Library 115: The Davis Family Library (Middlebury College)
Is that Kat in the window?
Library 115! The Davis Family Library at Middlebury College was the 115th stop on my quest to read, write, and knit in every public (and academic) library in Vermont.
I read: a large-print musical score.
I wrote: a journal entry about gender.
I knit: a test knit in mountain mohair from Green Mountain Spinnery
As Heath and I turned the corner of this stone library, we saw external window cleaning underway, which I assume is part of campus preparation for the start of fall classes. We also saw a person standing inside one of the windows, replacing things up high that had been moved for cleaning. And then… that person was Kat from library 113! We waved through the glass.
When we arrived at the desk, Mat (a student worker) was crocheting a top. No pattern. I assumed he’d been crocheting for a long time to have developed the skills do this “rogue crochet.” Nope. He just started. Mat for craft president.
Within minutes of our arrival, Mat had corralled an entire fiber-artist-library-staff-unit to the front desk. A library first.
One part of the fiber-artist-library-staff unit was Kat. I was excited to see Kat again because I didn’t write enough about their cat-treat-tub-turned-wool-spinning-hip-holster after my visit to the Monkton library. To my delight, Kat has a *second* wool holster in the Davis Family Library. That, and an office poncho. Kat for office project president.
This library, like other academic libraries I have visited on this quest, was grand, silent, and calming. We walked past a meditation room; faculty offices; a center for teaching and learning; special exhibits; rows of microfilm; an expansive Matt Mullican installation; a sign that we sadly missed an office dog.
I loved the stacks of musical scores, bound in simple single-color covers, like artsy dissertations. The oversized scores felt like toys I shouldn’t play with (…and yet). It occurred to me that a university that can afford to value and preserve the arts in this new economic wave of career-focused higher education is a dwindling privilege.
Heath and I talked on the way out about how we both love the vibe of academic libraries. In my academic career as both student and faculty, I have had access to eight different academic libraries. I remember my undergraduate library most clearly. I read giant science textbooks and wrote and rewrote lecture notes taken in pencil sitting on grand wooden tables in rooms with high ceilings.
Being in this library engendered feelings of hope and sadness in tandem. As I was knitting and overlooking the new students arriving on campus, I felt joy for them. A library this well-funded is a beautiful thing: a promise that science and music and writing and art will survive threats to democracy, AI obscuring what is real, climate change, war. Sadness… because I want my brilliant, kind, and creative state college students to also have access to this level of beauty, arts, and funding.
I also love the feeling of academic libraries. I remember when I was in high school, I would sneak into the library at Dartmouth College to do research for papers I was writing. I remember that back then only students were allowed in. So, I just tried to look old enough and walk in with confidence. It always worked and so I managed to get access to the scientific journals I wanted to read.
Of course, it's equally likely that they just looked the other way knowing full well what I was up to.
115! :-)