Transcript: Episode 8 - Find That Photo!

Loudspeaker: Good morning and welcome to the Richard J. Riordan Central Library. The library is now open.

Library Patron: What's the weirdest photo in the photo collection?

Sheridan: Hello, everyone. This is Sheridan J. Cazarez, a librarian in the Exploration and Creativity Department of the Los Angeles Public Library, back with another episode of Past Due: 100 years of Central Library, a podcast commemorating the Central Library Centennial. To celebrate the old girl, we're putting on a smorgasbord of events, a special reading challenge, and creating tons of original content for Angelenos to celebrate their beloved Central Library. For more, visit lapl.org/central-100. 

On today's episode, we're diving into our photo collection, catching up with our social media team to see what they've got on the docket and possibly, potentially, hopefully solving the mystery of a long lost Julian Garnsey wallpaper that once adorned the original Children's Literature Room in the East Wing of the 1926 Goodhue Building. To find the weirdest, funniest and most interesting photos in our photo collection, we're gonna need some backup. And who better to lead us than LAPL’s intrepid photo librarian? We're here today with the one, the only, Christina Rice. Christina began her career with the Los Angeles Public Library in 2005 at our John Muir Branch, before transferring to the History and Genealogy Department at Central Library the following year. She has been the senior librarian of the library's historic photo collection since 2009. She's the author of “Mean...Moody...Magnificent! Jane Russell and the Marketing of a Hollywood Legend,” “Ann Dvorak: Hollywood's Forgotten Rebel,” multiple issues of “My Little Pony” comic books and “Central Library Pops,” a pop-up book published by Angel City Press for the Central 100 celebration. Welcome, Christina.

Christina: Thank you for having me, Sheridan.

Sheridan: Of course, of course. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so let's jump right in. For interested listeners, check the show notes at lapl.org/central-100 to see the photos we're discussing on today's episode. Before diving into the photos you've selected, would you tell us a little bit more about the photo collection in general? What is your role there?

Christina: Yeah, I would love to tell you about our incredible photo collection, which at this point, we estimate numbers around 4 million photos documenting life in Los Angeles from the 1850s – so the earliest days of photography all the way to the present. We have almost every format that you can think of. So we have prints and we have cabinet cards, and we have tintypes and daguerreotypes, all different types of negatives. I don't think we have any holographic photos. I did get asked for that recently. 1970s holographic photos are not in our collection. But otherwise I think we have almost every format possible. It is not a fine art photography collection. It's a documentary photography collection and our goal is to just really represent, you know, the people, places, events in history of our fair city for everybody to access. And my role is a really expansive one. So I oversee a small but mighty staff. We accomplish so much, and I'm responsible for the acquisition and maintenance of this incredible collection. I need to, you know, delegate the collection processing to librarians. We also have interns, and I have my clerical staff. We also manage the digitization of the photos now. So I oversee all of those workflows. I prep photos for scanning as well as cataloging. I upload the completed images to Tessa. We assist patrons with their requests. So not only navigating our online photo collection, because just because something's online doesn't always mean it's really easy to navigate. But we have, I think, around 140,000 photos on Tessa and as I said, like 4 million photos in the collection. So we help people with their offline searches. So it's really my job to know what the collections are and where we can search for offline photos. And it's my job to just really be familiar with the collection to, to help everyone, to make them as accessible as possible. That's a little bit of what I do.

Sheridan: Wow. 4 million photos. I had no idea. You're a busy lady. OK.

Christina: Yes. 

Sheridan: Well, thank you so much, extra, for being here today. So, Christina, today we're on the hunt for the weirdest, funniest, most interesting photos in the photo collection. And we gave you a little bit of a heads up to see what you would find for us. What do you have for us today?

