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Episode 2 - Famous Patrons of Central Library: Transcript

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

Patron: I remember seeing that guy from the Dodgers here. Have you ever met anyone else who's famous?

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. On today's episode, we're talking about the library's power to spark the imagination and also the famous patrons of Central Library. Take it from me, in a city like Los Angeles, there are many.

Robert Anderson: Yeah. So my name is Robert Anderson. I'm currently the Librarian 3-Subject Specialist here in the Literature and Fiction Department at Central Library. I started in 1980. My department's Senior Librarian mentioned [that] "author from this department comes in here fairly regularly. I'm sure you'll see her." And she was talking about Octavia Butler. At that point, Octavia Butler was, was a published author. She had written a couple of the Patternist books, and she had also written Kindred. So she was known, but she was not as well known as she would become in five, six, seven years. She came to Los Angeles Public Library, to Central Library in particular, on a fairly regular basis. I think just for things that, that she wasn't able to, to find it in Pasadena. She was quiet. She was always friendly to the staff. She was not the sort of person who would, who would broadcast the fact that, oh, "I'm, I'm an author who's in your collection." Mostly, we had these conversations about whatever she was looking for, which was usually a particular book or maybe a particular subject. And in those days, if you didn't find your book and you wanted to put a Hold on it, you had to buy a postcard for $0.25 and fill out the postcard. So that was, I think, how we probably found out in the first place who she was. She was quiet, but she definitely, you got the impression that she had strong opinions about a lot of subjects, and she was interested in a lot of things besides science fiction. If she had known, she would have an area of this Central Library that was named after her, I think she would have been absolutely thrilled.

Sheridan: Here we have Eileen King, Librarian 3, in our Art, Music, and Recreation Department at Central, describing world-renowned street artist Man One's impact at the Central Library.

Eileen King: Man one has been a continuous heartbeat in Los Angeles' landscape of mural and graffiti art. He has served as Artist in Residence for Central Library's "Looking at Art" exhibit and the program series that followed. Man One has used his visual voice in alleyways, on the sides of buildings, in museums, in his own virtual gallery that featured his work and promoted emerging street artists over the decades. He's inspirational to work with because he's always reaching back and bringing others along. And I would say the most consistent work besides his artistic effort, was how many people he reached out to help, to bring along, even if they were starting late in their careers in street art, or they were just brand new to it. During 2022, when we were working on a whole program series based on looking at art in the street. He was involved in every aspect and he was just a regular fixture in the department as we moved forward, as we got ready to do our YouTube channel presentation. The library has always sustained a street art collection. However, when Man One came in, he was so active in every aspect of street art that he influenced our collection development and we now have over 300 titles.

Linda Rudell-Betts: I'm Linda Rudel- Betts, Senior Librarian for the Social Science, Philosophy and Religion Department at LAPL's Central Library. The Social Sciences department relationship with Emilio Estevez started with a phone call I received in 2007. Emilio was planning for a film about down and out library patrons and the librarians who worked for them. Emilio sat behind the reference desk, watching us interact with patrons from all backgrounds. We gave him our reference training questions, and he would ask about library jargon, about regulars, and how it was that we librarians got through the everydayness of it all, balancing the sad human stories we witnessed and the often complex queries we answered. I tell him we were there at the reference desk to serve the people of LA. All of them. The movie The Public was released in 2019. It was set and shot at the Cincinnati, Ohio Public Library. But if you watch the film, look for the scene in the Reading Room where the wall banners that say Social Science, Philosophy and Religion; a tribute to our contributions. Do you remember the question scene? He was behind the desk with us and I said, "these are the questions that we use." And he said, "okay." And then a busy day. So it was almost like what shows up in the movie. And he saw what we do, which is, you know, "Thank you so much. How can I help you?" Question. And "is there anything else we can help you with? I can help the next person. "And so he saw what was going on and he just could not believe that that's what we do. Yeah. When we had Emilio sitting with us, observing behind the reference desk, patrons would recognize him from time to time. So, he was fairly unobtrusive. We would have people stop and look and kind of take another second look, and then sometimes say, "are, are you?" And he would say "yes" for some. Even more amusing, when the first week that he sat with us, we had visits from librarians from all over the building who never, never made it down to lower level three. And they would casually walk by and then send their colleagues. It was quite remarkable.

