Secretly Incredibly Fascinating - Libraries

Episode Date: September 13, 2021

Alex Schmidt is joined by comedians Siena East ('NDND' Youtube channel, UCB) and Blair Socci (MTV, Comedy Central) for a look at why libraries are secretly incredibly fascinating. Visit http://sifpod.fun/ for research sources, handy links, and this week's bonus episode.

Libraries. Known for having books. Famous for lending books. Nobody thinks much about them, so let's have some fun. Let's find out why libraries are secretly incredibly fascinating. Hey there, folks. Welcome to a whole new podcast episode, a podcast all about why being alive is more interesting than people think it is. My name is Alex Schmidt, and I'm not alone. Two wonderful guests joined me this week. Blair Saki is an amazing stand-up comedian. By the way, she is headlining The Bell House in Brooklyn, New York, on September 16th. That is this Thursday, if you're listening right when this drops.

Please get a ticket. Please, you know, check it out. See amazing stand-Up. She's also a frequent guest on shows like The Daily Zeitgeist and is just a delight all around. So glad she's here. I'm also joined by Sienna East. Sienna is a comedian, writer, actor, and filmmaker. Sienna is also part of the cast of a wonderful YouTube channel. It is called NDND. That is a whole group of Native performers doing a funny and awesome role-playing tabletop game together. So those are my guests. I'm so glad Blair and Sienna are here. Also, I've gathered all of our zip codes and used internet resources like native-land.ca to acknowledge that I recorded this on the traditional land of the Lenape people. to acknowledge that I recorded this on the traditional land of the Lenape people.

Acknowledge Blair and Sienna each recorded this on the traditional land of the Gabrielino-Wartongva and K'iche' and Chumash peoples. And acknowledge that in all of our locations, native people are very much still here. That feels worth doing on each episode. And today's episode is about libraries. Very straightforward topic. Libraries are also a patron pick for the month of September. Many thanks to Jeff Byrne for the great suggestion and to Stephen Asarian for helping cheerlead for it on the Patreon there. Perfect topic for this podcast. Also, it hits surprisingly close to home for me, so you're going to hear a lot about that. You don't need any more setup, so please sit back or sit kind of funny and uncomfortable because the book is chained to the wall. That's how it goes. Either way,

here's this episode of Secretly Incredibly Fascinating with Blair Saki and Sienna East. I'll be back after we wrap up. Talk to you then. Blair, Sienna, it's so good to have you. And of course, I always start by asking guests their relationship to the topic or opinion of it. Either of you can start, but how do you feel about libraries? I'm a library freak. And just an absolute diehard fan. I spent a lot of time in the San Juan Capistrano Library as a child. Yeah.

Oh, cool. That's a very dumb question, but is that in California? I mainly know it from Dumb and Dumber. Yes. That's the one. Cool. There's a mission there. Cool. That's great. I also, I'm a big fan of libraries. Uh, I used to go to Beverly Hills library growing up, which is far, but like when the West Hollywood library got way better, the West Hollywood library is amazing. Now, like there's workspaces that you can go and reserve and tons of windows and chairs. I mean, it's great. Cause library is like the only public space where you can like gain knowledge super easily. Right. And it's just when that library opened up, everything was so much better. I would go and work there. And my little brother, that's how he read all of full metal alchemist brotherhood,

or it's just full metal alchemist, not the anime, because he's more legit than I am, whatever. So I'm a big fan because my brother read manga, I guess. Manga. Yeah, are they, libraries are amazing for comic books, right? Because each one costs $20 or more and takes like a second to read.

So you really got to check those out. Just makes way more sense. It's like 60 books that are all $11.95. And eventually that adds up, I've learned, because I like to own all my books and it becomes expensive. I also feel like libraries, whenever I go in one, it feels like a time machine to the past. It feels something not really of the

times and that's another reason I like it I recommend the West Hollywood one though because that one feels like from the future like maybe it's because it's got floor-to-ceiling windows and whenever there's floor-to-ceiling windows like my whole body like quivers with like erotic excitement because I'm obsessed with them uh and so it feels like, like a sexy future with floor to ceiling windows, that one. I'm going to have to see it. I recommend it. That's,

that's the most enthusiastic pitch I've ever heard for a branch of a library. That's very exciting. Folks go, if you can. Sounds great. My grade school had, I'm thinking of the past now because my grade school they were behind and it was the past so they had like a physical card catalog and they made a point of taking us

and being like you got to learn the physical card catalog and then as soon as we got to middle school it was like no computers exist obviously you never need to do that ever that was like the dewey decimal system yeah i remember that when they were teaching us that and I was like, I'm a re I'm reader. I'm not trying to do math here. You know, that's why I'm at the library. Cause I don't like math,

you know, they made that system seem very important, right? Like it was going to be everything for finding knowledge ever. Well, I was like in that transitionary period. So like when I was in second grade, they're like, you got to learn this. This is it. This is everything.

