New Orleans Public Library Book Search
Ammiel Fried
Tulane Libraries is a member of the Center for Research Libraries (CRL), which has extensive holdings of newspapers on microform. You can request CRL microforms, or digitization-on-demand of their microforms, through Tulane's Interlibrary Loan loan system.
As they have done time and again, libraries have adapted to these technological changes. But they have also managed to maintain their value as places where learning is interpersonal and social. Libraries might be our last bulwark against the digital degradation of life and learning.
When Google Search went live in 1998, so awesome was its reach that many thought it could herald the end of libraries as we knew them. There would be no more slogging through infinite stacks or grazing back periodicals to convert Fahrenheit to Celsius or to establish whether the philosophies of Levinas and Kierkegaard are compatible. Finding out how long it takes an eyelash to regrow, or how to build a doghouse, would become just a matter of asking the search bar. On offer was nothing short of the universal library, a revival of the Library of Alexandria that was envisioned as a model of the universe itself, an infinitely growing compendium of answers to every question, accessible to all.
For all that transformative technology, lately something about Search feels off. Billions of queries seem to be returning more and more homogenous results cluttered with links to e-commerce sites and prioritizing texts that read like they have been written by robots. As more and more people click on similar things, they reinforce the circularity.
Even as I write this article, following link after link, I feel my memory shrink as it gets outsourced to dozens of tabs in my browser, each offering some new bit of insight I can jam into this text, each promising some twinkling little reward, some key that unlocks my thoughts and gives them language. And though the possibilities of such digital wanderings are mathematically infinite, each new tab makes me feel more isolated, more at sea drifting farther from my goal, in need of some human rescue.
What sort of apple did Eve eat? Why is black the color of mourning? What is the origin of the safety pin? When were chairs developed? How much is a human body worth? Does anyone hold a copyright on the bible?
Why would anyone bother with a librarian when questions are easily answered by a search engine and without the wait? I got my answer earlier this year when I met Nancy Burvant at the Mid-City branch of my new hometown library in New Orleans, where she works as the head of electronic resources.
Besides, there is still nothing like that space between asking and finding out, that period of enforced contemplation between question and answer. Traversing the space between the two allows me to take a physical journey into my community, which, wherever I find myself, always has the power to surprise me.
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ED GORDON, host: I'm Ed Gordon, and this is NEWS AND NOTES. Say `summer camp' and most people think of kids swimming and hiking and swapping stories around a fire. But there's a summer camp in New Orleans that takes kids into libraries and cemeteries. Susan Roesgen of member station WWNO in New Orleans has the story. SUSAN ROESGEN reporting: Twelve-year-old Jordan Rock(ph) thinks cemeteries are creepy, but he walked anyway among the weathered, above-ground crypts in one of New Orleans' oldest cemeteries. Antionette Harrell-Miller led the way. Ms. ANTIONETTE HARRELL-MILLER (Genealogy Camp Director): Look at this here, Jordan. You see here? Feel this and I want you to touch it. JORDAN ROCK (Camper): It feels like old cement. Ms. HARRELL-MILLER: Like breaking stone, like breaking sand. Right? And that's what happens here so there's no writings there. ROESGEN: This field trip is part of Harrell-Miller's genealogy day camp for kids. She says she became interested two years ago when she visited Ellis Island during a vacation to New York. Ms. HARRELL-MILLER: One of the things that really, really was hard for me to look at--all the luggage that many people had donated back to the center. And I said, `My God, there's nothing for African-American people,' because we didn't have an opportunity to pack up luggage and bring it; we had to come just like we was and sometimes with absolutely nothing on. You know, so going back and researching your history is emotional. It's very emotional. ROESGEN: For the kids in her summer camp, the search is an adventure. Harrell-Miller shows them how to find records to fill in gaps in their family histories. ROCK: Getting closer. ROESGEN: At the New Orleans Public Library, Jordan Rock scrolled through miles of microfilm of newspapers from the 1950s. He finally found his great-grandfather. ROCK: Raymond Rock(ph), there we go. It says, `Entered into restaurant, Tuesday, October 21st, 1958.' As soon as I get home, I'm going to show my dad so he can know his grandfather. It's really fun and interesting, too. ROESGEN: Another camper, 12-year-old Jameel Reese(ph), has become a whiz at searching computer databases to find ancestors his family didn't know about. JAMEEL REESE (Camper): I found out that my great-great-great-grandfather was a casket maker. It was a good job for an African-American because that was considered to be one of the best jobs you can get back then. And to know that somebody in my family was a casket maker makes me feel good about myself. ROESGEN: Shahida Noriden(ph), Jameel's grandmother, chaperoned the library trip. Ms. SHAHIDA NORIDEN (Chaperone): I have just been overwhelmed with everything he's learned, everything that he's doing, how they congratulate each other when they find a name of a family member. `Oh, that's good. That's great. What did you find? This is what I found,' you know. ROESGEN: Some family trees branched in directions the campers didn't expect. One discovered that her great-great-grandfather was probably P.T.G. Beauregard, a white general in the Confederate Army. Camp Director Antionette Harrell-Miller believes knowing about the past is better than knowing nothing. Ms. HARRELL-MILLER: I am a part of history. When history tried to write me out, I am rewriting history, and I tell them that. You are pioneering a whole new way to look at the world through the eyes of your own family history. ROESGEN: She says families anywhere can start learning about their history by talking about it. Parents should encourage their kids to ask questions and help them try to find the answers. She's getting calls already from families who want to participate in next summer's genealogy camp. For NPR News, I'm Susan Roesgen in New Orleans.
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