2008-2009 Research Library Awards (The Rellas)

I spent the 2008-2009 academic year reading and taking notes in many research libraries throughout the nation, and came to appreciate all of their various delights, horrors, and quirks. The awards below were determined after much musing about my own experiences, and in consultation with other scholars (whose anonymity, like the Phantom Gourmet, will be protected).

Best Parking

Virginia Historical Society (Richmond, Va.)

Because the VHS is also a public museum, its parking lot is large, tree-shaded, and most importantly, free. Most research libraries are in city centers or dense suburbs with copious parking restrictions and insanely expensive parking garages (ahem—Cambridge—ahem) and therefore require long commutes via public transportation or lots of cash on hand. VHS and other institutions in outlying areas may require a drive, but at least they don’t make you pay for it.

Best Reading Room with a View

Boston Athenaeum (Boston, Mass.)

The ten reading nooks (supplied with tables, lamps, chairs, and outlets) on the 5th floor boast views of either the Massachusetts State House or the Granary Burying Ground. If you need a break and it’s spring or summer, you can saunter out onto the balcony, which is sublimely vertiginous and home to a family of red-tailed hawks. Get there early, though; by 10:00 a.m., the 5th floor nooks will be snapped up by local writers, Suffolk law students, and the Beacon Hill intelligentsia.

Best Pencils

Massachusetts Historical Society (Boston, Mass.)

Never underestimate the importance of a sharp pencil at a research library. I’m not sure who is in charge of pencil provisioning at the MHS, but whoever it is deserves a raise. Always sharpened, with fresh erasers, these pencils are also all miraculously the same length. With long and complicated call slips to fill out for each request, the excellence of these pencils becomes even more delightful.

Most Comfortable Desks and Chairs

Maine Historical Society (Portland, Me.)

The MHS renovated its reading room this year and this process included rigorous research into the optimal height of desks and chairs for laptop use. The chairs are padded and their low backs allow for vigorous arm-stretching exercises when one starts to cramp up. The desks are lower than is typical, rendering the whole desk-chair complex pleasingly ergonomic. Doing daily research in this reading room will leave you feeling pretty good, rather than stiff, sore, and needing a chiropractor.

Coldest Reading Room

Center for the History of Medicine, Countway Library, Harvard Medical School (Boston, Mass.)

As befitting a school with frigid lockers for cadaver storage, Harvard Medical School’s special collections reading room is kept at a chilly 60 degrees. I had to wear my scarf over my chin and nose during much of my time there, and wished fervently for a pair of fingerless gloves. You know it’s bad when leaving the library and stepping out into the Boston winter air seems if not pleasant, then at least familiar.

Best Library Staff

American Antiquarian Society (Worcester, Mass.)

The curators and librarians at the AAS achieve that elusive trifecta of cheerfulness, helpfulness, and interest in your research subject. Staff members will ooh and aah over sources you have found with genuine enthusiasm, and pull books or graphics that they think might interest you, even after you leave. I still receive emails from AAS staff members, forwarding references and images that they have discovered in the stacks. Is it any wonder that former fellows and researchers continually rave about their time there?

Daniel Spiegelman Award for Most Stringent Security Measures

Houghton Library, Harvard University (Cambridge, Mass.)

There are two layers of security before you even enter the reading room at Houghton: they check you in. They check you out. They buzz you in. They buzz you out. All loose-leaf papers are stamped, and your laptop is inspected before you leave for the day. You could try to steal something, but rest assured you would be trapped inside one room or the other before you could make a run for it.

Daniel Spiegelman Award for Shockingly Lax Security Measures

South Caroliniana Library (Columbia, S.C.)

For a library with such fabulous resources, the South Caroliniana is remarkably unconcerned about keeping any of them in the reading room. There are no lockers; you bring your bags right in and nestle them in the chair next to you or at your feet. No one checks you in. No one inspects your bags or files on the way out. About the only thing that would frustrate a would-be thief is the reading room door, which was installed in the early nineteenth century; its narrowness requires a sideways sidle that would make bolting difficult.

Best Lunchtime Ritual

The Huntington Library (Pasadena, Calif.)

At 11:30 a.m., the staff members at the Huntington ring a bell, and at the sound, researchers rise from their tables, turn in their materials, and leave. Instead of furtively eating a handful of peanuts in the locker room, researchers actually take a lunch break, breathe some fresh air, and converse with other people until 1:00 p.m. With your library privileges comes the ability to wander the spectacular Huntington gardens at will, and you can eat lunch in various designated areas within the grounds. It may be Pavlovian, but it is a civilized tradition that ensures that you won’t pass out from hunger or dehydration at the end of your research day.