Love in the Stacks

1. Nicole

Chapter one

Nicole

“ L ook good, feel good,” I say aloud to my reflection in the mirror.

I need today to go perfectly at work, so I’m starting with my outfit, hair, and makeup on point. I carefully picked out the wide-leg trousers with subtle blue and white plaid stripes with a light gray background and paired them with a bright red eyelet blouse over a black cami. Silver ballet flats finish the look. It may be overkill for my position as a librarian at a small-town college, but I’m dressing to impress today.

I smooth over my hair with one hand as I give my reflection a final once-over. My naturally blonde hair is straight and chin-length, but for the last three months, it’s also been a soft purple color. I might change over to a new color before long, but so far, I really love the lavender. I know that colorful hair styles are at odds with what many people picture when they think of a librarian—most are still envisioning an older woman with gray hair pulled up in a bun, cat-eyeglasses on a beaded chain, and a scowling face all wrapped up in a cardigan sweater. But that’s not me, nor is it most of the real-life librarians I’ve worked with.

Okay, I do love a nice cardigan.

Today at our all-staff library meeting, I’m going to suggest adding a graphic novel collection, hence the nerves I’m trying to shake. Not sure you can get much farther from a 1950s shushing librarian than that.

I’ve worked at Parker Library on the Harkness College campus for about a year now, and while my boss, Herb, has been supportive and open-minded, the library—and the college itself—tend to lag a bit behind the times. I’ve prepared my case for why a graphic novel collection would be beneficial, including citing examples of libraries at larger colleges and universities that have done the same, but I’m not sure what kind of reception to expect.

I glance around my apartment to make sure I’m not forgetting anything, then I lock the door and practically skip down the steps in my nervous energy. I rent an apartment on the second floor of a converted bungalow three blocks from the college campus, and so far, I haven’t needed a car. It’s a relief for my bank account which is already balancing student loans in addition to typical things like rent, utilities, and food.

Adulting is hard.

I intend to spend the ten-minute walk to work in downtown St. Anastasia going over the bullet points of my proposal, but as I breathe the early morning air, my senses are distracted by the picturesque scenes around me. The historic, downtown area that’s home to Harkness College is flooded with tourists, restaurants, art galleries and museums, and cultural and historical sites, all right on the water. It has narrow, brick streets more reminiscent of European towns than a city in Florida. A typical suburban business district with box stores, fast food restaurants, and businesses surrounds the downtown area in short driving distance, but the character and personality of St. Anastasia all reside within the approximately ten square miles encompassing the official “city” limits.

I fell in love with those ten square miles and with the beautiful campus of Harkness College when I traveled from Texas to interview a year and a half ago. Before that, I had been working as an outreach librarian at the Austin Public Library, where I landed my first job out of library school—that is, my master’s degree program for library and information science. A mixture of wanting something new outside of the city where I’d lived my whole life and a pull to be part of a college campus again had my eyes wandering to job ads for librarian positions in academia. Getting away from my long-term college boyfriend—now ex—was also pretty appealing at the time.

I scan my badge to open the back employee entrance to the library. As I enter the staff break room, my eyes land on Tasha, one of our regular student workers, with her eyes closed, resting her head on the table.

“Rough night?” I ask, nudging her gently.

She grumbles and lifts her head, shaking out her black curls. A crease from the table edge marks the deep brown skin across her forehead. “I had a paper due today that I may have put off until the last minute. I was up way too late finishing it.”

“What about?”

“The intersection of feminism and race in theater in the 1990s,” she responds, her brown eyes crinkling.

“Oh, so nothing too heavy?” I tease.

Tasha is an English major in her junior year with a minor in theater. She’s considering a career in libraries, so she’s around a lot, even when she’s not working. She smiles. “Nah, just a BS piece really.”

She eyes me up and down before adding, “You’re dressed up today. Any reason?”

“Yes,” I say breathily as I sit down next to her. “At the team meeting today, I’m going to pitch my graphic novel idea. I’m nervous but like an excited nervous.”

“Oh, is that the idea you were talking about a couple of weeks ago? Starting a graphic novel collection?”

“Yeah. I love graphic novels, and I just see so many ways they could tie into the curriculum for the English, art, and even history courses. Plus, it would be a fun way to get students excited about the library.”

“Sounds cool.” Tasha grins. “Let me know if you need a student testimonial.”

“You’re teasing. But actually, that would be pretty helpful. Can you email me a quote?”

Just then, the cataloging librarian walks in, making a beeline for the coffeemaker with his mug.

“Good morning,” he nods .

“Good morning, Alex,” I respond. He cocks his head at me but doesn’t say anything else.

As he leaves the room again, I can feel Tasha watching me. “What?” I ask.

“You know his name is Adam, right?” Her eyebrows rise as she puts a hand on her hip.

I groan and drop my forehead into my hands. “I do know that. What did I say?”

“Alex.”

Great. Not only did I likely insult my colleague, but I will also now be replaying that interaction in my head for the rest of the day, reliving the embarrassment. I shake my head to clear my thoughts and change the subject. “How’d your paper turn out?” I ask Tasha.

She brightens. “Really good, I think. This was a pretty short one, and I wrote it pretty quick, but it’s definitely a steppingstone to what I want to write for my senior thesis next year.”