Sheridan: Those were just a few snippets of the folks around here that remember meeting those individuals and knowing that they were there to research or gain inspiration, or even just to sit here for a different place to work on their craft for a little while. Many of you know that the Octavia Lab, our makerspace located outside our Science and Technology Department on Lower Level Two, was named after Octavia Butler. Butler was a regular fixture here at Central. Check out the LAPL blog post titled "On Persistence: Octavia Butler and Central Library," written by our International Languages Senior Librarian, Vi. It's great stuff. Let me introduce our guest. Today we have the honor of introducing Terri Accomazzo, the Editorial Director at Angel City Press.

Terri Accomazzo: Hi. It's so great to be here with you. Talking about Central 100.

Sheridan: For any listeners out there who haven't heard the good news, the Los Angeles Public Library recently added Angel City Press to its ranks. A natural partnership since Angel City Press focuses on its publishing prowess on telling the stories of Los Angeles and Angelenos. Terry is the mighty Editorial Director and has had a long career in academic and trade publishing. She started at Angel City Press as assistant to the publisher while completing her English degree at Pitzer College, and then, while working on her master's in English at University College London, moved over to Sage Publishing, where she stayed for almost a decade. Terry then made her way back to Angel City Press and were so happy to have her, where she's been now for a little over seven years. She's a powerhouse. Terri, you left Sage to helm a small independent publisher. And like an old Russian proverb that you love, decided to pray to God but row towards the shore. Would you tell us a little bit about your journey to Editorial Director at Angel City Press?

Terri: Yeah, I'd love to. So, as you mentioned, I was in academic publishing for many, many years at a very corporate international publisher. But even though I really enjoyed my work there, it was nothing like the time I'd spent at Angel City Press when I was Assistant to the Publisher while in college. I loved this company so much. I learned so much from its founders, Patty Callisto and Scott Macaulay, about doing books that matter, doing books that make a difference to the community, and working so closely with the authors that you form a true partnership with them. A lot of times in more corporate models of publishing, it's almost like an assembly line where you just sort of push the books through to get them out. But here at Angel City Press, every book is truly like a bespoke project. We look at every single page, we look at every single photograph. We're working in the trenches with the authors every single day, and it makes the books into something that I feel is truly a treasure, and something that we hope readers can just dig into year after year, because we put so much thought and care into every single thing that we put into the book.

Sheridan: That's beautiful. That's beautiful. Yeah. I mean, so you're just like us, basically. We as librarians, we love the community. We want to do things that matter. We want to do things that make an impact. And now we have the, uh, advantage and the honor to have Angel City Press titles on our shelves forever. I mean, it's going to be, it's going to be amazing. Would you tell us, uh, what your favorite thing about the Central Library is?

Terri: Well, I love so many things about the Central library. Um, including the librarians, who I think each and every one of them is just really an angel here on earth. But I would say that what I admire most about the time I spend here is the range of Angelenos that you meet in the library. You see people doing really high level scholarly research, right down to the adult literacy program, where you see people coming in every day trying to improve their reading skills. And it just reminds you how the library is truly a place for everyone. It's, no matter what stage of life you're in, if you're a new parent, if you're a senior looking for, you know, new activities in retirement. The library has something for you. And when you walk through the halls of Central, as I did on my way down to record this podcast, you just see everyone, and it's a true center of the community in a way that few places are these days.

Sheridan: Totally appreciate you calling librarians angels. It's been a long time since I've been called an angel. I'm going to soak it up. How do you, uh, as Editorial Director, see the mission of Angel City Press and the library's mission coming together.

Terri: So at Angel City Press, back when we were a private company run by Patty and Scott, we were always trying to preserve and promote the history of Los Angeles. And we always want to reflect a vision of Los Angeles back to people that really feels accurate to the people who live here. I think any Angeleno is familiar with some of the stereotypes of Los Angeles. We have no history. We have no culture. Los Angeles is full of culture. It's full of diversity. It's full of creativity, it's full of passion and artistry, and I think we really want to highlight that and preserve it so that people really know everything that exists here. And the library is obviously such an important part of that through its special collections, through its archives. We kind of started our partnership with the library well before we ever talked about merging together. When we were publishing books with the Library Foundation, based on the library's special collections and those collections, you know, they're a really important part of Los Angeles' cultural legacy. But of course, they can't be on display all the time. They can't be thumbed through by, you know, every Angeleno because they're rare and sort of delicate materials. But by turning them into a book, we're making them accessible to everybody. We're showing people the depth of what we have here in this library. And so I think it's just a natural part of the library's mission to make its collections and materials as widely available to the public as possible. And of course, you know, we're trying to sell books. We're trying to operate kind of as a traditional book publishing business. But our partnership with the library means that there are many, many copies of every single book available for free to Angelenos. And I think that's something that's incredibly special about this partnership.

