Hold Down Pages

Certain libraries allow visitors to photograph books as long as the camera is silent and no flash is involved. This is terrific when the library you are in is far from home and the books can't be checked out. I hadn't thought of it myself until spending about ten days printing out microfilm copies from a special collection in the basement of an otherwise attractive building. At one point I left the room for a break and passed a young woman, quite Goth, photographing page after page from a book laid out on the main table. I got myself a decent digital camera and in no time I was I was having new library experiences. In a university library reading area, I brushed aside peanuts, potato chips and chocolate bar wrappers, cleaned the surface of the table, and captured the pages needed while surrounded by other visitors who chatted, composed text messages on their phones and snacked. In a Municipal library in a different city, a sweet, smiling librarian supplied me with a tome-shaped white pillow to rest the book on and a matching string of white beads to lay across the open book, thereby holding down the pages. He demonstrated the technique, and explained their library policy in a whisper.