 00:01:07.079 It's a novel I think that I read as a girl, 24 00:01:07.159 --> 00:01:10.640 something about the moon. I smiled. Let's see if the 25 00:01:10.640 --> 00:01:14.079 old search magic still works. She followed at my elbow, 26 00:01:14.159 --> 00:01:16.519 and we drifted to the card catalog. Those long, sturdy 27 00:01:16.560 --> 00:01:19.319 wood drawers stained honey brown, their faces burnished by decades 28 00:01:19.359 --> 00:01:22.439 of thumbs, retired or not. I couldn't completely let go 29 00:01:23.159 --> 00:01:25.280 my self. Appointed us these days was simply to know 30 00:01:25.319 --> 00:01:27.959 where things weren't as much as where they were. Do 31 00:01:28.000 --> 00:01:32.040 you recall the author, I asked, not exactly. She said. 32 00:01:32.719 --> 00:01:35.040 It might have been k Something or Callaway, and the 33 00:01:35.040 --> 00:01:37.719 title something about the moon returning but silent. I know 34 00:01:37.799 --> 00:01:40.239 it sounds like a poem, but it was definitely a novel. 35 00:01:40.799 --> 00:01:43.400 I slid open the fiction section, letters that through m 36 00:01:43.480 --> 00:01:46.000 The faint perfume of dust and paper rose up. My 37 00:01:46.079 --> 00:01:48.519 fingers flicked through cards type Britifonts, a few in my 38 00:01:48.560 --> 00:01:51.280 own scrape, and the lovely, uneven peaks of decades old print, 39 00:01:51.879 --> 00:01:55.000 a love affair and yellowed card stock. Then amid the 40 00:01:55.079 --> 00:01:57.480 rows of Sepia in ink, My fingers rested on a 41 00:01:57.480 --> 00:01:59.959 cord so crisp it seemed to glow. Its edge was 42 00:02:00.120 --> 00:02:04.079 raisor sharp Christine cream paper, an elegant narrow black type 43 00:02:04.120 --> 00:02:07.319 machines font, but nothing I'd ever seen more graceful than 44 00:02:07.359 --> 00:02:11.080 any IBMS electric, almost caligraphic in its precision. The heading 45 00:02:11.159 --> 00:02:15.479 the Moon Silent Return underneath Sir Kay Callaway. I brushed 46 00:02:15.479 --> 00:02:18.080 my thumb over the card, almost expecting it to smear. 47 00:02:18.680 --> 00:02:22.400 It didn't. The print was absolute, no overstrikes, perfectly spaced, 48 00:02:23.080 --> 00:02:25.599 no penciled in catalogous code in the top corner, no 49 00:02:25.719 --> 00:02:28.960 barcode label or date, and certainly no sign from the 50 00:02:29.000 --> 00:02:31.039 stacks of fading cards around it that it belonged to 51 00:02:31.120 --> 00:02:34.000 any era of our library's record keeping, analog or digital. 52 00:02:34.520 --> 00:02:37.639 Beneath the title, the shelf mark fit coal. The card 53 00:02:37.680 --> 00:02:41.240 was impossibly entirely out of place. I frowned back, tricking 54 00:02:41.280 --> 00:02:44.599 to see if I'd miss similar cards before now, the 55 00:02:44.639 --> 00:02:47.599 ones around it of familiar finger prints, Mary Ann's careful script, 56 00:02:47.639 --> 00:02:50.360 my own wobbly corrections, dates and check in pencilings, a 57 00:02:50.400 --> 00:02:53.439 flake of biscuits stuck inside one. I laid the mysterious 58 00:02:53.439 --> 00:02:57.360 card on the counter. Misss Albertson crane to her neck. Funny, 59 00:02:57.479 --> 00:03:00.599 isn't it so new looking? That's not the usual style. No, 60 00:03:00.960 --> 00:03:04.360 I admitted. We haven't added to the card catalog in decades. 61 00:03:04.400 --> 00:03:07.520 Everything's been digital since I paused, well before this card 62 00:03:07.520 --> 00:03:09.639 could have come in. Do you think it to miss fair, 63 00:03:09.800 --> 00:03:13.520 she asked, some one playing a prank, not unless they 64 00:03:13.520 --> 00:03:16.800 were a master forger of library stells. I tried to laugh, 65 00:03:16.879 --> 00:03:20.240 but couldn't quite. The card was just too clean. Is 66 00:03:20.240 --> 00:03:22.840 it in a computer? She prompted. I turned to the 67 00:03:22.840 --> 00:03:26.319 public computer terminal tyed to the moon, silent return. Nothing, 68 00:03:27.039 --> 00:03:28.800 not a single hit in our system, nor in the 69 00:03:28.840 --> 00:03:33.680 regional and in database. No Sara Kay callaway, nothing even Zemla. 