Sheridan: Totally agree. Totally agree. For any listeners out there who want to pick up a copy of any of Angel City Press's titles, they're available here at Los Angeles Public Library, um, through our catalog. But if you want to see our special collections, you can always make an appointment with our Special Collections team. Uh, they're more than happy to show you any material that you'd like to see. Uh, from our archives. Terri, uh, how do you see the partnership between Angel City Press and LAPL evolving?

Terri: Well, I know that one thing that we've talked about wanting to do is more children's books. And I think we really want to do, uh, more books in other languages, translations, things like that. I think it would be really amazing to do Spanish language translations of all of our books. It's a little bit tricky for me because I don't have a ton of experience hiring translators and doing that work, but I think it's going to be a really amazing challenge, and I think it's important work for us to do. So that's something that we're looking toward in the sort of medium to long term. In the short term, we've been working on digitizing our collections and making them available through Libby so that people can check them out really easily from home. So there are a lot of things that we want to do, from expanding the types of books we publish to expanding the accessibility of the books that we publish. But I think in terms of the content, our mission is going to stay the same. We want to tell the stories of Angelenos by Angelenos, for Angelenos.

Sheridan: And translations would be amazing. In a city like LA with such a huge Spanish speaking population, such a huge Japanese, Chinese, Korean, the multitude of languages that we have here. Um, yeah, that'd be. That'd be a dream. Are there any favorite books that you've produced?

Terri: Well, I feel like this is a question that can get me into trouble, because every single book is, of course, my favorite. And I will say in my defense with that answer, I get hundreds of proposals every year, and I publish between 5 to 7 books. So those books that do get published are things that I really pulled out of the haystack. And I really thought, this is something special. This is something that I want to devote months and months and months of my life to thinking about. But I will say there are a couple I want to call out in particular. The first being Kaos Theory: The Afro Cosmic Art of Ben Caldwell. And this is a book that we did. Um, it's sort of a biography, but it's sort of a community history of Ben Caldwell and Kaos Network and Leimert Park. And I knew about Ben before I worked on this book, but I didn't really understand the depth of his involvement in Los Angeles and all the ways he's touched the community. and the sort of community he's built around Kaos network. And I was so moved by his story, and I think about him all the time in these sort of difficult times we find ourselves in in Los Angeles. I think Ben is just such a model for all of us to follow, and I hope more people read that book and become inspired by it. And I also want to mention our book about Octavia Butler. It's called A Handful of Earth, A Handful of Sky. I have to mention it, of course, because we sit here in the Octavia lab, but that is a book by Lynell George. And it's kind of an unusual book because it's not really a straightforward biography of Octavia Butler. Lynell spent a lot of time in the Butler Archives at the Huntington, and really got to understand how Octavia Butler built a creative life for herself with essentially nothing. She didn't have an MFA. She didn't have a family that was going to financially support her. While she tried to become a writer. She had a bus pass and she had a library card, and she turned those things into the materials to become an amazing, amazing writer. And as Octavia's legacy continues to expand, you know, in Los Angeles, in the country and even internationally, I hope that that book also can be an inspiration to people; that the resources are inside you. They're here at the library. Um, you know, a creative life is accessible to anybody, and Octavia is a perfect example of that. But also, you know, the library is an example of that, too. So I think that's another really beautiful connection between Los Angeles, the library, the creative spirit, and, um, the kind of inspiration that we want our books to provide.

Sheridan: Terri, can you give us a sneak peek at any of the titles that are currently in the hopper at Angel City Press?

Terri: Well, by the time this podcast is out, hopefully we'll have two really wonderful books about Central Library. We're doing an ABCs of the library, so it's called L is for Librarian: The ABC's of Los Angeles Central Library, and it's an illustrated children's book told from the perspective of Central Library about all the really beautiful art and architecture that you find here in this building. And we're also doing a pop-up book for the Central Library's 100th anniversary. And the Central spread is going to be the beautiful library popping up in all of its majesty. And that has been a really fun adventure for us as well, because we've never done a pop-up book before, and it's quite the challenge, but I think it's going to be a real treasure. I'm so excited to see it out in print.