And then by third grade, they're like, what is that? Get an email. And so like I watched like the switch flip. Well, my my my other library thing is that my grandma worked at our local library, which is great. And she worked in the like VHS department. So it was, we would like go get two videos for $2 and go see grandma. It was the best. Oh my God. That is heartwarming. That is sweet as hell.

That's so nice. I had my ladies at the library that, you know, felt like surrogate grandmas, you know, that I would look forward to seeing that were so sweet and would always help me because I didn't know the decimal system refused to learn. My horrible reaction to this is like, there's something hot about being librarian. Like when I was a very little kid, I was like, that would be like a hot job to have because like you're smart and you're mean in my head. Like I've never had a librarian who's nice to me, but I've always thought it was hot. So like my grandma was a librarian. My first thought was like hot.

That's pretty cool. It's a hard to become a librarian. Cause you have to do that whole, like it's really difficult to become a librarian. Isn't it like a real one with the librarian degree and stuff? Yeah, I think so. I think that I always thought it was a cool job.

Cause like you'd barely have to work. You could just sit there in the quiet air conditioning and read i was like this looks like heaven to me no you know it does it's we there's an episode a few weeks ago about the u.s forest service and we talked about how rangers do all kinds of hard work but it does sound like you just sit in the woods and it rules you know like i think librarians are that way too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're right. They're probably doing hella work and I'm just ignorant, but it does seem like a cool job still. Yeah. Yeah. And Sienna, I'm going to take all that as a compliment to my grandma. Sounds great. She's a cool lady. Good. I'm glad grandma's camp. Grandma's a hundred percent can be hot. I 100 percent believe it. 100 percent. Jessica Lange. I'm not going to. Robin Wright.

Jane Fonda. Jane Fonda. Absolutely. Well, from here, I think we can get into the first chunk of stuff about libraries. And on every episode, our first fascinating thing about the topic is a quick set of fascinating numbers and statistics. our first fascinating thing about the topic is a quick set of fascinating numbers and statistics. This week, that's in a segment called Gimme, Gimme, Gimme Some Stats After Midnight. Won't somebody help me multiply and divide? And folks, that came from Andrew Gilbert. Thank you, Andrew. We have a new name for this segment every week. Please make a massillion-wacking bet as possible. Submit to SifPod on Twitter or to SifPod at gmail.com.

Cool. Brief ABBA interlude, and here we go. First number for the numbers and stats is more than 170 million. More than 170 million. That is how many items are in the Library of Congress. It's the most of any in the world. And they say that they receive more than 10,000 items for their catalog every workday. Because when a new book or other work gets published and copyrighted, it's supposed to be deposited with the Library of Congress for copyright.

Now, I would not want to be that librarian. That sounds like hell. That librarian is on sounds like hell. That librarian is on Xanax. Right, like a flustered librarian is not the trope, right? Like they're not too busy working. Yeah, they have time to patrol. Well, and yeah, the Library of Congress is, is i think just always growing like it's it's just always new things coming in every day because it's part of the law so uh yeah very strange place to be

people make it sound like it's special to be like oh it's in the library of congress but if there's 10 000 things going there a day it doesn't feel that special to me it feels like it's pretty easy to get into the library of congress there is something like um that has like a wizardry feel about it too that like somehow there's one place with like all the records you know yeah yeah like the jedi archives or something like yes oh wow how did they do it? The whole galaxy. When the next number here is 2,509. 2,509 is the number of Carnegie libraries that have ever been built. Wow. And they were like funded by Andrew Carnegie, the steel tycoon.

He did it from the 1880s to the 1920s. I was going to ask what a Carnegie library is, but that seems like, okay, I get it now. Maybe it's a special class of library. It's just connected to a dude, I guess, is what you're saying. Yeah, more or less. Yeah. It was one of the philanthropies he picked after he made a bunch of money and broke strikes and stuff, like industrialists. He's like, oh, counteract with a couple of libraries. Yeah. And then he built them partly because in the 1880s, he was the richest person in the world from making steel.

And so he donated the money toward funding, building these libraries. Communities had to apply for them and say that they would like keep running the library if he built it. But most of them were built in the U.S. and then the rest are in the U.K., Ireland, Canada, and then mostly like British Commonwealth countries from there. Oh, wow. See, our richest people in the world don't do that anymore. That's frustrating. Like he's like, I'm going to go make a bunch of libraries and our richest people in the world go into space and go, wow, I experienced empathy and they come back.

And so what happened to the old rich people? Bring back the old rich people. Yeah, it is. If you like, if you don't build libraries, nobody can read about you going to space too, right? Like you're shooting yourself in the foot. I'm taking notes right now. Yeah. For when I'm hopefully very rich so that I am a cool rich person writing this down.

