The Library

Eleven Rooms

Chapter 8: The Library

The Multnomah County Library's central branch occupies a full city block on Southwest Tenth Avenue between Yamhill and Taylor, a building completed in 1913 in the Georgian style, with a facade of Tenino sandstone that has weathered over a hundred and thirteen years from the quarry's original cream to the particular gray of a stone that has absorbed a century of Portland rain, the rain settling into the stone's pores and carrying with it the mineral deposits that darken the surface incrementally, year by year, the darkening a record of time, of weather, of the persistent application of moisture to material, and the record is legible to anyone who understands how stone ages, which Lin did, because Lin understood how everything ages -- books, buildings, bodies, the card catalogue that had been the library's organizing system for sixty years before the computer replaced it, the catalogue cards yellowing in their drawers, the typewritten entries fading, the cards aging the way everything ages, slowly, from the edges inward, the edges going first, the center last.

Lin had entered the library on a Monday in September of 1975, twenty-three years old, a recent graduate of the library science program at the University of Washington, a woman from Beaverton, Oregon, who had grown up in a house where the books were shelved by subject in the living room and by author in the bedrooms, her mother's system, the system of a woman who read widely and who believed that the organization of books was a moral act, the act of giving knowledge its proper place, and the proper place was determined by the system, and the system was the mother's, and the mother's system was the daughter's inheritance, and the daughter had studied library science because the inheritance demanded a profession, demanded a formal expression, demanded the rigor that a personal system could not provide, and the rigor was the Dewey Decimal System, and the Dewey Decimal System was Lin's theology.

The Dewey Decimal System: ten main classes, each divided into ten divisions, each division divided into ten sections, the system a tree, a branching structure, a hierarchy that began with the broadest categories -- 000, Computer Science and Information; 100, Philosophy and Psychology; 200, Religion; 300, Social Sciences; 400, Language; 500, Natural Sciences; 600, Technology; 700, Arts and Recreation; 800, Literature; 900, History and Geography -- and descended through the branches into ever-narrower specificity, the numbers accumulating decimal points the way a river accumulates tributaries, the tributaries adding precision, adding detail, the number 616.37 specifying not just Technology (600), not just Medical Sciences (610), not just Diseases (616), but Diseases of the Pancreas (616.37), and the specificity was the system's gift, the system's promise that everything had a place, that nothing was uncategorizable, that the world's knowledge -- all of it, every discovery, every theory, every poem, every recipe, every prayer -- could be assigned a number, and the number was the address, and the address was findable, and the findable was the point.

Lin had catalogued books about death. This was the fact she returned to now, lying in Room 6, looking at the ceiling that her daughter had designed, the nine-foot-six ceiling that was not a grid but a smooth expanse of acoustic plaster, the ceiling that was the sky Walter had asked for, though Lin did not know about Walter, did not know about the carpenter in Medford, did not know that the ceiling above her was the product of a sentence spoken in a different room in a different building by a dying man whose blue eyes had assessed the eight-foot ceiling and found it wanting. Lin did not know this, but she benefited from it, the ceiling above her the accumulated knowledge of ten buildings and twenty-two years, and the knowledge began with Walter, and Walter's sentence was in the ceiling the way the Dewey Decimal numbers were in the books, invisibly, structurally, the organizing principle that the resident did not see but that the resident experienced as the quality of the space.

She had catalogued books about death in all ten main classes. In the 100s, Philosophy: 128.5, the nature of death; 179.7, respect for human life, including euthanasia. In the 200s, Religion: 236, eschatology, the theology of last things; 294.3, Buddhist concepts of death and rebirth. In the 300s, Social Sciences: 306.9, death, dying, and bereavement as social phenomena; 393, death customs, including funeral rites. In the 500s, Natural Sciences: 571.9, death at the cellular level, apoptosis, the programmed death of cells. In the 600s, Technology: 616.029, terminal care; 616.37, diseases of the pancreas. In the 700s, Arts: 704.949, death in art. In the 800s, Literature: death as subject, as theme, as the ending of every story whether the story admits it or not.

She had placed these books on their shelves. She had typed the catalogue cards -- in the early years, on the electric typewriter in the cataloguing department, the keys striking the cards with the precise force that the typewriter required, the force of the fingers transferring the information from the book to the card, the card becoming the book's surrogate, the card standing in for the book in the catalogue the way a building's drawing stands in for the building, the representation substituting for the thing, the number on the card the address, the address the location, the location the shelf, the shelf the place, the place the library, the library the world's knowledge made findable. And later, on the computer, the electronic catalogue replacing the card catalogue, the database replacing the drawers, the screen replacing the cards, the information the same, the system the same, the Dewey numbers the same, only the medium changed, the medium shifting from paper to pixel, from the tangible to the intangible, and Lin had made the shift, had adapted, had translated her practice from the analog to the digital, the way James translated Miriam's drawings from trace paper to building, the translation preserving the essential while changing the medium.

She had handled the books about death with the same professional attention she brought to all books. She had not lingered on them. She had not read them differently. She had catalogued 616.029 -- terminal care -- with the same procedure she used for 641.5 -- cooking -- and the sameness of the procedure was the profession's discipline, the librarian's objectivity, the refusal to let the subject matter affect the cataloguing, because the cataloguing was neutral, was systematic, was the application of rules to materials regardless of content, the rules the same for a book about death and a book about gardening, the rules indifferent to the information they organized, the way a shelf is indifferent to the book it holds, the way a room is indifferent to the person it holds, and the indifference was not coldness but professionalism, was not disregard but discipline, the discipline of a system that works because it does not discriminate, that organizes because it does not judge.

