Fleeting Lost Librarians

     I have a friend who works in a public library located in a small town that serves the town and the surrounding countryside. She, herself, lives out in the country, as does most of the employees at this library. The town is just too small to contain everyone. Nonetheless, it is a very professional library and they go to professional development meetings fairly often to improve their skills. Most of these meetings are held in larger, more urban libraries. The following story is from one such trip.

     Exploration seemed to be the order for the day, since they arrived a little early. Librarians are always exploring and getting into things. You know the old saying, “Curiosity killed the cat”? Well, librarians can get into that sort of trouble. And they did that day .(NO, of course, no one died)  . .

     The children’s area in a library is always the most interesting with its vivid colors, clever use of floor space and usually a fun puppet or two on display. This library’s children’s room did not disappoint, with displays of children’s artwork, a cozy little house within which a child could cuddle up to read, and a friendly children’s librarian to welcome all.

     By the time ONE of the librarians in the group finished playing with the puppets (I cannot disclose who that was), it was almost time for the meeting to begin. So, exploration of the rest of the library was out of the question.

     This library is 3 stories tall - that is, the part that is used everyday. The lower, or basement floor, is where the meeting rooms are located. The children’s library is located on the first floor, along with a variety of media such as DVDs and CDs. The adult area of the library is located on the 3rd floor. Now, I know that this sounds very dull, but the layout of the library is important to this story, so please, Dear Reader, bear with me.

     The part of the library that is not used every day is a tall tower that is accessible by stairs or elevator. Each level has one room, and the elevator opens into the room, while the stairs’ landing is accessed via a door of its own. The top two floors are accessible only by stairs, the top floor surrounded by windows from which one can view the city for miles around. The tower was built specifically for this beautiful view.

     The elevator also goes to the main 3 floors, so the 3 librarians entered. The door closed behind and they were faced with a panel like they had never seen before. There were numbers, but the number ‘3’ was on the bottom, the number ‘2’ on the top and the number ‘1’ was in the middle. There were also letters mixed in with the numbers - G, H, M. Which floor do they want to go to? Since, they entered on the 1st floor, they reasoned that G for ground must be where they wanted to go - even though the G button was located right in the middle of the panel.

     They knew they pushed the wrong button when the elevator started to rise. The floor the door opened to was one of the rooms of the tower, the Genealogy room, (DUH!). Only, it didn’t contain genealogy. The floor of this round room looked like a huge cross-cut tree, they were standing on the top of a stump that was about 20 feet in diameter. The center was dark and each concentric circle became lighter and lighter as it moved away from the center. It was beautiful! A massive desk was positioned just to the side of the center, so that a person would get the full view of the center of the floor. The walls, floor to ceiling, were lined with shelves of law books, state and federal. As eyes followed the shelves of books up to the ceiling, a person saw there was no ceiling - at least not for several floors. This was the tower! Of course, they decided to explore!

     They exited the room through the door to the landing and began climbing, and climbing, and climbing. But, oh, the climb was worth it! The view of the city on this spring day was gorgeous. They could see for miles and the people and cars below looked like tiny ants. By this time, they were late for the meeting to begin, so they hurried back down the stairs, deciding not to take the elevators, because one clearly had to be an insider to know what the buttons meant.

     The trek down the stairs was so much easier than going up. They passed by the law room and went further down, down to the ground floor, or the basement (In hindsight, they think there was a B on the elevator button panel). A sign on the door that allowed them to pass through into the ground floor room read, “Please close door behind you.” Well, they are librarians in a library, so they closed the door. They pride themselves in being able to read and follow directions. There are so many people who can’t or won’t.

     They were now about 10 minutes late for their meeting. They weren’t worried about an explanation, because this was a meeting of librarians, they would understand the wander lust. But, hurriedly, they crossed the last room to pass through to the hallway that would lead them to the meeting room. They pulled, then pushed, then looked for a latch. The door was locked.

     No problem, they would just retrace their steps to the law room, knowing that door was unlocked. The door to the stair landing was locked. So, now 3 librarians are in a room with 2 exits, but they cannot exit. And they are late for a meeting. They did what any right thinking, sane librarian would do . . . they burst out laughing. Librarian One hid from a camera that was installed in the room for security because she was laughing so hard. To hide his laughter, Librarian Two turned his back to the camera and began to read shelves (put books in order), and he found some that were out of place! Librarian Three just melted into a chair, unable to contain her laughter and unable to stand. They could see through a window on the door, but saw no human being. They knocked, no one materialized. They laughed some more. It was a literal side-splitting laugh. My friend said her sides were hurting now, they had to get out.

     Librarian Three looked up the library phone number on her smart phone and tried to call. At this point she thought the phone was probably smarter than she. Every time she went to push the ‘call’ button, one of them rolled out with another round of hoots. Finally, Three had to put on her ‘boss’ face and say in the sternest voice she could muster at the time, “We need to quit laughing so we can get out of this room. We are already late.” And another roll of laughter.

     Three’s thumb hovered over the ‘call’ button waiting for just the right moment to tap. There was a lull, ‘tap’.

     “This is the public library. May I help you?”

     “Um, yes, this is Librarian Three and I’m here for the public librarians’ meeting on the ground floor.”

     “You said you ARE here?” (She could feel the unasked question - Why are you calling, then?)

     Oh, my goodness, the others began to laugh again, which she strove valiantly to squelch in her own gut.  “Um, yes. That’s right, I am here. But 2 other librarians and I are locked in your tower room on the ground floor.”

     A full minute passed before she replied, “You say you are locked in?”

     “Yes.”

     Then, ‘click’, she hung up. Was she sending help? Did she melt into a sea of laughter? Was she going to leave them there?

     About five minutes later, someone came to unlock the door. He said nothing, but the grin on his face said that the entire library staff now knew about the ‘country come to town’ librarians who got stuck in their research room.

     In my friend’s (and the others) defense, they later discovered a sign posted on the wall outside the elevator that explained the buttons. They were too excited about their meeting to read a sign that told them that G does not mean ‘Ground”, it means ‘Genealogy”, which is really a law room.

© 2013 Carol Phares