70 00:03:34.199 --> 00:03:36.879 And yet here it was a card, an author, a 71 00:03:36.960 --> 00:03:39.520 call number. I tapped it as if it might conjure 72 00:03:39.560 --> 00:03:42.439 at the rest of the answer. Well, I said, at last, 73 00:03:42.680 --> 00:03:44.719 let's stick to old habits. Let's check the shelf and 74 00:03:44.719 --> 00:03:47.439 see if it's a phantom or a misdonation. I slotted 75 00:03:47.479 --> 00:03:49.560 the mysterious card back into its drawer, didn't want to 76 00:03:49.599 --> 00:03:51.639 risk misplacing it, and led her deeper into the maze 77 00:03:51.680 --> 00:03:55.520 of fiction sea isle outside the sunlight sharpened glazing the 78 00:03:55.520 --> 00:03:59.199 front steps. I reminded myself that every system, no matter 79 00:03:59.240 --> 00:04:03.039 how besizes, has blind spots. Secretly, I felt my pulse quicken, 80 00:04:03.120 --> 00:04:06.400 not from fear, but from the paradox, the kind that suggests, 81 00:04:06.599 --> 00:04:10.000 just for a moment, that knowledge it's off my play tricks. Later, 82 00:04:10.080 --> 00:04:11.840 I would wish I'd paid more attention to the way 83 00:04:11.879 --> 00:04:14.039 the sunlight slant across the auflor at that moment of 84 00:04:14.080 --> 00:04:16.759 the brief almost expectant stillness in the stacks. As we 85 00:04:16.879 --> 00:04:19.920 left the old catalog room for now, however, my thoughts 86 00:04:19.920 --> 00:04:21.959 were simply, what was this doing here? And could it 87 00:04:22.000 --> 00:04:25.199 possibly belong? Retirement? As I've come to know, it does 88 00:04:25.240 --> 00:04:28.199 funny things to one's rhythms. I come in three mornings 89 00:04:28.199 --> 00:04:29.959 a week more if there is a crisis, lest if 90 00:04:29.959 --> 00:04:33.000 my knees are acting up. A library the Benton City 91 00:04:33.040 --> 00:04:36.800 Public has survived three renovations to historic designation squabbles and 92 00:04:36.839 --> 00:04:38.959 at least one fire in the arcas since I started 93 00:04:39.000 --> 00:04:41.879 as a page in nineteen seventy nine. I tell people 94 00:04:41.920 --> 00:04:45.399 It resembles an Ouster century old brickshell, a jumble of extensions, 95 00:04:45.439 --> 00:04:47.839 and as grown from modest grit, polished and beautiful in 96 00:04:47.879 --> 00:04:50.879 their disorder. There are places inside it that map only 97 00:04:50.959 --> 00:04:53.920 to each other. All reading rooms now serve as storage. 98 00:04:54.000 --> 00:04:56.720 New media labs have heat in the periodical's bay. The 99 00:04:56.759 --> 00:04:58.720 best way to get from the genealogy oc of to 100 00:04:58.720 --> 00:05:00.439 the children's story cave as a tame two four D 101 00:05:00.560 --> 00:05:03.240 to vide the nineteen fifty two mystery annexed the stairwell 102 00:05:03.279 --> 00:05:06.000 that moves and defines the blueprints from east to western 103 00:05:06.000 --> 00:05:09.279 alternate flors. Some of the sub basements are so critic 104 00:05:09.360 --> 00:05:12.079 that even janitorial staff stick to the main maintenance tunnels. 105 00:05:12.319 --> 00:05:15.160 And we've had over the years a not insignificant number 106 00:05:15.160 --> 00:05:17.600 of lost time incidents reported by night cleaners, though more 107 00:05:17.600 --> 00:05:20.720 often these prove to be napped culled between the oversized outlases. 108 00:05:21.399 --> 00:05:24.079 I'll admit to a certain pride in it. A library 109 00:05:24.120 --> 00:05:27.120 at a living organism, half lover and half all, and 110 00:05:27.199 --> 00:05:29.319 it is above all orderly in the sense that one 111 00:05:29.360 --> 00:05:32.519 comes to recognize the secrets each stack keeps. I keep 112 00:05:32.560 --> 00:05:36.160 the orator returning michelf books smoothing wrinkled jackets, sorting through 113 00:05:36.160 --> 00:05:38.600 new donations before they are process by staff who barely 114 00:05:38.600 --> 00:05:42.480 remember the DDC the Sacred Order. Yet, these days, with 115 00:05:42.560 --> 00:05:46.199 the digital system taking over cataloging shelf maps returns, all 116 00:05:46.199 --> 00:05:48.959 the old virtuals are fading. Parts don't even know what 117 00:05:49.040 --> 00:05:51.480 subject heading is, their train to keyward search, and give 118 00:05:51.560 --> 00:05:54.439 up when prompted for a series title. In the old days, 119 00:05:54.519 --> 00:05:57.439 book backs reveal the secret lineage for scruble marginalia and 120 00:05:57.519 --> 