Book Review- The Library Book by Susan Orlean
The recent Covid lockdown meant libraries and other public buildings had to shut down for a time, but there have also been other crises in recent history which have affected libraries. Fergus from Donabate Library reviews Susan Orlean’s non-fiction release, The Library Book, which explores the mystery behind a fire which destroyed L.A’s Central Library in 1986.
When Susan Orlean moved to Los Angeles in 2011, she began using public libraries for the first time. The vast Central Library in Los Angles was her local branch and, speaking to a staff member there one day, she learned about a fire that ravaged the building a quarter of a century earlier. That devastating incident becomes the centrepiece of her book and she uses it as a launch pad to study the evolution and continuing role of the library in modern life.
The blaze which erupted around 11am on 29th April 1986 was the most catastrophic library fire in American history. However, the aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in the Soviet Union that week eclipsed coverage of the library fire; only in Pravda was it given more prominence. The fire raged for seven hours and either damaged or destroyed more than a million books, including rare editions and patent listings dating back to 1799. Wet books from the firefighting were taken out and stored in huge freezers belonging to fish companies. The investigators concluded that the fire had been started intentionally.
As she began embarking on her research, Orlean realised she had never seen a book burn. This felt like a good place to start. So, as an experiment, she set fire to Ray Bradbury's novel Fahrenheit 451 in her back garden and described what happened.
Next she looked into the deliberate burning of libraries and books throughout history from the conflagration of the Library of Alexandria in Egypt to book-burning festivals in the Spanish Inquisition, the torching of Aztec and Mayan manuscripts by conquistadors, and the systematic book-burning in the 20th century by many regimes, including the Nazis, the Red Guard, and the Khmer Rouge. She finds examples in U.S. history too. There is even a name for the destruction of books: libricide. Hence the author chose to burn Fahrenheit 451, a dystopian vision about the same subject where the title refers to the temperature at which paper burns. And Bradbury himself had spent much time as a young writer in the Los Angeles Public Library.
Fire investigators soon had a composite sketch of a young blond man who had been noticed by staff acting suspiciously around the building that morning and who had run into an older woman during the evacuation. Attention centred on an aspiring actor, Harry Peak, who had come to the city from nearby Santa Fe Springs. He'd drifted along sharing houses and dividing his time between auditions and odd jobs. He was considered likeable but unreliable, and prone to embellishing elements of his life. It emerged that Harry claimed to some acquaintances that he'd been there when the fire started and to others that he set the library on fire. When investigators put him under surveillance he was flattered and talked to them. His recollections of where he was that morning changed several times.
Los Angles has always attracted people. After the Great Depression, the city swelled with an influx of migrants from the Midwest. In the 1930s the Central Library circulated more books than any library in the country. Los Angeles boomed again after World War II when there was intense activity at aircraft factories, electronic plants and oil drills. The movie industry was a magnet for dreamers like Harry Peak. Of the many books pilfered from the library historically, some were taken for research by assistants from the nearby studios, and library staff had to go and reclaim them. Los Angeles also has more homeless people than almost any other city except New York. The current City Librarian, John Szabo co-ordinates an outreach program with the homelessness policy director at City Hall.
Orlean talks to Szabo and Eva Mitnick, head of Central Library, as part of her research. She learned that the first accredited library-based high school program was pioneered there. The library also has an initiative called The Source where social service agencies gather in one space in the library and people can sign up for them. Mitnick is moving on to become Director of Engagement and Learning which will include volunteer programs, summer reading and all services directed at new immigrants. Szabo is dealing with such projects as an update on the new digital maker space and a library kiosk at the nearby airport for checking out audio and e-books. He is also weighing up an unusual request put forward by local beekeepers to put a colony of hives on the roof of the library.
They and the staff members interviewed believe in the library as an inclusive community hub and information base. It is an established institution evolving within a sprawling city of change. In Los Angeles the library is designated as a city department, with a budget analyst and a business manager, and the head of the library is appointed by the mayor. Other city departments include the city attorney, the zoo, the police, and the fire department. The library actually pays the police department annually to have officers acting as security employees.
There are 72 library branches in the city. The Los Angeles library emerged from small beginnings as a charitable initiative. Some of the early librarians were colourful characters hired at the behest of a library board whose appointments process could be willful and controversial. The Central Library was a modest operation squeezed into rental spaces downtown. It operated in this way for almost 40 years before the construction of a library building was approved. The building so damaged in 1986 was designed by architect Bertram Goodhue as a singularly ornate structure with a mosaic pyramid tower on top. Goodhue died of a heart attack in 1924 but it was completed to his specifications and opened in July 1926.
In the late 1950s during the Cold War the Los Angeles library loaned out more books than it had in decades and it was agreed to build 28 new libraries in the city. With an emphasis on expansion and modernity, the Goodhue building was listed to be torn down in 1966 and replaced, until a group of architects protested to the city board. It was instead designated a cultural monument. Still the library building had a history of growing disrepair, with a fragile electrical system and lack of space. In the early 1970s the fire department reported numerous fire code violations in the building. There were still advocates for selling the land and constructing a new library elsewhere. But in the 1980s the area downtown became a flourishing district, attracting more people. A plan was made to expand the library with a new wing in a complicated deal involving air rights and underground space.
By 1986 there were still 20 fire code resolutions waiting to be addressed. After the fire, it was a stressful time for staff. Many were redeployed while the library operated out of temporary quarters on Spring Street. Insurance covered damage to the relatively intact building but the estimated cost of replacing the lost books, periodicals and documents was over $14 million. A "Save the Books" campaign raised funds to replace the library's lost books. Donations of money, books and advertising space were organised; a fund-raising gala and a 24-hour telethon held in a nearby church auditorium raised more than $2 million. During this fraught period Harry Peak was under suspicion and then in custody. The author explores his fate, and whether the investigators' traditional techniques were reliable.
The Los Angeles Central Library re-opened in October 1993, with a plaque by the front door dedicated to the firefighters. There was a huge new wing on the eastern side. The library started afresh with a new electronic catalogue and pioneered going online in 1994. The building houses the many different sections and services that Orlean explores in her research: Teen'Scape, which evolved from a Teen Department created in the late 1960s; the modern reference InfoNow Department; Collection Services, Digitisation, Art and Music, Photography, and the Map Department. The one aspect Orlean notes from the past is a discarded book-stitching machine for repairing books, used previously by official bookbinders. It rests near a cluster of computer towers channelling megabytes of information. The library still acts as a storehouse of materials but its role has expanded exponentially over the years, as exemplified in this passionate study. It’s a wide-ranging and inviting book with a mystery at its centre.
Fergus, Donabate Library
The Library Book is available to borrow on Borrowbox, and from your local branch.