“Cool. Let me know how I can help as you work up to your senior thesis. Research, proofreading, whatever.”

“I will.” Tasha glances at the screen of her phone. “Ah, I need to get out to the circulation desk. My shift starts right now.”

I nod as she sweeps her backpack off the table and we both stand. As she leaves the room, I open the refrigerator and set my lunchbox on the top shelf. I am scheduled to work the reference desk later this morning, but I can spend a few hours checking my email and polishing my pitch for the meeting first.

The Parker Library is a stand-alone, three-story building on the Harkness campus. Right now, I’m in the main staff work area, which has the back door out to the parking lot I used this morning, as well as an entrance leading in from the library itself. The staff area is just big enough to hold six offices, a break room, and a meeting room that can seat about fifteen people. As the newest librarian on staff, the office assigned to me is not along the exterior wall of the library, so I have no windows, except for the small rectangular one on the door that looks out onto the hallway. No natural light.

An hour or so later, I emerge out of the staff door and into the public area of the first floor and walk toward the reference desk. This part of the first floor is mainly a collaborative study space with tables and armchairs. The first floor also houses the circulation desk—a long, curved desk that contains a work area where some staff and student workers are situated. Here, students and faculty stop to check out or return materials, pick up holds, or even ask questions.

Diagonally across from the circulation desk is the reference desk. Though many libraries have done away with any kind of permanent reference desk, the Parker Library has yet to make that leap. We keep a desk just large enough to seat two people, with a large sign hanging from the ceiling above it saying ASK QUESTIONS HERE! During the weekdays, we switch off so that each librarian is on reference duty only about three hours each day.

Ingrid, one of the reference and instruction librarians, and I are scheduled on the desk this morning. Ingrid is a librarian in her fifties who has been working at Parker Library for twenty years. She’s already seated when I arrive.

“It’s quite busy here today,” she notes as I pull out the chair to sit down.

“Yeah?”

She nods. “The second floor is nearly full.”

I glance sideways at her. Her eyes are focused on the computer screen. “Should one of us do roving today so the second floor is covered?”

“That’s probably a good idea,” she answers. “Things always get busy the closer we get to lunchtime.”

“What’s your preference?” I always try to defer to the more tenured librarians on staff. After all, I’m happy to stay put at the desk or walk around upstairs.

She sighs. “My back has been a bit achy…”

“Okay, no problem. I can go upstairs,” I offer.

“That would be great,” she says, looking at me directly for the first time since I approached the desk. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure.” I mean it. While it is fun to sit in the main thoroughfare of the library watching everyone as they come in and disperse, it’s even more fun to walk around upstairs in the midst of the students working. I get good insight into their general mood—are they panicky? Exhausted? Jovial?—and into their study patterns.

“Don’t forget to log any reference questions for our statistics,” Ingrid says.

“I won’t,” I respond as I prop my open laptop against my forearm and start toward the stairs. I haven’t forgotten to log reference questions once in the year I've been here, so it’s not likely I’ll forget today. Not sure why Ingrid feels the need to remind me.

The second floor is the “stacks” part of the library—aisles of tall shelving filled with the library’s print collection of circulating books. Along the perimeter of the second floor are group study rooms, individual study carrels, and one small classroom-type space that library staff use to host in-person library instruction sessions, or that students can schedule to use to practice presentations or meet in larger groups.

Once upstairs, I find the rolling media cart and set my laptop on it. I walk the perimeter of the library first, pushing the cart in front of me and keeping an eye out for anyone who might look like they’re struggling. It really is nearly at capacity up here, mostly individual students cordoned off in study carrels, headphones on and staring into their laptop screens.

As I round the first corner, I see a couple at a table in a group study room, their chairs pulled out so they’re facing each other without the table between them. A young man is holding up index cards, one at a time, while the young woman says something in response to each one. He shakes his head after a response, and she scrunches up her forehead, thinking before she tries again. This time, he smiles, and leans forward, placing a quick kiss on her lips as she grins. He instantly straightens and holds up a new card. She gets this one right away.

Well, that’s adorable.

As I continue my path around the library, my mind’s eye lights up, projector-style, with flashing memories of my own college boyfriend, Steven. We were together for three years while I was earning my bachelor’s degree back in Austin. My first love. My only love so far. I was so much more serious about schoolwork than he was; I’m honestly not sure he ever stepped foot in the library, while I practically lived there. He never helped me study, but rather complained whenever I said I couldn’t go out because of schoolwork. I guess I should have recognized that as a red flag.

“Excuse me…” I hear a tentative voice say on my right. I turn to smile at a student with long, wispy brown hair.

“Hi! How can I help you?” I ask.

“Well, sorry to bother you, but I’m working on a paper and the teacher is really strict about citations. Can you look at my reference list to see if they’re right?”

“It’s not a bother at all! Let’s take a look.” I follow her back to her computer. While I do scan her reference list as she asked, I also have her open the webpage for the library’s citation guide, showing her how to match up the type of source she’s citing with the template examples on the page.

After finishing up with this student and resuming my walk (after notating the reference question on the tracking log, of course), I’m stopped again by another student. The three hours pass quickly. Before I know it, I’m heading back downstairs for my lunch break, thinking ahead to the staff meeting that afternoon where I’ll finally bring up my graphic novel idea.