The Saki Library Foundation. The Saki Library Experience. Can't wait. It sounded more and more like a theme park because I love it. This is great. Yeah, I had to add the drama to how I feel about it in my heart. Like eventually there's animatronic you like, well, I feel like I'll move my ass in there if I build it, but we'll see.

Oh, there you go. Yeah. The Carnegie libraries today, a lot of them are still city libraries and they've just just sort of been turned into this is the public library. And it's like a historical fact that it was Carnegie. But yeah, when he built them, a lot of places just didn't have one. And now they do. So did some stuff. Good job, Carnegie.

Yeah, I like hearing this. This is like a nice thing. I was expecting a really messed up thing. Well, and the next number here kind of goes back to what we were talking about before. Next number is 83%. 83% is, and this is the latest census in 2010, but 83%, according to the 2010 census, that's how many U.S. librarians were female. And I think they were only tracking two genders. They weren't doing everybody, but either way, the vast majority of U.S. librarians are women. It's very common. I'm glad we get one thing. Out of all the jobs. Yeah, I'm glad to hear we're in the lead somewhere.

Yeah. And the Oxford University Press, they decided to see if it's always been that way. And they said that in the 1880s, 52% of librarians were men. But by the 1930s, it was just 8% were men. So around the turn of the century, a huge shift happened where everybody decided that libraries are women's work in the US. And everyone realized that men don't know how to read. That's my secret, man. Come on. Blown up my spot. Come on. I don't know. I have the inverse hot take. I feel like not that many people went to the libraries in the 1800s, so there wasn't a lot of work to do. And as soon as there was a lot of work to do, like people just leaving their book from stephanie meyer and a woman had to put it away then they were like oh actually ladies should do this because they're good at putting things away so so it could be but it could be a trick as usual wow you're right i didn't even pick up on that thank you to your

expert sleuthing we're gonna have to look more closely here. Is it that men can't read or can't put things away? We'll figure it out one day. Yes. Yeah. I can't do either. So it's got to be one of them, at least, you know. We will get to the bottom of it by the end of this episode.

Well, and the next number here, this is further back in in history it's the year 1561 1561 is when a dutch town called zutphen built a library inside of their church and alice obscura says it's still there and it's significant because it's one of the very few chained libraries that are left in the world. Because there was a thing- Chained, yeah. Because there was a thing early in the history of public libraries where books were super valuable in a way where they didn't trust the public with them. And so a chained library is where every book in the library is on a chain hooked to the

wall and you can't bring it anywhere. It's just attached to the wall and that's it. Wow. That's crazy. You can, you have to like go in and read standing up like you're, I don't know, like at playing at an arcade or something. And very, books are not designed to be read standing up. I don't know if I like the idea of the chained library. In the pictures, they've got plain wooden benches and stuff,

but it still stinks, I'm sure. An arcade is about right. It's like when Galaga was only in one location in town. Yeah. Well, it makes sense though, because books were so hard to make. If someone had to redraw Scott Pilgrim every single time I read it, then, yeah, they'd chain it to the wall. So you couldn't steal it because you'd do it by hand. I mean, isn't that why people were so mad at like Game of Thrones, like season seven, because they had a chain library where they're just taking the books with them other places. It was like, why are there chains if they can just leave with them? These exist for a reason. And that's that's exactly right. Like game of thrones scene and location they were

modeling it off real chained libraries yeah that was how the world used to work but the chained libraries with removable books right like if someone had a book and started walking out with it you already know they're a thief like you already are gonna arrest them. Yeah. At least it's kinky, though. True. We're finding all the erotic touchstones of the library. It's pretty exciting. I agree.

Except for a West Hollywood chain library. Like, folks, I mean. Yeah, Siena's there. Hottest place to be, sexiest. I'm so in for this sensual chain when the last number here is 24 hours a day because 24 hours a day are the operating hours for library book vending machines in the city of beijing in china apparently a lot of the library system in Beijing, according to the news website China Daily, a lot of the system there is vending machines that kind of cover for what would otherwise be a human-staffed library.

And it costs 100 yuan, which is about 16 US, to purchase a library card. Then you get access to over 20,000 titles. And these very large machines, they're about the size of three cars on the street. Wow. There's no romance though. Exactly. Yeah. Really takes,

all you get is a mechanical pop out. You don't get Alex's grandma helping you with your books inside some gorgeous structure that could possibly have ceiling to floor windows. You lose the windows. You lose the grandma. You lose the intimacy. I mean, there's something about picking up every single book and being like,

not this one and putting it back and picking up the next one. It sounds like, well, I assume you can't touch them if they're in a vending machine. Cause I can't touch candies in the vending machine. Yeah. You lose the silence. You use the air conditioning. You lose the dust.