Christina: Yeah. So again, this is such, such a small sampling, but when you told me to look for the weirdest, there were a handful of photos that immediately came to mind and I realized they were all from the same collection. And this is our Eyre Powell Chamber of Commerce Collection. Eyre Powell was a local photographer who ran his own photo service and was hired by the Chamber of Commerce to photograph the city. This is in the ‘20s and the ‘30s to take kind of promotional photos of the city that could be distributed and Security Pacific National Bank acquired this collection at some point. And so that is how we ended up with it. There are thousands of photos from this collection. I pulled some of my favorites that immediately came to mind. And then one of my staff members, Valeria, has been working with this collection recently, and so I asked her to pull the ones that really appealed to her. And because these were promotional photos that were trying to get people to move to Los Angeles, they frequently focused on climate as well as agriculture, because we were really promoted as this land of sunshine and abundance. And so, probably my favorite photo from it is this one here, which shows a woman, she is literally buried up to her neck in grapes. She's sticking her tongue out and it's just a goofy photo and out of context, I don't know if you could really figure out what's going on.

Sheridan: Yeah, it's a strange photo. For any listeners, we'll try to make sure that this is available in the show notes, but it's, she looks like she's just a floating head.

Christina: A floating head on grapes, lots of grapes though.

Sheridan: Lots of grapes. 

Christina: An abundance, an abundance of grapes. Yeah. And just keeping with the agriculture theme, I brought you some photos of the Corn Queen and her court. I love her because, you know, she's out in the field and she has a pitchfork and overalls, but she also has an ermine cape and a tiara.

Sheridan: Yeah, the Corn Queen, which seems very Midwest. I mean, a Corn Queen doesn't seem California to me, but…

Christina: Yes, but we are a land of abundance. So I think this was for, it was for the 1936 LA County Fair.

Sheridan: Wow.

Christina: Which has been a longstanding tradition here. I did bring a couple of others that I just wanted to briefly talk about, you know, that at first glance might not seem like much, but there are photos that have kind of taught me to not underestimate the power of photography, the power of the photos, and what might resonate with people. And so one of the things I've learned over my years of overseeing this collection is to never refer to a photo as “interesting” because I think that's so subjective – interesting or important – because what might be interesting or important to you might not be for me. And so a couple of photos and these are also from our Chamber of Commerce Collection. There are photos of an Inuit woman, she is standing not in real snow. It is obviously fake snow, but she has her fur coat on and we just have this online for years as “Eskimo Woman Dressed Warmly.” I think… I didn't put it online, it was there when I took over the collection. And so early on in my tenure as the senior of this department, this might be something I wouldn't have digitized because we don't have information about it. Why would you put this online? But it was, and at one point I received an email from a professor at a university, and this email I received from him, like the energy of his email, was jumping off the screen at me and he said, ‘oh my God, I'm almost positive this is Nancy Columbia.’ And I'm like, ‘well, who is Nancy Columbia?’ She was a woman that was born in the Eskimo Village at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago, and for many years made a living as a traveling, quote unquote, “authentic Eskimo.” And she was somebody he had been researching for years. And she retired here in Los Angeles. And she came out of retirement like in the early ‘30s for a dog show. And these are photos from that dog show. And it was so meaningful for him. And he gave us all of that information. So you can go on Tessa and look for Nancy Columbia. But that's when I learned never to underestimate a photo. And it certainly is worth taking the time to try to research the photos, which at this point, we certainly have a lot more resources at our disposal than when we were first digitizing. So these photos taught me a valuable lesson that I pass onto my staff. I've had to ban them from using the word “interesting” to describe our photos. And I also just brought, I think we have 4 million photos, it's hard to pick a favorite, but if I had to, I think this photo here is probably my favorite. It was taken by a photographer named Herman Schultheis. He was a German immigrant who came to Los Angeles in the late ‘30s, worked briefly for Disney, and just photographed the city. He was really a street photographer and photographed the city extensively between like 1937 and ‘41. I think we have around 6,000 photos of Los Angeles he took, which are all online. This particular one shows a couple in Huntington Beach. They are on the beach picnicking. Nobody else is on the beach, and behind them are just oil derricks, which was so, you know, common at that time. And so they are just in the shadows of the oil derricks. And I think it's a beautiful photo. And the man's getting the picnic ready. And the woman looks a little bit startled to be having her photo taken. I don't think to have oil derricks behind her, but probably just to have her photo taken. And I think it's just a hauntingly beautiful photo. And I love Herman Schultheis, so I wanted to share that.