00:05:59.519 due date stamps. Now the best you gate is a 121 00:05:59.560 --> 00:06:02.600 barkeet that we once looped through Seattle. Danielle of Rio's 122 00:06:02.800 --> 00:06:05.639 ar tirelessly modern head librarian leads with energy that makes 123 00:06:05.639 --> 00:06:08.639 me tired to watch. She's wept, smart, fluent in the 124 00:06:08.639 --> 00:06:11.399 algorithmic gospel, and can organize a community read ath on 125 00:06:11.519 --> 00:06:14.160 with a snap on her iPad. But to her, the 126 00:06:14.160 --> 00:06:16.360 Sacred Order is mostly a puzzle in need of solution, 127 00:06:16.519 --> 00:06:20.519 an optimization problem, impatient for twenty first century logic. Then 128 00:06:20.560 --> 00:06:22.480 there's mister Harrow, the last true archi I've visit of 129 00:06:22.480 --> 00:06:25.680 his kind, white haired, always in a vesse, preferring fountain 130 00:06:25.720 --> 00:06:28.079 pens and the thin, quiet glide of all far folders. 131 00:06:28.720 --> 00:06:31.720 He says he knows every draft in the mainstacks. I 132 00:06:31.759 --> 00:06:33.879 believe him. I've chased him out of more forbidden sub 133 00:06:33.920 --> 00:06:35.879 levels than I can count, merging each time with new 134 00:06:35.959 --> 00:06:38.720 urban legends about the buildings founders on their medieval obsessions, 135 00:06:38.759 --> 00:06:42.680 with knowledge. Most days, my volunteer work is simple. Shall 136 00:06:42.759 --> 00:06:45.199 the returns create the regulars, advise the teenagers on the 137 00:06:45.240 --> 00:06:48.360 mysteries of the physical bibliography to day? For all that 138 00:06:48.399 --> 00:06:50.240 there was a thin twang of anticipation in the air, 139 00:06:50.920 --> 00:06:53.519 Maybe it was a memory of that mysterious card, but 140 00:06:53.680 --> 00:06:55.480 perhaps I was simply in a mood to notice the 141 00:06:55.480 --> 00:06:57.839 weighted geometry of the place sometimes didn't quite add up. 142 00:06:58.399 --> 00:07:00.800 There's the old index room, for one thing, a box 143 00:07:00.839 --> 00:07:03.319 of quiet between the main reading area and the microphone room, 144 00:07:03.360 --> 00:07:07.279 precisely where the original blueprint suggests a window should be instead, 145 00:07:07.399 --> 00:07:09.680 a perfect alcove designed for no other purpose than to 146 00:07:09.680 --> 00:07:12.959 shelter drawers of obsolete wisdom. I found myself drifting back 147 00:07:12.959 --> 00:07:15.360 toward the catalog during a break, aware of the low, 148 00:07:15.680 --> 00:07:18.160 almost solemnhush that lingers in those crowned isles, the hush 149 00:07:18.199 --> 00:07:21.519 that precedes moments of discovery. Here upon error, I noted 150 00:07:21.519 --> 00:07:24.079 each minor routine, the skull group moving as one organism 151 00:07:24.079 --> 00:07:26.600 through the educational displays, the warym of the returning a 152 00:07:26.600 --> 00:07:29.040 half chewed board book, the drama of a return DVD 153 00:07:29.120 --> 00:07:31.800 with water damage label, which usually meant a dog's mouth 154 00:07:31.800 --> 00:07:34.839 had been involved. The sense as always that for all 155 00:07:34.839 --> 00:07:37.480 our order, something older and quieter if threadit to every 156 00:07:37.480 --> 00:07:41.000 movement here occurrent beneath the varnish. The rituals matter to me. 157 00:07:41.600 --> 00:07:43.600 But in recent days I would begin to suspect that 158 00:07:43.639 --> 00:07:46.560 some rituals were not ours alone. The next morning, not 159 00:07:46.680 --> 00:07:49.480 quite twenty four hours since Missus Albertson's request, I found 160 00:07:49.480 --> 00:07:52.639 myself drawn back to the fictionsy isle. The strange card 161 00:07:52.720 --> 00:07:54.839 danced at the edge of memory, too fresh to forget, 162 00:07:54.879 --> 00:07:57.519 too art to trust your recollection. We get plenty of 163 00:07:57.560 --> 00:07:59.800 miss filed books in the occasional self published odity, but 164 00:07:59.839 --> 00:08:02.560 even when nise have paper trails. I decided to do 165 00:08:02.600 --> 00:08:05.240 what I had promised, to check the stacks. Whether to 166 00:08:05.279 --> 00:08:09.519 reassure Missess Abbotson or secretly myself, I couldn't say. Halfway 167 00:08:09.560 --> 00:08:12.360 down the aisle, wedged between long standing family soldiers and 168 00:08:12.399 --> 00:08:15.040 three better coppers of the celestial season, always popular. When 169 00:08:15.079 --> 00:08:17.839 the book Club cycles back to nineteen seventies domestic fiction. 