All of it. All of it gone. I love how much you value the air conditioning. I just have memories of it being so, so cold. And when I read all 63 Nancy Drew books at the San Juan Capistrano Public Library, and I was just shivering my tail off. I really, I really hadn't thought about the vending machines that way. Like you lose the bathroom and the air conditioning and the other, like, like the library is one of the only places you can sit for free.

You know, you can just be there without getting badgered. That's for sure. Yeah. Also like it's probably just an illusion, but, um, I have this idea of it as like a very safe place. Like, and I guess my mom did too, cause she would drop me off there, uh, unattended. And so, yeah, it seems like a very, doesn't it seem like a very safe place? Well, yeah. Cause no one's at the library for evil, right?

There's no bad business at the library. Yeah. A vending machine can't babysit your child. So. Yeah. I guess they all vary. I remember my library being like not secure, but secure. Like maybe there was one security guard going around my childhood library but otherwise it just felt like the nice ladies would intervene you know if something happened or like if you want to commit a crime it'll make noise so it's really not an ideal situation you know because like people will hear you and it seems like it would be foiled quickly because

everyone would be able to tell. This tracks. If I wanted, if I wanted to kidnap a child, I feel like I would want to do it in a busy, loud, bustling area. This all tracks because libraries are quiet, so you can't do bad things, but clubs, very loud. You can do tons of bad things at a club. And I think this is actually, it's a volume thing. Wow. Very last things that are not numbers, but are in here. There's just some other fun versions of doing a library in some places.

The Kenya National Library Service has buildings, but they also have a camel-based library for rural areas of the country. It's camels loaded with books that just go out there. That's romantic as hell. Yeah. And the other one is there's a teacher in Colombia named Luis Soriano who runs what he calls the Biblio Burros, which are two donkeys named Alpha and Beto.

So alphabet. And they carry bags of books to kids who otherwise wouldn't have them in Columbia. Oh, that's so nice. That's so sweet. It's great. Wow, that's sweet. Yeah, because lots of people,

it's hard to get to the building, you know, even if you aren't in a vending machine situation. Hard to do. Yeah. Delivering anything to anyone is great too. Just very kind in a culture of convenience. Yeah, I like that. Especially to kids, because kids can't run off and do their own thing.

They have to be dropped off at the library. They can't necessarily walk over there. So yeah, gatekeepers. That's such a thing. I remember being a kid and not being able to pick where I went ever. But once you're in the library stacks, it's like, OK, go find a book and you go here and you go there and you look at whatever you want. And then you end up with all the the full metal alchemists and you're good. It's great. Yeah, you just work through all those.

But yeah, then we have beyond those numbers, we have two big takeaways for the main episode. And we have beyond those numbers, we have two big takeaways for the main episode. So we can get straight into takeaway number one. Library fines are going away for awesome reasons. And I don't know if listeners have noticed this with their library or if either of you have, but a lot of libraries in just the past couple of years started getting rid of fines. And it's great. It's for good reasons. What are the reasons?

How can they prevent people from stealing their books? It turns out most people just try to bring them back. Or at least they're equally nice about it, whether or not there are fines. Because you can take a book and just never come back. You only lose getting into the library again, but we'll, we got a set of sources here. And the main great reason is that I guess this is intuitive. I just never thought about it. It's that library fines are a huge impediment to lower income people borrowing books. And it ends up just fully driving them away from the system

completely. I mean, that makes so much sense. Like the idea to like turn it into like some sort of financial punishments odd, especially like, really the punishment you're dealing with is like, I have one book and there's 20,000 other books and that's what they're really weighing it against. Like if I was making the decision, like, so there is a reason to bring it back. There's 20,000 other books there. So it's, it's good. They're getting rid of fines. Like how I got through college was like, I went to the library and I just take out the textbooks I needed and I'd read them and I would return them. And so like, yeah, that's great. I laughed. Cause I imagined that you were just paying the fine instead of buying the book, but maybe that's not the situation. It's just a smart

thing. I wasn't paying the fine. Cause you know, I, you just, if you read it in the library also, like if you read the whole book in the library,'s faster because i was worried about the fines so i would i read a lot of like entire textbooks just in the library and then handed them back and left wow that's amazing that was probably a more focused way you probably absorbed more through that route than having it at any time at your house you you know, because you were really focused when you were reading it. One question, how are the libraries making their income? I guess maybe that was never their main source of income. Yeah, it turns out, I guess I'm not surprised by it because the fines are often so small. It turns out not only were they not much of the budget, but a lot of libraries were spending more money on like getting stuff back

than they were on actually that they were earning, you know, like they were spending more than the fines just to bother people and keep up payment systems and send people mail and stuff. They were losing money on library fines. Their bookkeepers really weighed this out. So is this only a select group of libraries or is this going to be a national thing? Yeah, perfect question. So what the Atlantic says about this is that as of 2015, more than 90% of U.S. libraries were still collecting fines. 90% of U.S. libraries were still collecting fines. But in the last couple of years, several huge city library systems stopped, including Chicago, Boston, and San Diego. And then also the pandemic accelerated this a lot.

