So what are you doing at the library today?

 

I have been transcribing interviews for six hours. Yesterday, too.

 

Is that what you do for a job?

 

I’m working on a freelance radio story—it’s what I would like to do for a job. It’s hard to be like, Yeah! Own it—I’m a radio reporter!—because I’ve only had one story air.

 

So how long were you in the library today?

 

Six hours—I got here at 10 and just finished at 4pm.

 

Six hours… Why did you decide to come to this library?

 

I love this library. The windows are really pretty—you can see outside, it’s got a nice ambience, and it’s a former women’s prison so you know you can’t go wrong! I like this library a lot—I always have.

 

How long have you been coming here?

 

When I was in grad school I started coming here—so for… 4 years.

 

What did you study in grad school?

 

Non-fiction writing.

 

Where did you go to school?

 

I went to the New School, right in the neighborhood.

 

You mentioned before you were unemployed…

 

Yes. I’m unemployed—the library is also a nice place to go because you don’t feel like the only unemployed soul—I look around and see other people that are just as unemployed as me working studiously at something in the hopes of making money! And the free Wi Fi is great, really great.

 

Do you take advantage of any of the other services the library has to offer?

 

Sometimes I check out books. And the DVDs are awesome as well. I love the library—but it’s scary thinking about the future of libraries especially in the digital age. You move from books to e-readers and how is that going to change the library? And will we always have a free place to come to study and sit and read or do work?  So it’s an interesting time for libraries right now. What do you think is going to happen, Desiree?

 

I think that libraries and librarians are always going to have a place in the world and that their roles are just going to shift to be able to accommodate the needs of the communities and the public. 

 

I hope so; I hope that it stays a priority. The library is such an important place to lots of people, young and old—Unemployed, employed...

 

So are you reading anything lately? 

 

Hunger of Memory, the Richard Rodriguez memoir, because I’m working on a story about English as a second language education and he wrote a lot about learning English—great book. Also God of Small Things—but something about it is not doing it for me. All the foreshadowing is driving me crazy! So what are you reading?

 

The Anthologist by Nicholson Baker. It’s a fiction book about a poet—I like it a lot but I have to return it tomorrow and there are holds on it so I can’t renew it and I’m only halfway done with it!

 

No! You’ll have to read it really fast!  You mean you can’t trump the holds system even though you are working here? Man!

 

I wouldn’t want to take it away from the public anyway—this being on record!

 

New York Public Library is awesome!  And Los Angeles Public Library is awesome too —I’m from LA!

 

Thank you!