Sheridan: No, it's a great photo. For interested listeners, check out the Schultheis collection on Tessa. It's spelled S-C-H-U-L-T-H-E-I-S, and we'll put it in the show notes too. So what are these photos tell us about the eras in which they were taken?

Christina: Almost all of these, these are part of our, our Chamber of Commerce Collection and the ‘20s and early ‘30s. This is a period of, of the Los Angeles boosters. So these are our civic leaders that are striving to make Los Angeles this major metropolitan city, you know, an iconic city of the world. And so one of the big things was to try to get people to move here. And that was something that had been going on for decades, starting with the Rose Parade, was designed to get people to move here, you know. And what does Los Angeles have? We have our weather. 

Sheridan: Yeah.

Christina: We have our climate. It's just a golden, shining, wonderful place. And so that's what these photos reflect, that it's kind of a place where anything goes at the same time. Lots of the photos in this collection are beaches. We have like women, you know, on the beach with Santa, and Christmas trees. It's designed to get people here. I think it also reflects that even though, yes, at this point we are striving to become a major metropolis, which I think, you know, is really established by 1932 when we get the Olympics, it was a really big deal that we got the Olympics. I think these photos also clearly demonstrate that even though, yes, we're a major city, I don't know that we've ever taken ourselves very seriously. and to this day, I don't think we do. I think you come to Los Angeles and I think like the Huntington Beach photo with the oil derricks, I think it takes a lot to faze us. You know, I think the things that we see every day on the streets are just very LA and they might not happen anywhere else in the world. And I think we just embrace, I think we embrace our oddities. We embrace our geographic vastness. We embrace our cultural vastness. We are such a, you know, we're such a quilt, a patch quilt of everything in the city. And so you can see that really developing here in these photos. Yeah.

Sheridan: Yeah, definitely. So you mentioned that you interned and you fell in love with Central. And that's a great segue to, to our next and final question today. What is your favorite part of the Central Library?

Christina: Oh man. God, I love Central Library so much. I have two. So I have, I have my favorite personal place. And then I have kind of my favorite place to show people. So my favorite personal place is the North Vestibule where the Sphinx and the Civilization statues are. I love those three statues so much. I'm, I'm a sucker for anything Sphinx. And so sometimes I'll just wander over there and just stare at them. And we recently cleaned them. And Civilization’s way better lit right now. So she just looks beautiful. And you can really see...

Sheridan: …the panels.

Christina: … the panels on her skirt. So I just, yeah, that that's just a very special, almost meditative place for me. But when I'm showing people around and I'll often give tours if, if our amazing docents aren't available, I'll give tours of the building. And it's so incredible to give tours to people who have never been to Central before. And so I'll take them up to the rotunda. And the rotunda is always jaw dropping because it really is our museum piece of Central now. But what I really love is when I take them from the rotunda down the hallway to the atrium, and when we get to that atrium landing, and you're standing there overlooking this atrium space, which is so incredible and so hard to wrap your mind around, I just love to see the reactions of people. So I love the reveal of the atrium. 

Sheridan: Yeah. 

Christina: It's incredible.

Sheridan: Thank you so much for being with us today, Christina. It's been a pleasure.

Christina: Thank you so much. And yeah, go to tessa.lapl.org. Freely accessible to everyone, no library card needed for that.

Sheridan: Next up on the Past Due podcast, we're chatting with two of the hardest working people at the Los Angeles Public Library.  Our social media team, here with us today are Keith Kessler and Krystal Ruiz, who quadruple-handedly create content across our social media channels, respond to messages and comments, and keep Angelenos abreast of what's going on at their library. 

Keith has been our social media librarian since 2016 and previously worked at the Cahuenga Branch Library. He came to Los Angeles Public Library after a stint as a teacher at Burbank Adult School and time as a librarian at Glendale Library Arts and Culture. Krystal is one of our public relations specialists who joined LAPL in 2022. She brings with her ample experience in social media management, content creation and a social media user POV. You can catch them both on the library's social media channels at LA Public Library on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. Welcome, Keith and Krystal.

Krystal: Hello.

Keith: Hey, thanks for having us.

Sheridan: Before getting into the library, social media and your work, tell us about how you got involved with our public relations department here at Los Angeles Public Library. What drew you to your current position?