There's apparently 160 library systems in a group called the Urban Libraries Council in the U.S. And as of February 2021, 91 out of 160 of them had gone fine free, either temporarily or permanently. So more than half of these huge city library systems in the U.S. are stopping that. They're done. The most surprising thing about that was that people in San Diego read, but I learned. But I learned. And yeah, and then with like the fine amounts, it turns out that it's just a very tiny amount of library budgets. The city of New Haven, Connecticut stopped doing fines in July 2020 because they checked and overdue fines were comprising less than one quarter of one percent of the library's budget. So like 0.2% was all they were getting from that. And then in a bigger city like San Francisco, San Francisco used to collect about $300,000 a year in overdue fines, but their annual budget

is $138 million. So on their scale, it's nothing. It's something they can do without if it makes the library better. Wow. Good for San Francisco. Well, they read in San Francisco, unlike San Diego. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. This next number is from the San Diego system. So as far as libraries spending more on collecting fines than they actually got, the San Diego Public Library So as far as like libraries spending more on collecting fines than they actually got, the San Diego Public Library, like, I guess, checked in 2019 and they found that they were spending nearly $1 million a year to collect $675,000 a year in fines. So they were just, they were lighting money on fire in order to take money from people who need it. And they decided to stop. It's good.

Good job, San Diego. Yeah. Yeah. Good for good for you guys with the Padres and this. Great. Cool. Yeah. I'm really glad about that. Now release the whales. Step two. better city. When St. Paul, Minnesota, they found they were spending $250,000 to collect $215,000, which is less. Is it now? There's yeah. There's also a super specific example of it's a northern Colorado district called the High Plains Library District. And first they were concerned because they got rid of most of their fines and they added it up, they would lose about $100,000 a year.

But they also found that they could get rid of some expensive credit card machines. They could stop leasing a change counting machine that handled like the literal nickels and dimes that people were paying. And once they did that, it was neutral. Like they were saving as much as they were not getting. And so it was fine.

Wow. Yeah. Like we've been losing a lot of money, I think, in libraries by chasing after fines and processing them. This is huge news to me, honestly. I don't know what I would have just continued my whole life without ever knowing this until you told me. And I will be milling about on this

for a while yeah i mean if anything i feel like the people who still have their library books because they're afraid of the fees just return them now it's fine you can return them now someone else can read the wizard of oz please bring it back uh we need it yeah the whole the whole phenomena of um you know i was thinking about this like returned library books and like how it used to be with blockbuster how it would just become this massive goliath of a thing you know how like just returning an item like a mile away would become just like an inner insurmountable task like isn't that crazy how it evolves into that and it's like a very bizarre human thing yeah like either either there's some big obstacle like i have work shifts and blah blah blah or it's just like i don't want to it's too small of a task and i'm busy and I just got a Nintendo Switch and I'm not going to do it.

I'm staying home. Yeah. And then like once one or two days pass, you're really like in a guilt zone and you're like, I can go full self-sabotage here or I can try and turn the ship around. But a lot of people, we know which way they go they're in too deep they're in too deep with their books they can't return them it's been a month now now it's embarrassing yeah now the humiliation is too too big it wasn't that hard to read the wizard of oz it's a simple book you should have finished it earlier yeah that's true yeah also just removing all that guilt from the world it's just a net good right like it's not measurable also just removing all that guilt from the world is just a net good right

like it's not measurable but just all that all those experiences of people going to a counter being sad you know get rid of it great i've never heard of um one instance of removing guilt in this country before this moment it's really surprising in a nice way yeah because even we were like kidding a little bit about finally you can return it but like a couple systems have seen that actually happen the uh the chicago public library said that after they got rid of fines they saw a 240 boost and returned books and then the the san franc library, they still have some fines, but they did like an amnesty period, they called it, in 2017, which is very funny about library books to make it that.

Dramatic. Yeah, I know. But they, so 2017, there was a chunk of time where you could bring it back with no fees or punishments or anything. And in six weeks, they got back almost 700000 items. Wow. I love how they referred to it like hostages with like ransom. We have an amnesty period for your paperback. Jackie Collins novel.

your paperback Jackie Collins novel. Like you send us a note made out of clipped out magazine letters. And then we, we have graciously extended our amnesty period. I mean, if we make it like a hundred more years in the future like we're talking about these chain libraries i'll be like and then there was a library amnesty period because libraries seem to historically just be dramatic right yeah i like that i love that about libraries the drama has your grandma given you given you the boots on the ground um update about all these you know massive changes oh she's no longer doing it so so no word okay the most fun thing about her was at least with money at the

library was that it cost one dollar per video and there was a guy who used to be a patron who used to work for the u.s treasury and so he would constantly come in and rent two movies with a $2 bill. And so then she had like, she just stockpiled $2 bills and she would give them to us for little holidays and stuff. And I had the most $2 bills of like any kid I knew. It was great. That is cool as hell. Oh my God. What are the eccentric treasury man?

