Librarian Goes Ghetto

Librarians tend to like old stuff. Old librarians tend to like really old stuff. So, the local archive was the perfect training destination for a group of 8 bunhead librarians (a.k.a. old) and me, a NextGen librarian (a.k.a. young).

With books from floor to ceiling and filing cabinets from corner to corner, we barely noticed the diaries, weddings photos, property deeds, old grocery store receipts, maps, and sketches strewn across the hundred-year-old wooden work table like a buffet for history junkies, genealogy nut-balls, and decrepit librarians.

Piece by piece the archivist explained how history can come alive in the archive. The same old self-importance spiel that archivists, historians, and librarians utter to justify their grossly disproportionate education to income ratio. Pretty standard stuff until the archivist got to a three ring binder labeled Maria LaFleur, our town’s first and most infamous Madam.

“Maria LaFleur was both a madam and an active member of the community who even donated books to the library. People were always trying to run her out of town, but she was steadfast in her commitment to providing the community with a much needed service. She called her brothel, the Candy Shop,” explained the archivist with a little chuckle. There was a faint collective snicker from the”we are serious librarians; therefore, we do not smile” crowd.

Unable to resist the urge to appear both erudite yet culturally hip, I postulated with my best I am smart, damn it voice: “Interesting that candy shop was a euphemism for prostitution in the late 1800s. It is still used in the same way today as clearly demonstrated with the hit Candy Shop by rapper 50 Cent.”

Silence.

The archive was as quiet as a library back in the day when librarians shushed people, and you couldn’t talk on your cell while drinking your latte and checking out the last 2 seasons of House and the latest erotic masterpiece by Zane.

Maybe they just need a little more detail to get it.

In my best white girl from central Pennsylvania, keepin’-it-real, hip-hop voice, I rapped:

I'll take you to the candy shop
Boy one taste of what I got
I'll have you spending all you got
Keep going 'til you hit the spot

As eyes awkwardly looked at the ceiling and floors, it occurred to me that I learned absolutely nothing from the tap dancing while pregnant incident at my last library job.

“Okay…. Here you will see a map of sugar beet dumps in our town. You may recognize many of these street names. We believe this map is from the early 1900s,” said the smiling, unruffled archivist who still had to show us saddles, yearbooks, umbrellas and an old Lions’ Club file of rejected and expelled members.

It’s hard out here for a NextGen librarian.