Krystal: So, before working at the library, I, I was working freelance for nonprofits, mostly outdoor-focused nonprofits, who were trying to get inner city kids out into nature. Of course, I worked retail. I feel like everyone should work retail at least once in their life. And yeah, the library just kind of aligned with my goals as a person. I really wanted to work for like a big corporation. So, you know, working with community and the library just seemed like a good home for me.

Sheridan: Yeah, yeah. It has been a good home for you. How about you, Keith?

Keith: For this particular position, I was working in Glendale Library and social media is quite new at the time. And so I was like, ‘Sure, I'll be on the committee to, to do social media.’ And the first post, it was a reading list for Breaking Bad. And at that time, the show was huge. It was ending and that got picked up by the LA Times. And I was like, ‘okay, maybe this social media thing is interesting.’ And then transferred to LA Public Library and did social media at the branch level. And then the position opened up for the the person to run it, you know, for the whole system. And I was like, ‘okay, that sounds like a pretty cool position,’ and applied and was able to get it.

Sheridan: So your first post at Glendale got picked up by the LA Times.

Keith: Yeah.

Sheridan: Wow. That's amazing.

Keith: It's like the person going to the slot machine and hitting it and they're like, ‘okay, right off the bat,’ you know.

Sheridan: Amazing. For any listeners who don't know, our social media team and our PR department has won tons of awards. We're super, super proud of them. They do a great job telling the story of what the library is doing in the community, and all the different things that we have to offer. One thing that always strikes me, at least having been in libraries for a long time, is how different it is to work in a library than most people would think. Keith, Krystal, tell us about a time when you looked around and went like, ‘this is really my job. How did I get here?’ Like, ‘I didn't think working in a library was going to entail this.’

Keith: I think one of my first assignments was to take a photo for Summer Reading, and we had a partnership with the Dodgers. And so they're like, ‘we're going to take the photo on the field.’ And so like, I'm on the field of Dodger Stadium, like arranging. Summer Reading promo material and you're looking around and you're like, I mean, I was, you know, in the stadium watching the game now I'm like doing something with the Dodgers on the field. I was like, ‘this is mind blowing.’ I couldn't believe it.

Sheridan: Surreal.

Krystal: My first wow moment was probably like in my first week of working at the library. I must have photographed like 2 or 3 retirement parties. So there was a lot of free food and cake and it was just like, ‘wow, I work here. This is so cool.’ Like, ‘look at all this free food. It's awesome.’ I mean, how could you not? As time has gone on, I think my first like real wow moment was working with the Octavia Lab and photographing their Octavia Butler celebration, the very first one and just the turnout of all the like-minded people, just fans of Octavia Butler's writing, people who have bookstores named after or inspired by Octavia Butler. That was, I think, the first time in my time with the library seeing like standing room only inside of the Tabor Auditorium, which was really cool.

Sheridan: Yeah. Yeah. And the Taper is huge. I mean, it seats I think 235 people, if I remember correctly, if memory serves. That's always a really special event. And we're actually recording this podcast in the Octavia Butler lab. 

Krystal: Yeah. 

Sheridan: The Octavia Lab. So it's pretty cool. As you know, this episode of the Past Due podcast shines a little more light on the library's photo collection. That was a segment that came before you all. We interviewed Senior Librarian Christina Rice, and that photo collection features tons of historic photos, not only of Los Angeles but also of the library. Are any of the photos or videos that you all are producing in your current positions being archived somewhere for future Angelenos to enjoy?

Keith: So definitely, they're on our Google Drive organized and we, you know, we use them on a regular basis. I think we've talked to Christina because sometimes you don't even know the history you're capturing, like in the moment. And then things change and you're like, ‘well, I'm glad I captured that because it no longer exists that way anymore.’ So I think over time, the collection and what we're doing will become even more valuable. And maybe there'll be a way to kind of incorporate some of those digital files into the institutional collection, but it's definitely still preserved and there for anybody. I mean, right now it's there for us to use...

Sheridan: Right?

Keith: …internally, yeah.

Krystal: I guess you can kind of see like social media as like an archive in a way. 

Sheridan: Yeah. 

Krystal: Because even, even if things changed, let's say a new social media platform came up and everybody moved over to that one, like our digital footprint would still be there.