Just dispensing $2 bills at the local library? That is whimsical. Beautiful. But did you, this is my stress over $2 bills. It's almost like you're getting money. That's not money. Cause everyone's like, you got to keep it. It's a $2 bill, but you can't spend it.

Yeah. What was the pressure of that? Like having all these $2 bills? I swear I would like chain them. Like when I got a new one, I would spend one, you know, like I felt like I should have one because that's an artifact. But otherwise, then then it goes in the system. Yeah.

I remember I got one and then like I wanted a fruit by the foot or something. And I was like, I'm going to keep this forever. And then, you know, just took like one day. This ought to make choices. But yeah. And then last, last thing about this is just that, like I, until researching this, I had no idea how much library fines were like keeping people out of the system. According to Slate, as of 2017, some U.S. library districts had revoked borrowing for 30 or even 35 percent of all patrons just for fines that never got paid. And the Chicago Public Library found that about 30 percent of people on the South Side could no longer check out materials because they owed at least $10 in fines, which is why they

ended up getting rid of fines, which is great. But it's a real thing. Like either mom has a work shift come up and can't take all the picture books back or people can't get there or they forget because stuff's tough. I feel like library fines were kind of a gag when I was a kid and they're not for so many people. Or a kid loses a book. Yeah, you can see how it would happen very easily. I didn't realize it was a $10 cap and you got kicked out cold blooded. Yeah. That's tough. I remember like when I was a kid, cause you know, you had to pay a dollar to use a bag and I would check out the max for three

weeks, which I think was 11 books at the time. And, um, my mom would be on me just like if you any if you get a fine you're paying it little girl just like trying to teach me responsibility you know and i'd be like well i gotta read these so fast because you know i don't have there's no time to waste yeah it is even that clock is frustrating like i i gotta diffuse this thing before it's due you know what it's a book that's exactly it well and also there's there's one last last story here about fines which is that and i really don't know how it how they were allowed to do this it seems like outside their

thing but there's a town called charlotte in It's not Charlotte, North Carolina, but Charlotte, Michigan, there was a library patron who forgot about two books in 2017, was reminded when they wouldn't let her use the printer. And so she brought them in in 2019 and somehow the library put out a warrant for her arrest. And so then she had to go like surrender to the police station and get booked and fingerprinted and court dates and everything. And we don't need it. We don't need any of this. We'll have a link about the full story. But I'm-

For two books? Two books. Yeah. Which she brought back. Two books. Yeah. Which she brought back. I'm imagining this librarian as like some hard lady with like a shotgun who like manned her post like she was a war general instead of just being like, it's a library book that costs $4. But what two books were they? I mean, imagine that you get arrested and you're like,

oh, it was Lusion's Defense. That's a good question. Like, don't get arrested over Lusion's Defense. It's not even Nabokov's best book. Like, get arrested for a good book, I guess. I don't know. All right, off of that, we're going to a short break, followed by the big takeaways. See you in a sec.

I'm Jesse Thorne. I just don't want to leave a mess. This week on Bullseye, Dan Aykroyd talks to me about the Blues Brothers, Ghostbusters, and his very detailed plans about how he'll spend his afterlife. I think I'm going to roam in a few places, yes. I'm going to manifest and roam. All that and more on the next Bullseye from MaximumFun.org and NPR. bullseye from MaximumFun.org and NPR. Hello, teachers and faculty. This is Janet Varney.

I'm here to remind you that listening to my podcast, The JV Club with Janet Varney, is part of the curriculum for the school year. Learning about the teenage years of such guests as Alison Brie, Vicki Peterson, John Hodgman, and so many more is a valuable and enriching experience, one you have no choice but to embrace, because, yes, listening is mandatory. The JV Club with Janet Varney is available every Thursday

on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. And remember, no running in the halls. Well, and we have, there's one other main takeaway for the main episodes. Let's get into it. Takeaway number two. The Dewey Decimal System is going away in a lot of places,

partly because the Dewey who created it was a bad guy. Oh, isn't this the same old story? What the hell did Dewey do? He was a bad guy all around, but a little bit about who he is. I'm scared to say what he did. Yeah. So there's a guy named Melville Dewey, and he lived from 1851 to 1931, and he is the guy who made the Dewey Decimal System. We've got a lot of sources here, Smithsonian, Mental Floss, and the Chicago Tribune as well.

