The Librarian at Play by Edmund Lester Pearson

The Librarian at Play Reviews

• 
  Debbie Zapata

  Edmund Lester Pearson was a librarian and author. From 1906 to 1920 he wrote a column for a Boston newspaper, which is where these fourteen essays and sketches came from. I do hope Project Gutenberg publishes his two other collected library column titles someday because these were hilarious. I also would be interested in reading the books he wrote on true crime. Supposedly he is most famous for his essay about Lizzie Borden; at least that is what Wiki says.
  
  But back to The Librarian At Play. Usually in a book like this there are a few duds, but I enjoyed each and every offering, from The Gardener's Guide (what will our hero the librarian do with his exciting new book and all those packets of seeds?!) to A Literary Meet (Olympic Games for literary characters: a fencing match between Cyrano de Bergerac and D'Artagnan; a football game with Achilles as captain on one side and Hamlet on the other. Hamlet was constantly fretting whether to punt or not to punt!)
  
  There were two related pieces about collectors. One man had a literary zoo, with many of the animals mentioned in certain books. There were a number of tigers, including, of course, the ill-natured Shere Khan. "The one in the second cage," said my guide, "is one of those hunted by Mr. Isaacs, when he was after a tiger-skin to present to Miss Westonhaugh." But perhaps the most interesting of all was one which, so Mr. Gooch told me, had been confined in a cage beside a lady's apartment, to await the opening of a door by a young man. But Mr. Gooch was unable to tell me whether the man opened the door of the Lady or the Tiger.
  
  In the other 'collector' piece, Mr. Gooch's brother makes fun of the literary zoo, but shows our narrator around his own armory, which has many of the weapons mentioned in certain books. He had the rapier which had belonged to Laertes (careful, there is still poison on the tip!) and the crossbow used by the Ancient Mariner to kill the albatross, among many other items.
  
  There were a few pieces with similar themes showing how hectic the front desk of a library can get, and one that must be every librarian's dream. Called Their Just Reward, it showed what could happen to those patrons who abuse their library books, or those people who buy books 'by the yard' just to have a pretty display in a room. Our narrator was on a tour of Bad Book User Hell, it seems. I liked best the punishment for a person who borrows books (from anyone) and never returns them: As we passed them I shuddered to see that they were all engaged in filing catalogue cards in alphabetical order. Surely the prospect of 25 to 30 years in Card Catalogue
  Purgatory would help inspire a reader to return a borrowed book!
  
  My favorite essay here was By Telephone, about a newly installed phone line at our narrator's library. This line was to be used to call in a research question, and the clerk on duty had all sorts of reference volumes handy to answer whatever question might come up. But of course there are always unexpected questions, you know. What tickled me about this piece was the mention of the clerk reciting the poem Curfew Must Not Ring Tonight into the telephone. It reminded me of my favorite Katharine Hepburn movie, Desk Set. Hepburn gives a wonderful recitation of that poem in the movie, so it was fun to imagine her as the library clerk. And of course now I want to rush off and watch that movie for the umpteenth time! Thanks for reminding me, Mr. Pearson!
  
• 
  Mellen

  This lovely rare book by
  Edmund Lester Pearson is a compilation of his writing for a newspaper column called The Librarian printed in the Boston Evening Transcript. These specific columns are of a fictional nature that reflect on the nature of librarians and librarianship.
  
  One of my favorites is the first, called The Interest Gauge. In this story a salesman comes to a small public library selling little gauges that can be attached to the back of books to show the interest and attention of the previous reader. Naturally scholarly texts on German philosophy show low ratings and true crime stories show high ratings, despite the protestations of readers.
  
  Another of my favorite stories is By Telephone, which tells the story of a public library which gets its first telephone and therefore provides telephone reference service. Hilarity ensues as librarian and patron alike struggle with the new technology--a story not so different from today.
  
  This book also includes an index which is particularly hilarious.
• 
  Squeaky

  This was a fun read, EXCEPT for maybe three or so chapters that bored me, and I skipped a goodly portion of those! I'm talking about the "zoo" ones. I intend to share some quotes from this to my library buddies. I read the Project Gutenberg e-book edition.
  
• 
  Jak Krumholtz

  A lot of these stories were probably more fun to write than to read. Still some gems within and I'm sure librarians appreciate the work related stories.
• 
  Rex Libris

  From 1911, this book is a very humorous treatment of library life. It is a collection of vignettes about librarians and patrons, including the introduction of telephone reference, working at branch library, and tour of Hell where people are grouped by the geneology issues they presented to librarians. Also elaborated on were a zoo made up of the actual animals from books, and an armory full of weapons from books.
  
  A must-read for all librarians.
• 
  Fred

  Librarian humor! Poking fun at librarians, book collectors, library patrons, books, writers and collectors of literary artifacts.