Sheridan: So for good or bad. 

Keith: Yeah, there's yeah, there's some pretty, there's some stuff, let's say, let's just say that we were figuring things out in the early days of social media, of course.

Sheridan: Yeah. Don't scroll back.

Keith: Don't scroll.

Sheridan: If you had to choose 1 or 2 of your favorite photos or videos from our social media channels to include in an archive, let's say to really memorialize your work here, which one would it be?

Krystal: I would have to choose the Bad Bunny video, and not just because I am actually in that video, but because I think it made such an impact on the community. We got a lot of followers from that video, which was really cool. Also, it was kind of monumental with the Super Bowl having a half time show in all Spanish, which was really cool. So I don't know, there was just so much happening during that time. 

Krystal in LAPL Social Media Bad Bunny Video: Hi, I was hoping you could help me with something and this is kind of embarrassing. So my friends want me to throw a Bad Bunny-themed Super Bowl party but I don’t know who that is. Wow.

Reference Librarian in LAPL Social Media Bad Bunny Video: Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, also known as El Conejo Malo, or Bad Bunny, was born and raised in Vega Baja, Puerto Rico and declared a stage name after coming across a photo from his childhood where he was clearly annoyed about wearing a bunny costume.

Krystal: And then the vision board is just iconic. It sits above my desk. I look at it every day.

Sheridan: We'll have to get a photo of that for the show notes. How about you, Keith?

Keith: I would say it's hard to narrow it down. There's one piece that I shot where it was like talking about somebody who donated puzzles to the library, and I showed up to the interview just thinking, ‘oh, this will be a cute story.’ And it turned out it was somebody who was unhoused at one point and then came to the library and was using our puzzles. And because he was able to like be successful putting together jigsaw puzzles like gain confidence and was able to kind of improve his situation and get a job and get a permanent living situation. And he told that whole story. And I was just like amazed by it. 

Keith in LAPL Social Media Puzzle Video: So how many puzzles have you donated to the library?

Patron in LAPL Social Media Puzzle Video: I lost count. It’s, it’s something that I’m willing to do and I can afford it and I hope it’s helping people here too. I myself was out in the streets for many, many years and I was looking for a place where I could go, relax, learn, still feel that I was human and a place to feel safe. If you are, like an example, you’re able to do this piece, you’re like ‘wow, i could do this!’ refreshes your mind that you don’t have to deal with everything at the same time. You deal with whatever you can. If they could achieve a simple thing like that, maybe they could achieve other things.

Keith: To me, that just kind of shows like these kind of stories that are happening all the time at the library that we might not even know about people turning their lives around with our resources. And then I think the other one is, once again, like the Dodgers parade has now come by the library two years in a row. And let's hope for a third. 

Sheridan: Yeah! 

Keith: And so just the excitement around that and having you know, I feel like it's historic having the parade go right by the library. So you see the the bus and all the players and the pyramid kind of behind them is a, is a cool visual I think that would probably be referenced for years to come.

Sheridan: Yeah, for sure. Especially with our City Librarian John Szabo on the roof kind of linking everybody. It's like, it's, it's a cool moment. 

Keith: Yeah. 

Sheridan: Do you know if there's social media regulars? Are there people who are constantly engaging with our channels? Anybody who's really gung ho about the library that you see repeating, commenting, posting, liking, reposting, sharing?

Keith: I think we definitely see like repeat people who are really invested in the library, commenting and liking the stuff. So it's fun to, to follow them. And I think that the algorithm is probably really good at like getting the specific types of posts that people like from us to them. So there's like people who really love our history, educational content, and people that love like the funnier content. And one of them is a comedian, Cristela Alonzo, who has done some Netflix specials, just loves Spokes.

Krystal: Big raccoon fan.

Sheridan: Big raccoon fan?

Keith: Yeah. And so any time, like you can just count on it. Like if there's a Spokes video, just their, their first comment. We're working on the collab. You know, it's gonna happen.

Sheridan: Yes. Can you imagine her and Spokes? Well, thank you so much for your support. We'll, we'll be sure to throw some more Spokes up there for you. Alright, to wrap up today's interview, I'll ask you both the same question that I ask of every single guest on the pod. What is your favorite part of Central Library?