As far as like how Dewey got to do this, he decided to be a librarian very early in life. And immediately after he finished his undergrad at Amherst College, he took a job at the college library and came up with a decimal system to reorganize all the books. And from there, he patented it. He got a bunch of other jobs like chief librarian at Columbia University and director of libraries for the state of New York. He co-founded the American Library Association. He just put himself in charge of as many libraries as he could be. And the Chicago Tribune estimated that as of 2011, over 200,000 libraries in 35 countries used the Dewey Decimal System. Just this maniac librarian made it a thing. Okay, Melvin. I still want to know what crimes you committed, pal.

Yeah, I'm sitting here like, I don't think the crime was making a system for lots of libraries. Part two, right? Was too organized. No, yeah. So Melville Dewey, he was he was basically not great to anybody who was not white and male and Christian. He was one of those guys in the 1800s and 1900s and now probably. But today. Yeah. Yeah. We know the type. And the first like sign a lot of people know about him of that is that he had built a huge winter resort in upstate New York and the resort just explicitly

barred all minorities. And some of the advertising language said that, quote, no Jews or consumptives allowed. He's just fully publicly racist. In the 1800s when that was common, but still. Wow. Yeah, but just because it was common, I don't like any of those old

racist dudes. Not a fan. Later, Julie. still wow yeah but just because it was common i don't like any of those old old racist uh dudes not a later dilly the other thing big big bad thing about him is that he was a serial sexual harasser and he was also that in a way where like even in the early 1900s he was like called out and punished for it like he was that bad of one. Oh, wow. Even they were like, no, you have to stop. Yeah. Even, even like the fraternity of sexual harassers was like, that's a little far Dewey. Yeah. And in 1905,

his American library association organized a cruise to Alaska. And then like when the boat came back, four different women accused him of sexual harassment, which I'm sure he did. But so, so even they like, like they kicked him out of the group and they said like, even by 1905 standards, no, can't do it. Oh, so he got kicked out, but they just kept this,

the name of the system. And now a hundred years later, like we're like, oh, we're not changing the name of the system, right? We're just getting rid of the really annoying system i'm unclear no it's a perfect question yeah we are both removing his name from stuff and then the system is going away uh mostly because he like mostly because the guy who constructed it was too focused on white male christian stuff and so it's actually not so good for organizing books uh because it leaves off subjects like you know the whole rest of the world basically yeah

i can't imagine a book i'd be uh less interested in reading white christian um male book if they could just put that if they could just put those in a specific section so i could never go in that one well you got the chronicles of narnia that's your number one one for white male christian books yeah wow damn i used to love that book as a kid and then i realized all the christian allegory and i when i got like a little older and I was furious that I had you know been conned I was vibing sorry uh I was vibing until Susan didn't get to go to heaven like everyone else sorry if I spoiled the end of the call because I don't care Susan doesn't get to go to heaven because she wears tights and makeup everyone else dies and goes to heaven and she's just

wearing tights and makeup so she doesn't go goes to heaven and she's just wearing tights and makeup. So she doesn't go to heaven. Honestly, that is a really good point. And I am just feeling reawakened to be with my fury now that you reminded me of that. There's not a bit. I have only read any of those books because they were the one fun looking thing in our church library. That's actually why I've ever read them. So I was like, the rest of this is theology. That's why church libraries are, you know, you're like, Oh, what's the most fun thing in here. But I love, I love anything with magic in it and like fantasy stuff.

So of course I read it, you know, you guys are sleeping on the Bible. I was the kid in 6th grade reading the Bible being like guess what a concubine is guys this lady got chopped into pieces so it's I will say the Bible is a pretty exciting book and

it's in the churches it's there sex violence oh yeah are you a big Old Testament fan oh in the 6th grade the old testament i was like what's happening yeah wow that was that thing is savage i love in sunday school they're like listen you seven-year-old don't go to hell okay if you do this this and this you're gonna go straight to hell now have a great week and hopefully your psyche is calm and at peace.

A lot of this unnecessary stress because they will be like, oh, you pray like this because you're with your fingers pointing up to heaven, right? But then people folded their hands like this. And I was like, does that send the prayers down to hell? Was like a serious concern I had that this would send my prayers to Satan. Wow. Like finger position. Wow.

Yeah, I know. It's amazing. Everyone's like, why are there anxiety disorders? I'm not sure. I can't imagine just existential crisis, like straight out of the womb. But on the plus side, fun horror movie premises. So, you know, like we're all scared of the same thing.