Sheridan: Is there one last thing that you want our listeners to know about Angel City Press?

Terri: Well, there are two last things if I can squeeze them in, but the first is that Angel City Press, were such a small business, it's really two people who's doing this work every day. So I would just say, if you like our books, please support us by getting a copy or checking it out at the library. Check it out on Libby. Um, read them, because we do put so much thought into every word, every caption. And your support means absolutely the world to us. And you can sign up for our mailing list on our website. But I also want people to know that we really see Angel City Press as a community led effort. And while we certainly cannot publish every book that's submitted to us, we welcome and encourage submissions from everybody. You do not need to be a published writer. You do not need to be an experienced writer to submit to us. If you have a topic about Los Angeles that is close to your heart, you know everything about it. Send us a proposal and let's talk. We really want to hear from you.

Sheridan: Thank you so much for joining us today, Terri. We're so excited to see how our partnership continues to make Los Angeles an amazing place to live and work. And we're so excited about the two books that are coming out this year.

Terri: It's an honor to be here. Thank you for having me.

Sheridan: For today's library mystery, we're delving deep into our Against the Grain books. And to shine a little light on this library mystery, we're here with first-time Central 100 podcast guest Danielle Ball, who's a librarian in our Business and Economics Department here at Central Library. Danielle, before we get into the Against the Grain books, tell us a little bit more about yourself.

Danielle Ball: Okay. Well, um, I started at LAPL in 2018, and I've spent my entire career here at Central Library. I was first in the Social Science, Philosophy and Religion department for several years before I moved over to my current position in the Business and Economics department. Before that, I was a prison librarian with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. That was my first library job out of grad school, and I did my master's at UCLA, and I have a bachelor's degree in psychology from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

Sheridan: Obviously, you've had a career that seems to have spanned a number of different library settings, which is always good. The best librarians come from other places. I always say. So tell us a little bit more about these Against the Grain books. This, uh, for listeners, is an insane library mystery. When I first found out about these, I was kind of dumbfounded. Tell us more.

Danielle: What it is that I have here is what looks like a book, but it is actually a piece of wood that is carved to look like a book. And it has, it's painted blue. It has a title on it. Um, the one here is called, the title is God is Really Mad: Conversations with the Commander in Chief. On the spine, there is a label that has what looks to be a dewey decimal number; 231, which is God in the Dewey Decimal System. So it's like pretty accurate. When I started working in Social Science, I noticed a number of these wooden books, um, behind the reference desk, and I didn't really pay attention. And that's kind of weird because I'm a curious person. After I moved to the business department, I noticed there were also wooden books on display in that department, and we have those under, under glass. Still didn't pay much attention to it. I said, okay, there's two of those wooden books. Whatever.

Sheridan: Okay. So you had bumped into these Against the Grain books, uh, in Social Sciences. And then later on in the second department where they were underneath the glass. How did you finally decide to look into them?

Danielle: A patron came to the reference desk, and he had been looking at the books, um, that were behind the glass in the business department, and he said, "I want to read that book. Can I read it?" And I'm thinking, well, first of all, I can't get that book out of the display. Um, and it's not a real book, but maybe it is based on a real title. So I search our catalog for the title and it shows up. But as I'm looking through the record, I can see that it's not a real book. It's this actual fake book that has been catalogued. And I saw that the author was Against the Grain books in the notes, it says "this wood sculpture is carved from Douglas fir in the shape of a book whose covers protrude from the pages. The cover is painted blue, with the title and subtitle printed in gilded sans serif letters. The spine contains the title in gilded letters and Scotch tape label with a typed spurious call number." So the call number that's on the spine, it wasn't assigned by library staff. When they catalogued these, it had to have been assigned by whoever put them on the shelves. The note goes on, "Against the Grain books is a series of wooden sculptures fabricated into the shapes of books. Each book is printed with an original title and will be placed in various libraries throughout the Southern California region and beyond," and that came from the website Against the Grain Books.com, which no longer exists, by the way. But we have a couple print outs. And the other note then says "the sculpture was anonymously placed in the open collection at LA Public Library. "This predates my time here at LAPL. So I asked around to people who have worked here longer and a couple of retired librarians, and what I've established is that these started appearing probably 2008, 2009, and the clerks were just finding them in the shelves. At some point, it was decided they were going to be cataloged and placed up in Special Collections where they lived for a while, I guess. And then more recently, like I think 2017, it was decided to bring them back to the original departments. One reason being that Special Collections was worried about the acidity of the book and, you know, damaging anything rare and, you know, sensitive up in that department. But also it kind of defeated the purpose of this—artist who was doing this installation, um, for the public to see. So it was then put back, with the departments and different departments have done various things, you know, displayed them or whatnot, but they're not available to circulate. They're available to, to look at, on display.