But now the category had become the condition. Now 616.37 was not a number on a card but a diagnosis in her body. Now 128.5, the nature of death, was not a philosophical abstraction but a physical fact. Now 306.9, death as a social phenomenon, was not a subject heading but a family gathering in Room 6, David on one side, Miriam on the other, the social phenomenon occurring in two hundred and forty square feet of architecturally designed space, the phenomenon catalogued by the woman who was the phenomenon, the librarian who was the subject, the cataloguer who was the book.

She had said this to Miriam. She had said: I am living in the category I catalogued. She had said it with the librarian's precision, the words placed in their proper order the way books are placed on their proper shelves, and the placement was the meaning, and the meaning was the irony, and the irony was the fact, and the fact was that Lin Chen, who had spent forty years organizing the world's knowledge into categories and placing it on shelves where it could be found, was now in a category herself, was now on a shelf herself, the shelf being Room 6, the shelf being the bed, the shelf being the place where the library had placed her, not the Multnomah County Library but the larger library, the library of human experience, the library that catalogues not books but lives, that shelves not information but people, that places each person in their proper location in the system of being, and Lin's location was 616.37, pancreatic cancer, stage IV, and the location was Room 6, Evergreen House, Portland, Oregon, and the location was the place where she would remain until the system closed her record, until the catalogue marked her entry as withdrawn, until the librarian became the book that was returned.

She had loved the library. She had loved it the way Miriam loved her buildings, with the specific, detailed, professional love that is not about the whole but about the parts, about the particular shelf on the third floor where the Japanese literature was kept, about the particular drawer in the card catalogue where the Ks were filed, about the particular window in the cataloguing department that faced east and that admitted the morning light onto her desk where she typed the cards, the morning light on the cards, the morning light on the typewriter keys, the morning light that was the same morning light that now entered Room 6 through the east-facing window that Miriam had designed, the light unchanged, the light the same light, the light connecting the library desk and the hospice bed across thirty-one years, the light a thread, a cross-reference, the light linking the two locations in the catalogue of Lin's life.

She had walked the stacks every day. She had walked the aisles between the shelves the way Miriam walked the corridors of her buildings, with the professional attention of a person who is responsible for the space, who is its custodian, its keeper, the person who knows where everything is and who ensures that everything stays where it belongs. She had walked the stacks and she had read the spines and she had touched the books, the physical act of touching, the hand on the spine, the fingers reading the call number the way a musician's fingers read the keys, by touch, by feel, the tactile knowledge of a lifetime's practice, and the practice was the love, and the love was the library, and the library was the world.

The world organized into rooms. Lin understood this now, lying in Room 6, looking at the ceiling that was the sky. The library was rooms -- the reading rooms, the stacks, the cataloguing department, the children's room, the periodicals room, the reference room -- and each room held a portion of the world's knowledge, each room a category, each room a shelf, and the building was the system, and the system was the organizing principle, and the organizing principle was the same principle that Miriam applied to her buildings, the principle that spaces should be designed for their purpose, that rooms should hold the things they are meant to hold, that the organization of space is a moral act, an act of care, an act of respect for the things and the people the space contains.

She had retired in 2006. She had been fifty-four years old. She had walked the stacks one last time, had touched the spines one last time, had sat at her desk in the cataloguing department one last time and looked through the east-facing window at the Portland morning, and the looking had been a form of cataloguing, a final entry in the record, the record of thirty-one years of mornings at the desk, thirty-one years of the light on the typewriter and then on the computer screen, thirty-one years of the fingers on the keys, the keys typing the numbers that were the addresses that were the locations that were the shelves that were the places where knowledge lived, and the living was the library's life, and the library's life was Lin's life, and the life had been good, had been a good life, had been a life organized by a system that worked, that held, that kept everything in its place.

Now the system held her. Now the system that she had served was serving her. Not the Dewey Decimal System -- the Dewey Decimal System was in the library, was in the building on Southwest Tenth Avenue, was in the computers that had replaced the card catalogue, was in the numbers on the spines of the books that Lin would never touch again. The system that held her now was different, was the system of the hospice, the system of care, the system that organized the dying the way the library organized the books -- with attention, with precision, with the professional discipline that says: everything has a place, and the place should be the right place, and the right place should be designed for the thing it holds.

Room 6 was the right place. Lin knew this. She knew it the way she knew the library, with the intimate knowledge of a person who has lived inside a system and who understands the system from the inside, from the held position, from the book's perspective rather than the librarian's. She was the book now. She was on the shelf. She was in the place the system had assigned her, and the place was good, was well-designed, was the room her daughter had designed with the same care that Lin had brought to the cataloguing, the same precision, the same professional discipline, the same love.

The same love. The love of the librarian for the library and the love of the architect for the building and the love of the daughter for the mother -- these were the same love, expressed in different media, catalogued under different headings, shelved in different sections of the human library, but the same love, the love of the person who organizes the world so that the world can be found, so that the person in the world can find their place, so that the book on the shelf can be located and held and opened and read, and the reading is the finding, and the finding is the love, and the love is the system, and the system works, and the system holds, and the holding is enough.

Lin closed her eyes. She closed them the way she closed the catalogue drawers at the end of the day, gently, with the practiced motion of a person who has closed thousands of drawers and who knows that the closing is not the ending but the keeping, the preserving, the holding of the contents until the next opening, and the next opening would come, would come in the morning, would come with the light through the east-facing window, the light that would open her eyes the way the morning opened the library, gradually, gently, the light filling the room the way knowledge fills a library, completely, without gaps, the light on every surface, the knowledge on every shelf, the room held, the library held, the woman held, the holding the system, the system the love, the love the thing that organizes everything, that places everything, that shelves everything in its proper location, even the dying, even the dying has its proper location, and the location is this room, this bed, this light, this holding.