170 00:08:17.959 --> 00:08:20.639 There it was a slim blue jacketed hard Byck, titled 171 00:08:20.680 --> 00:08:23.959 The Moon's Silent Return. The author in a delicate, almost 172 00:08:23.959 --> 00:08:28.160 metallic script, Sir qu Callaway. I frowned. There was something 173 00:08:28.199 --> 00:08:30.720 unnerving about as condition, a paradox of newness inside an 174 00:08:30.759 --> 00:08:33.799 agentdo's jacket, like a fox clerked as a rabbit. The 175 00:08:33.879 --> 00:08:35.759 letters on the spine were clean and eat the cover 176 00:08:35.840 --> 00:08:38.200 glossy but with a faint, even patterna as though it 177 00:08:38.240 --> 00:08:41.559 had spent years handled and then been painstakingly restored. I 178 00:08:41.600 --> 00:08:45.159 opened it to the copyright page copyright copyright twenty twenty 179 00:08:45.200 --> 00:08:48.320 one Calaway Press, but the page had yellowed unevenly, as 180 00:08:48.320 --> 00:08:53.399 if aged twenty or more years impossible. I fled through text, clean, 181 00:08:53.759 --> 00:08:56.279 no marginalia, the faintest scent of freshing beneath the must 182 00:08:56.279 --> 00:08:59.919 of time. I skimmed. The story was potent in its train. 183 00:09:00.960 --> 00:09:04.120 It described an intimate, almost in canny detail, or retired 184 00:09:04.120 --> 00:09:05.639 books layer who could have passed for me in the 185 00:09:05.679 --> 00:09:08.840 mere assisting and elderly patron seeking to recover half remembered stories. 186 00:09:09.399 --> 00:09:11.759 The plot wandered gently toward a festival named as the 187 00:09:11.879 --> 00:09:13.919 Very Street Fair, set to curR and bent in that weekend, 188 00:09:13.919 --> 00:09:17.679 the same tining, same events, even stranger. It described a 189 00:09:17.720 --> 00:09:19.639 fleeting scene brief to the point of vanishing, where in 190 00:09:19.679 --> 00:09:21.879 a named keeper of order helps a lost patron find 191 00:09:21.879 --> 00:09:25.039 her way out of a labyrinthine library wing a lifelike echo. 192 00:09:25.600 --> 00:09:28.080 It was too precise for coincidence, though the style, diction, 193 00:09:28.279 --> 00:09:31.759 and remoteness had the pearls of fiction. My first anxious thought, 194 00:09:31.879 --> 00:09:34.399 did someone write this as an elaborate prank for nostalgia's sake? 195 00:09:35.159 --> 00:09:37.600 But no staff member surely would procure a book so 196 00:09:37.679 --> 00:09:40.279 convincingly odd, nor slip it onto the shelf and noticed 197 00:09:40.320 --> 00:09:43.399 by even the most absent colleague. And anyway there would 198 00:09:43.440 --> 00:09:47.679 be records, acquisitions, donations, anything I checked. Not in the 199 00:09:47.720 --> 00:09:50.559 online holdings, not in the regional catalog, not even in 200 00:09:50.559 --> 00:09:53.840 the donor register. The barcode area was blank and scarred, 201 00:09:53.879 --> 00:09:55.919 except for a ghostly rectangle where a stick he might 202 00:09:55.919 --> 00:09:58.279 have once been. I brought the book to the front desk. 203 00:09:59.080 --> 00:10:01.600 Daniello was deep in e mail, but Lucy, a high 204 00:10:01.639 --> 00:10:03.919 school volunteer of bright girl with dyed green hair and 205 00:10:03.919 --> 00:10:06.639 a fondness for challenges. Peered at a cover part of 206 00:10:06.679 --> 00:10:09.679 some retro project, she asked, running a finger over the jacket. 207 00:10:10.200 --> 00:10:13.639 Looks fake vantage cool though? Is itself published? Not that 208 00:10:13.759 --> 00:10:16.759 I can find. There's nothing on the database. I've fought 209 00:10:16.759 --> 00:10:18.879 down a growing sense of privileged privilege of being the 210 00:10:18.879 --> 00:10:21.200 one to notice, the one to feel the library testing 211 00:10:21.240 --> 00:10:26.320 its own boundaries. Lucy shrugged, unconcerned. Maybe it's a unicorn 212 00:10:26.360 --> 00:10:29.720 donation or some one's experimenting. She snapped a quick photo 213 00:10:29.720 --> 00:10:32.120 of the cover with her phone word do things have 214 00:10:32.159 --> 00:10:36.039 happened