Sheridan: Very interesting. I would love to check one out but yeah, they don't circulate. Right. Uh, do you know, um, just by chance, are there any other library systems in Southern California that have ended up with these Against the Grain books? Have we done any kind of communication like that?

Danielle: Okay, that's a great question. I've looked in WorldCat to see if anybody else has ever cataloged anything. If there's anything else out there by Against the Grain books as an author or a publisher, and the only thing that shows up is what we here, at LAPL, have catalogued. So it's possible that there's things out there, but we just don't know yet.

Sheridan: Interesting. So if there's any other librarians at, uh, other libraries in the region that have ended up with wooden books on their shelves. Kind of placed there randomly. Uh, reach out to us. We want to hear from you to see what you have on your shelves so that maybe we can, we can work together on an Against the Grain books project in the near future.

Danielle: Right. And another interesting thing to point out is I mentioned that there was a website at one time and it's no longer there, but we do have some shots from it. And let me just, I have it actually. I'll go ahead and read it. "Each book is printed in the original title and will be placed in various libraries throughout the Southern California region and beyond. For a nominal fee of $20 plus tax, shipping and handling, you can sponsor a book. The $20 helps pay for the materials and time spent creating and delivering the book to its destination." So it's interesting. I mean, this was an artist. This was an art installation, but it was also their way of, you know, trying to make money as an artist. The titles are clever. Um, and then the author took great pains to create a call number that was actually quite near to what we would have assigned as librarians, and then placed them on the shelf in that section. So it wasn't just randomly placed. It was very, you know, there was a lot of detail and thought that went into this. And I don't know how far it went, again, because we don't know who the person was. The website's no longer there, and we don't know if any other libraries ever got any of these items.

Sheridan: Fascinating. Fascinating. Well, if you ever want to see these Against the Grain books, visit us here at Central. We have some, I think Danielle mentioned in our Social Sciences department, definitely in our Business department. Are there any other departments that have these books on the shelves or on display?

Danielle: I think Literature [and] Science have some, but I do know that Business is prominently displayed. And like I said, Social Science. Theirs is behind the shelf and you can see those there. But you know, as you can see, they don't open or anything. Right? So they're just, it's like a block of wood. But the title is really fun and it's fun to look at them. You know, the records in the catalog and just see the notes that were assigned to it from the staff here.

Sheridan: For any listeners out there, I just want you to know that cataloging and assigning, uh, call numbers to items is a huge deal. It's a huge section of librarianship. So for an artist to have such an incisive way of assigning call numbers to these art objects, these sculptures that so closely resemble the numbers that we ourselves as library professionals, as information professionals, would have assigned them, is really interesting. Danielle, would you venture to say that perhaps the artist might be trained in cataloging in library sciences?

Danielle: If I had to guess, I would say no. One of the books that was placed in the Literature department said, "Artists and Librarians: Can They Coexist?" I believe that was the title. So it kind of made me think that this was really coming from the perspective of just an artist and not so much a library professional. So if I had to guess, I would say no.

Sheridan: Amazing. Amazing. Amazing. Well, uh, if you happen to be listening, and you are the creator of these Against the Grain books, get in touch with us. We want to hear about your project. We want to know more about it. All right, well, thanks for being with us. Um. And, yeah, this mystery is still a mystery. Uh, which is, which is kind of interesting for the podcast since we've been doing our best to solve library mysteries. Um, but, you know, sometimes there's some mysteries that can't be solved. So thanks so much for being with us, Danielle.

Danielle: Thank you.

Sheridan: Today's episode was made possible by Executive Producer Christina Hairston. It was recorded at the Central Library with help from the amazing staff in the Octavia Lab. I'm your host, Sheridan J. Cazarez with the Los Angeles Public Library. Thanks for listening to the Past Due podcast. We'll see you at the library.

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