Great. Very, very convenient for Hollywood. They can just shoot at that, you know, like we're all scared of the same thing. Great. Very, very convenient for Hollywood. They can just shoot at that, you know, works well. But yeah. And so Melville Dewey, his name was on the main American Library Association Award until 2019, but now it's just called the Medal of Excellence. They got rid of that. And then his system, like if people don't know it, it's sets of numbers usually organized by hundreds. And the Dewey Decimal System is not great for books outside of a very specific European male style. And for one thing, Menelfloss points out that Dewey's system reserved all of the 200s for books on religion. But numbers 200 all the way through 290 are for Christianity specifically.

And then every other faith is in 291 through 299, which is not, it's just not a good system for organizing those books. There's also an amazing black librarian named Dorothy Porter who worked in the second half of the 20th century at Howard university. And we'll link about her doing things to try to decolonize the Dewey Decimal System. Smithsonian says that a lot of libraries would just put Black writers into Dewey number 326 because that was for slavery or 325 for colonization. And she did a new system based

on author names and genres where it's it's it makes more sense. And redid the whole library to fix it. I am so confused. I always thought the Dewey Decimal System was just numbers for genre and authors. And now I'm hearing all this nonsense. And then some lady later on is like this and is racist and bad. What if we did it the easiest way possible? Like bookstores figured it out. I can find a book in a bookstore. That's hilarious. Yeah.

Bookstores don't. That's a great point. Yeah, I would. If a bookstore told me, like, you can only buy it if you can find the number, I would walk out. I would go to another bookstore, obviously. I critique capitalism a lot and say it really doesn't breed like good ideas, but maybe I was wrong because I find books faster. Yeah. And you're and you're

exactly right. Like other libraries inspired by Porter and others, they just figured out that because Dewey also did a lot of categories for fiction, but you can just do fiction by author last name. You don't have to break it up at all. And then for nonfiction, they just do usually author last name and some kind of groups of things. And then also a different guy did a system for the Library of Congress, which does not have these Dewey flaws so much. And so especially academic libraries just use that numbered system. So the Dewey thing that a lot of us heard about and learned a lot about is kind of gone or going away for good reasons. I'm glad they stopped teaching it to me after second grade. I'm glad I only had one year of learning about this because it sounds stupid. Yeah. I'm glad I never learned it because I saw numbers and became cross-eyed.

Folks, that is the main episode for this week. My thanks to Blair Saki and Sienna East for paging through the tomes on the show. Library of metaphor, you get it. Anyway, I said that's the main episode because there is more secretly incredibly fascinating stuff available to you right now. If you support this show on Patreon.com. Patrons get a bonus show every week where we explore one obviously incredibly fascinating story related to the main episode. This week's bonus topic is several amazing stories of particularly extraordinary library thieves. People stealing stuff from libraries like it is a bank or a museum. Visit SIFpod.fun for that bonus show, for a library of almost five dozen other bonus shows,

and to back this entire podcast operation. And thank you for exploring libraries with us. Here's one more run through the big takeaways. Takeaway number one, library fines are going away for awesome reasons. And takeaway number two, the Dewey Decimal System is going away because there are better systems and because its creator was not a great guy. Plus many numbers about the size and scale of libraries across time and across the country and across many countries. And, you know, shout out to my grandma Schmidt.

She came up a lot. Those are the takeaways. Also, please follow my guests. They're great. Sienna East is part of the cast of NDND. You can find that on YouTube. They do very funny, very fun tabletop role-playing gaming online. You can watch them do it. Also linking you to her website, SiennaEast.com. You'll find storytelling, stand-up articles, and so much more. And then Blair Saki is on Twitter and on Instagram. Her username is at Blair Saki. It's spelled B-L-A-I-R-S-O-C-C-I. And then she will be headlining the Bell House in Brooklyn, New York on Thursday, September 16th. That is a big deal. I don't know if people know New York comedy venues and stuff like that.

But Blair Saki headlining the Bell House. Be sure to check it out. We'll have a link for tickets in the show links. Also, I don't know, there's a pretty good chance it sells out because that's a hot ticket. So there will be a note if you can't get it. But I really hope you will check out that show if you at all can. Many research sources this week. Here are some key ones. A great article in Smithsonian by Zita Cristina Nunez. It's called Remembering the Howard University Librarian Who

Decolonized the Way Books Were Cataloged. That is all about Dorothy Porter. Another great article from The Atlantic. It's by Deborah Fallows. It's called Why Some Libraries Are Ending Fines. Tons more Fines coverage from NPR, USA Today, and Slate. There's an Atlas Obscura article with some chained libraries if you want to see them, and lots of other stuff, too. Find those and many more sources in this episode's links at sifpod.fun. And beyond all that, our theme music is Unbroken Unshaven by The Budos Band.

Our show logo is by artist Burton Durand. Special thanks to Chris Souza for audio mastering on this episode. Extra, extra special thanks go to our patrons. I hope you love this week's bonus show. And thank you to all our listeners. I am thrilled to say we will be back next week with more secretly incredibly fascinating. So how about that? Talk to you then.