here? Missus Albertson, summoned by a call, smiled dreamily 215 00:10:36.039 --> 00:10:39.000 when presented with the volume. Yes, this is the one, 216 00:10:39.159 --> 00:10:42.559 or close enough. She've flipped the cover. You'll let me 217 00:10:42.639 --> 00:10:45.039 check it out if you don't mind a paper slip. 218 00:10:45.080 --> 00:10:49.080 No bock oed, I cautioned. She wasn't bothered. Sometimes I 219 00:10:49.080 --> 00:10:51.440 think the best books of the ones nobody is written down. 220 00:10:52.120 --> 00:10:54.519 She took her time, then strolled out into the bright morning, 221 00:10:54.639 --> 00:10:58.200 humming an implacable tune. I watched her go, uncertain whether 222 00:10:58.240 --> 00:11:01.440 I'd offered her anything real. I lingered, leafing through the 223 00:11:01.480 --> 00:11:04.039 novel again. Here was a record that could not have 224 00:11:04.080 --> 00:11:08.039 surfaced for ordinary mechanisms of physical artifact, catalog yet not cataloged, 225 00:11:08.080 --> 00:11:10.519 embedded both among the living mechers and somehow beyond them, 226 00:11:10.559 --> 00:11:14.919 it very exists, quietly dismantling my notion of orderliness. The library, 227 00:11:14.960 --> 00:11:17.519 i reminded myself, was old, But this was stranger than 228 00:11:17.519 --> 00:11:21.000 traditional mere human error. It felt if anything like the 229 00:11:21.000 --> 00:11:23.720 beginning of a story still casting for its meaning. The 230 00:11:23.759 --> 00:11:26.240 contradiction seemed to whisper. If something can be out of time, 231 00:11:26.279 --> 00:11:29.159 can a catalog be out of space? Can a library 232 00:11:29.200 --> 00:11:31.879 truly erase the boundaries between the known they remembered and 233 00:11:31.919 --> 00:11:34.840 the possible? It wasn't the last time the catalog would 234 00:11:34.879 --> 00:11:36.840 trick me, but it was the last time I assumed 235 00:11:36.840 --> 00:11:39.799 such trickery was at Stendal. In the days that followed, 236 00:11:39.840 --> 00:11:42.360 I watched daily rhythms with a new edge. I took 237 00:11:42.399 --> 00:11:44.720 up small habits and notebook in my pocket for stray thoughts, 238 00:11:44.799 --> 00:11:48.000 a slower, more deliberate walk through the aisles. I checked 239 00:11:48.000 --> 00:11:51.279 the carved catalog twice daily, brushing dust from little used drawers, 240 00:11:51.320 --> 00:11:53.080 just to see if that slip of paper still glimmered 241 00:11:53.120 --> 00:11:56.519 among the ranks. Sometimes in the hush before opening or 242 00:11:56.519 --> 00:11:59.159 the lull after closing, I feel a pulsive expectation as 243 00:11:59.159 --> 00:12:00.919 I slid open a drawer, like the polls before a 244 00:12:00.960 --> 00:12:04.320 coin toss reveals its face on a Derisley Friday. Lucy 245 00:12:04.440 --> 00:12:06.960 was the first to point it out. Imesse felt you 246 00:12:07.000 --> 00:12:09.759 ever see this one? Before? She held up another cod 247 00:12:09.840 --> 00:12:13.600 creamy and unreadable at a distance. I moved closer a 248 00:12:13.720 --> 00:12:17.080 manual for rainy day returns. It read by aunt Te Haylock. 249 00:12:17.720 --> 00:12:20.759 The typeface was the same, clean, exact and equivocal. She 250 00:12:20.879 --> 00:12:23.960 pointed out its location fiction h touched between two harmless 251 00:12:24.039 --> 00:12:27.080 romances by Nancy Thayer. We found the Book of Course, 252 00:12:27.120 --> 00:12:29.600 a slimmish volume, jacket drawn with faint rain drops, its 253 00:12:29.600 --> 00:12:31.799 copyright mark three years prior. Though the paper had the 254 00:12:31.840 --> 00:12:34.320 dull pattern of a more seasoned out of fact, I 255 00:12:34.399 --> 00:12:38.000 opened it. Inside I found a gentle parable, a librarian 256 00:12:38.000 --> 00:12:40.480 devisors of a more elaborate ways for patrons to return 257 00:12:40.480 --> 00:12:44.480 over g books on stormy afternoons. The names changed, different librarians, 258 00:12:44.559 --> 00:12:47.080 different city, but the cor dilemma mimic to story. Missess 259 00:12:47.080 --> 00:12:49.399 Albertson had told me earlier that week about grapping with 260 00:12:49.440 --> 00:12:52.960 a sod and paperback after dwnpour even more remarkable the 261 00:12:53.000 --> 00:12:55.080 solution in the story mash to sign I jerked about 262 00:12:55.080 --> 00:12:57.399 taping up of the drop books forgiveness is a kind 263 00:12:57.399 --> 00:13:01.159 of dry cleaning. The pattern, once glimpsed, became impossible to uncee. 