Krystal: A lot of people really love the historical parts of the building, and I don't blame them. They're beautiful, but they get so much love and attention. I think the atrium needs a little bit more love. I love the chandeliers. They're, you know, they're kind of odd to look at. But what's so unique about the space is how it goes underground. And it's also an atrium. So there's like tons of sunlight, tons of windows. So even though it seems kind of dark in the lower levels, there's still so much light. And I don't know, I just really love that space. It's also very open. I feel like we should have some type of opera singer come by and like, sing in there and shatter some of those windows…

Sheridan: Just like a little classical guitar, violin, you know, like just to fill up the space. How about you, Keith?

Keith: So it's basic, but I'm gonna go with the rotunda. It's kind of like the In-N-Out Double Double. Like, you know, it's almost, you can't go wrong. Like it's the answer everybody gives, but it's still amazing. So yeah, every time I walk through there, it's just, ‘wow,’ you look around and you're like, ‘wow, this is where I work.’ It's an amazing space. And what's wild is you know, right now we have the world's largest pop-up book in that space and it's the first time the rotunda has actually felt small.

Krystal: Mmmhmmm. Agreed. Yeah. 

Sheridan: Yeah. For any listeners out there who haven't seen the world's largest pop-up book, visit us here at Central. It's on display, I think, through November at least. And they periodically flip the pages. So you might come and see a totally new thing upon your visit. Well, thank you so much both for taking the time out of your busy schedules to join us today. Hopefully, this gave our listeners a little bit of insight into the team behind our amazing, award-winning, incredibly charismatic and dynamic social media channels. I often hear about how great our social media presence is and that is thanks to you both. So thanks for being here.

Keith: Thank you. I mean, it's a whole team. It's all, it wouldn't be what it is if we didn't have staff pitching in and doing this stuff and going along with all of our crazy ideas so.

Krystal: And coming up with ideas of their own.

Keith: And coming up with ideas, yeah.

Sheridan: Thanks, guys.

Krystal: Thank you.

Sheridan: All right, folks, it's time for this episode's library mystery. Get yourself a cup of coffee, tea, matcha, or other preferred beverage because you're in for a yarn. Those of you who visited the Children's Literature Department on the second floor of Central Library may have noticed the unique carpet. 

The carpet lends a scholarly and studious air to the Children's Literature Department and really feels historic. But it's actually new. The carpet is adorned with a variety of critters and other things. You'll notice motifs borrowed directly from the painted ceiling above, courtesy of Julian Garnsey and his crew on the carpet. But you'll also see a repeating pattern that includes a turtle, a bear, a rooster and a squirrel arranged in the spaces between the symbols. Now, conventional wisdom says that these animals were lifted from other works of art in the library, and honestly, that makes sense. Eagle-eyed visitors to Central Library might see the turtle from Cornwell's South Wall mural, “The Americanization of California,” repeated in the carpet after entering Children's Literature. Other elements from the murals are present in the carpet as well. Cornwell started his career as a magazine illustrator, and the blue he used to outline the figures in the rotunda definitely can be seen under foot, especially the man bending over to kiss the woman's hand. The man with the top hat and the indigenous man with the headdress. Another theory is that the turtle and the bear in the carpet could come from the Civilization statue in the North Stairwell. The statue, occupying the niche in the stairwell, has a bear poised on her head and rests her staff on the back of a turtle. But what about the other animals? During my docent training, I took time to see if I could find any of the other animals from the carpet in Dean Cornwell's murals. To no avail. Apparently I'm not the only one. Other docents and staff members have also let me know that they've tried as well, but could only ever really find the turtle. So that's this week's library mystery. Where did the squirrel, the rooster, and the bear on the carpet in Children's Literature come from? 