264 00:13:01.879 --> 00:13:04.120 By Monday, there were more cards for essays at the 265 00:13:04.159 --> 00:13:06.919 south window by another unknown, leading to anessy colection that 266 00:13:06.960 --> 00:13:09.879 included a quiet piece reflecting, almost to my own words, 267 00:13:09.919 --> 00:13:11.759 a conversation I'd had with the new patron about the 268 00:13:11.799 --> 00:13:14.639 reading light in that very spot. The loss programs of 269 00:13:14.679 --> 00:13:16.919 Thursday's Club appeared as a card one morning after our 270 00:13:16.919 --> 00:13:19.440 Thursday book group, and on following its call number, I 271 00:13:19.519 --> 00:13:22.240 discovered a book describing with uncanny specificity of the failed 272 00:13:22.279 --> 00:13:24.799 avy connection the Lemon Kicks Bill by Tim Fowley and 273 00:13:24.879 --> 00:13:27.919 my own hesitancy at proposing a new novel. Each new 274 00:13:27.960 --> 00:13:30.919 card had the same attributes, the font impossibly regular, picards, 275 00:13:30.960 --> 00:13:33.679 unblemished and never warth appearing in the logical place amid 276 00:13:33.679 --> 00:13:36.960 their peers, each corresponding books lotted into the fiction or 277 00:13:37.080 --> 00:13:40.360 essays section, perfectly in sequence, yet skipped by every account 278 00:13:40.399 --> 00:13:43.600 of the digital inventory. None scan in anywhere, None could 279 00:13:43.639 --> 00:13:46.840 be found in any online search or publisher's release. By 280 00:13:46.879 --> 00:13:48.919 the time I'd encountered the fourth and fifth, I was 281 00:13:48.919 --> 00:13:53.360 openly recording their appearances. I marked its times location. South 282 00:13:53.399 --> 00:13:56.440 Window Essays materialized mad afternoon as a slow DRISI tries 283 00:13:56.480 --> 00:13:58.240 the glass. I'd spent an hour in that spot with 284 00:13:58.279 --> 00:14:01.440 a patron two days prior. Havelock, as it turned out, 285 00:14:01.679 --> 00:14:03.399 was listed as the author of two other books that 286 00:14:03.559 --> 00:14:07.039 collectively seemed to mirror questions Lucy tossed out during shelf reading. 287 00:14:07.159 --> 00:14:09.480 Where do overdy books go when no one remembers? And 288 00:14:09.600 --> 00:14:12.480 what kind of returns can be scanned? One rainy morning, 289 00:14:12.519 --> 00:14:15.759 after shelving a stack of mysteries, I noticed something even stranger. 290 00:14:16.440 --> 00:14:19.039 The shelves themselves. Sections had worked a hundred times, felt 291 00:14:19.080 --> 00:14:22.279 subtly shifted. An alcove had appeared along the back wall, 292 00:14:22.320 --> 00:14:24.799 its wood flowed passage angling a few degrees from its 293 00:14:24.840 --> 00:14:28.360 remembered alignment, and a low ledge beneath the window, once 294 00:14:28.399 --> 00:14:30.679 clothed with broken heaters, now bore a row of in 295 00:14:30.720 --> 00:14:34.919 shelve books, all with matching cryptic cattle or carts. I 296 00:14:34.960 --> 00:14:38.480 picked up a Thursday's Club. The text again referenced a 297 00:14:38.519 --> 00:14:41.440 conversation between myself and daniel about next month's programming, a 298 00:14:41.480 --> 00:14:44.879 conversation we had in private after closing just two nights ago, 299 00:14:45.399 --> 00:14:49.120 I convened a council. Lucy always Game arrived with her 300 00:14:49.120 --> 00:14:53.039 phone pockets jingling with study snacks. Danielle had summoned from 301 00:14:53.039 --> 00:14:56.840 setting up her ebook demonstration. Frowned at my notes. It's 302 00:14:56.840 --> 00:15:00.120 got to be a backlog, Danielle said, Rando, and donation 303 00:15:00.279 --> 00:15:03.399 in boxes we haven't processed. But even she looked troubled 304 00:15:03.440 --> 00:15:05.679 when I demonstrated that none of the books bore tags, 305 00:15:05.840 --> 00:15:09.559 old date stamps, or any trace of library accession. Maybe 306 00:15:09.559 --> 00:15:12.600 someone's having fun writing for our benefit. But the cards, 307 00:15:13.360 --> 00:15:16.799 Lucy asked, waving her phone, No way staff missed these, 308 00:15:16.840 --> 00:15:18.639 and they all show up in exactly the right spot. 309 00:15:18.799 --> 00:15:21.159 It's like the library, as she grinned, making up stories 310 00:15:21.200 --> 00:15:25.360 about itself. I tried to laugh. Daniella whipped out her tablet, 311 00:15:25.440 --> 00:15:28.279 checked the digital catalog, A confirmed one more ten, nothing match, 312 00:15:28.519 --> 00:15:32.080 nothing had history. We agreed reluctantly to document every appearance. 313 00:15:32.600 --> 00:15:35.759 Lucy snapped photos. I mid notes. Daniellos shrugged and returned 314 00:15:35.759 --> 00:15:38.960 to organizing the new into library loanshipment on cue A 315 00:15:39.000 --> 00:15:41.120 gentle hush fell over the desk, and the phone didn't 316 00:15:41.200 --> 00:15:43.720 ring for almost an hour. But as the day's skipped 317 00:15:43.720 --> 00:15:46.519 by and the pattern grew, more cards, more books, always 318 00:15:46.519 --> 00:15:49.720 tied in cannily to patron's recent needs, events, or whispered wishes, 319 00:15:49.759 --> 00:15:52.639 none of us could supply a satisfactory answer. There was 320 00:15:52.679 --> 00:15:55.559 a lag, usually a day or two, between live experience 321 00:15:55.559 --> 00:15:58.120 and the appearance of its echo in the stacks, and 322 00:15:58.279 --> 00:16:00.799 almost as often, the orders of option in the library. 323 00:16:00.840 --> 00:16:03.320 Shift had subtled each accommodate the new arrivals. A paperback 324 00:16:03.360 --> 00:16:06.080 now and nestled between two hardbacks, and nile elongated by 325 00:16:06.080 --> 00:16:08.480 three towels, a book stand appearing by the staff lunch, 326 00:16:08.480 --> 00:16:10.879 where before I had only been bare death up. One 327 00:16:10.879 --> 00:16:13.799 carved reference the program proposal I'd only drafted and spoken. 328 00:16:14.399 --> 00:16:16.720 Another listed the author is out Lef Dana, a name 329 00:16:16.759 --> 00:16:19.120 I'd used in college to submit a story under a pseudonym. 330 00:16:19.120 --> 00:16:21.960 The title was that Long Lost Stories subtitle. I thought 331 00:16:22.000 --> 00:16:24.159 of explaining it away as a prank, but the logistics 332 00:16:24.200 --> 00:16:27.080 crew impossible. Daniella joined me on a walk of the stacks, 333 00:16:27.120 --> 00:16:31.120 tracing each new title. Afterward, she said, coincidence is cluster 334 00:16:31.159 --> 00:16:33.399 at Martha will clear it up with an inventory sweep. 335 00:16:33.440 --> 00:16:37.360 It's an old building, things high, But Lisi never seemed worried. Instead, 336 00:16:37.480 --> 00:16:40.240 she was delighted. I always knew this place was alive, 337 00:16:40.360 --> 00:16:43.639 she said, as we boxed donations. If libraries of gorse, 338 00:16:43.879 --> 00:16:47.159 why not living catalogs? She took to, leaving scraps of 339 00:16:47.200 --> 00:16:50.120 poetry and hidden corners, grinning like someone feeding pigeons in 340 00:16:50.120 --> 00:16:53.320 a secret puck. What became clear, little by little was 341 00:16:53.360 --> 00:16:55.879 that the phenomenon ran deeper than any plausible explanation I 342 00:16:55.879 --> 00:16:59.480 could reach. The catalog was not only reflecting live experience, 343 00:16:59.559 --> 00:17:03.440 but also, in some cases anticipating it. One crowd predicted 344 00:17:03.480 --> 00:17:05.359 the exact theme and outcome of a story hour that 345 00:17:05.359 --> 00:17:08.000 Miss s Alberson had only dreamed aloud to me that morning. 346 00:17:08.559 --> 00:17:11.079 The stacks themselves had begun to feel less certain, more 347 00:17:11.160 --> 00:17:14.559 mutable and gentle verdicol crept into my wanderings. Yet through 348 00:17:14.599 --> 00:17:16.759 it all I felt not dread, but never sharper need 349 00:17:16.799 --> 00:17:19.599 to understand to see the system behind the mirage. Was 350 00:17:19.640 --> 00:17:23.400 it a reflection of community consciousness, a miraculous experiment in 351 00:17:23.400 --> 00:17:27.359 feedback loops, or an invisible hand curating a secret harmony 352 00:17:27.359 --> 00:17:30.640 between a catalog and a living human currents. I paced 353 00:17:30.680 --> 00:17:33.519 the ales, eyes wide, filled not with anxiety but possibility. 