Let's start at the beginning. And even before the beginning. This carpet, like many of the others in the building, was part of the restoration efforts of the 1980s and the 1990s. In the old days, the Children's Literature Department was in the east wing of the library, adjacent to where international languages now exists. During the restoration, the Children's Literature department was moved to the Goodhue Building, where it sits today. Much of the restoration work in children's literature was led by architect Brenda Levin and her firm. The carpet itself, however, was designed by architect Norman Pfeiffer, who undertook the addition of the Tom Bradley Wing. Pfeiffer designed several carpets for use, both in the new and older wings of the library, taking advantage of then pretty newfangled software that could turn digital designs into patterns for carpet looms. To make his new carpets dialogue with the historic Goodhue Building, he gleaned inspiration for his carpets from the existing art in the library. Many of the design motifs come from the Julian Garnsey ceiling. The repeating background design comes from Dean Cornwell's blue outlines. But again, what about the animals? 

Well, fast forward about 35 years. Picture it! The Central Library is celebrating its centennial, and as part of the celebration, the library decides to produce a podcast focusing on the library's history and mysteries. While planning the podcast, an enduring riddle resurfaced. That of the animals on the Children's Literature carpet. In planning meetings for the podcast, library docent Kate Kaplan mentioned that she had heard a rumor that Pfeiffer had found these animals in another part of the library. It seems there was a long lost Julian Garnsey wallpaper in the historic Children's Literature Department in the East Wing. Unfortunately, the parts of the East Wing that didn't feature the Ivanhoe murals were torn down during the renovations, along with the wallpaper that adorned them. Kate let me know that Robert Chattel, a preservation architect who worked at the Community Redevelopment Agency when the Tom Bradley Wing was being planned, had let her know that Julian Garnsey had designed wallpaper for the Children's Literature room in the East Wing, and that the Getty may have a piece in their archives. She also mentioned that on one of her docent tours, a retired LAPL librarian mentioned that the animals came from the walls of the old Children's Literature Department. With this lead from docent Kate Kaplan, I, your intrepid Past Due podcast host, set out to solve the case. I searched the Getty's online archives but wasn't able to find any entries for Julian Garnsey. but I didn't give up that easily. After submitting a reference request, their reference specialist for architecture collections, Aimee, let me know that she wasn't able to locate anything related to the Garnsey wallpaper either. I had reached a dead end. The next step was to contact Norman Pfeiffer's office, now called Perkins Eastman. A quick Google search let me know that their offices were just a couple of blocks away. While I was gathering the courage to reach out to Perkins Eastman with a request, I happened to interview the library's amazing Photo Collection Senior Librarian Christina Rice, who you heard earlier on this episode. During the interview, kind of offline, I told her about the plans for this episode and how I was working on tracking down this elusive Garnsey wallpaper, to which she responded:

Christina: Well, Sheridan, you know we have photos of the old Children's Literature Department in the Photo Collection. Would you like me to take a look?

Sheridan: And you could probably imagine my joy. A library mystery solved and totally in-house. Christina pulled the photos of the old Children's Literature Department, scanned them and sent them along, and sure enough, there posed on the wall in all its bushy-tailed glory was the squirrel and the rooster and the bear. But that's not all. The photos of the old wallpaper even show a crab, a pelican, an owl, which I honestly think would have been so cute on the carpet, but also a lion and a rabbit. If you'd like to see photos, check the show notes of today's episode. Looks like this library mystery is solved! A nice little feather in the cap of a young podcast.

When I was looking at the photos of the wallpaper in the old Children's Literature Department of the East Wing, I found myself imagining this collection of papery fauna lovingly looking down on generations of children, discovering stories of heroes, stories of heroines, maybe giggling at the hijinks of their favorite characters, learning from the trickster tales of cultures all around the world, and all with the gentle guidance of generations of librarians devoted to connecting our youth to our stories. All of our youth and all of our stories. And the best part is that these friends, our friends, the squirrel, the bear, the turtle, the rooster, they're not done. They're still watching our children discover the magic of literature and the power of stories. But now, instead of looking down, they're looking up. 

Today's episode was made possible by executive producer Christina Hairston and producer Sheridan Jay Cazarez. It was recorded at the Central Library, with help from the amazing staff in the Octavia Lab and edited by Abbie Fentress Swanson. If you'd like to see photos, documents or more about the places and spaces we discussed in today's episode, check the Central 100 podcast show notes at lapl.org/central100. I'm your host, Sheridan Jay Cazarez, with the Los Angeles Public Library. Thanks for listening to the Past Due podcast. We'll see you at the library.