354 00:17:34.079 --> 00:17:35.920 What if the order I prize was not the creation 355 00:17:36.000 --> 00:17:38.599 of catallodures or software, but the building's own quiet way 356 00:17:38.599 --> 00:17:42.400 of inviting curiosity. Somewhere between documenting essays at the south 357 00:17:42.440 --> 00:17:44.920 window and fielding questions about a missing DVD copy of 358 00:17:44.960 --> 00:17:48.319 a Jurassic Park, I began keeping a diary. At first, 359 00:17:48.359 --> 00:17:50.640 it was covert, a habbit borrowed from my earliest days 360 00:17:50.680 --> 00:17:54.559 of formal cataloging. I jotted down notable queries, memorable patron interactions, 361 00:17:54.599 --> 00:17:56.720 bits of gossip about up coming off the visits, even 362 00:17:56.799 --> 00:18:00.759 my own minor perplexities. Then I noticed, yearly every event 363 00:18:00.759 --> 00:18:03.480 I recorded produced within a day or two a corresponding 364 00:18:03.480 --> 00:18:05.640 card in the old index drawers and a matching book 365 00:18:05.640 --> 00:18:09.200 on the shelf. Sometimes these cause would reference the eventably, cly, 366 00:18:09.319 --> 00:18:13.720 sometimes with uncanny precision. The process was almost mathematical, a strange, 367 00:18:13.759 --> 00:18:16.240 playful equation connecting the daily life of the library with 368 00:18:16.240 --> 00:18:19.319 its records. But things were about to grow strangers still. 369 00:18:19.920 --> 00:18:23.119 One late afternoon, while coughing my notes beside the children's section, 370 00:18:23.279 --> 00:18:25.359 I'd opened the latest drawer in the catalog, and found 371 00:18:25.359 --> 00:18:27.720 a new card printed in that same perfect fun verses 372 00:18:27.759 --> 00:18:31.559 from Thursday's reading special guest performance Poety Washburn, April fourteen. 373 00:18:32.119 --> 00:18:34.440 A chill of thrill not fear run through me. I 374 00:18:34.519 --> 00:18:37.240 poured through the programed binder, called up upcoming events on 375 00:18:37.319 --> 00:18:40.000 Daniel as master calendar, checked the email forred for anything 376 00:18:40.000 --> 00:18:42.359 out of place. There was no schedule of reading by 377 00:18:42.400 --> 00:18:47.119 anyone named Washburn, no poet, no proposal, no staff volunteer, 378 00:18:47.240 --> 00:18:50.680 no program volunteer had mentioned such an event, no request, 379 00:18:50.839 --> 00:18:53.599 no form, no rumor. I made a note check the 380 00:18:53.599 --> 00:18:56.559 corresponding shelf. No book existed yet. But the next morning 381 00:18:56.640 --> 00:18:59.559 a slim blue paperback crested there, Jackie glowing the author's 382 00:18:59.640 --> 00:19:02.960 name and matching the card inside the blurb thanked the 383 00:19:03.000 --> 00:19:06.440 organizers of Bent in spring Portry evening April fourteenth, there 384 00:19:06.480 --> 00:19:08.559 was a poem about the moon and a dedication to 385 00:19:08.640 --> 00:19:10.640 the woman whom maps what has not yet been found? 386 00:19:11.240 --> 00:19:14.400 I stared at it, both delighted and unsettled. Was the 387 00:19:14.440 --> 00:19:16.960 catalog now predicting the course of upcoming events rather than 388 00:19:17.000 --> 00:19:19.920 recording them? What would my noting of its prophecy somehow 389 00:19:20.000 --> 00:19:22.720 urge the library to manifest the very event it anticipated. 390 00:19:23.319 --> 00:19:26.920 That evening, Lucy and I walked the stacks, sharing possibilities. 391 00:19:27.640 --> 00:19:29.839 She declared, maybe it's all the loop. What we remember, 392 00:19:30.000 --> 00:19:32.359 what we hope for gets built in, and the catalog's 393 00:19:32.359 --> 00:19:35.359 bits it back one step ahead. Daniel is skeptical by 394 00:19:35.400 --> 00:19:37.559 habit to listen to my report, then sat in silence, 395 00:19:37.599 --> 00:19:41.559 eyes narrowed, memory tricks. Libraries are full of hidden projects. Still, 396 00:19:41.599 --> 00:19:44.279 I'll admit there's no way these cards could have been inserted, 397 00:19:44.400 --> 00:19:47.599 not without your Harrow or me catching it. Unless she hesitated, 398 00:19:47.680 --> 00:19:49.559 unless it's been going on much longer than any of 399 00:19:49.599 --> 00:19:53.279 us realized. I felt a thrill at her uncertainty. Even 400 00:19:53.279 --> 00:19:57.759 mister Harrow, when consulted, was reserved. There are tales, he said, 401 00:19:57.839 --> 00:20:00.000