To All the Libraries in My Life, Past and Present
Looking back, if I had to name one constant thread that runs through my life, I would have to say it is libraries. In fact, I am currently writing this piece while sitting in the slightly chilly reading room of a library in London.
Over the years, first as a student and then as a budding historian, I have studied, worked, and conducted research in many different libraries, located in many different cities and countries. But that is only half of the story. Libraries are also where I have hung out with friends, met new people, and simply spent my time. So when I came across this piece on Substack last week, I decided that it would be appropriate to reflect back and write a piece on the important space that libraries occupy in my life.
Although my first sustained “relationship” with a library was with the one in my high school (we’ll come back to this very shortly), sitting down to write this piece, I remembered that earlier, as a kid, I had been to one of the greatest libraries in the world (obviously, that was not my intention at the time). This was during my very first visit to London in 1995, and the library was the famous Reading Room of the British Museum, which had been frequented in the past by the likes of Karl Marx, George Orwell, and Virginia Woolf (who actually mentions one of her visits to the Reading Room in her essay A Room of One’s Own).
I remember visiting the British Museum with my uncle and taking a peek through the door at the round Reading Room which clearly made an impression on me to the extent that I remember it to this day. I also remember being disappointed when I went back to London in 2001 and could not find it there any longer because, as I found out much later, it was shut down in 1997 and moved to its current building at King’s Cross and renamed the British Library.
Back to my high school days. I have written earlier that I attended a prestigious American high school in Istanbul, which had a really nice library. It was a two-story structure, located on the top floor of the school’s main building, with a magnificent view of the Bosphorus. There was one spot specifically on the second floor, which gave you a perfect view, and if you were lucky enough to find a seat there, it was truly fun to sit down and enjoy your book or whatever you were doing.
One thing that I remember making an impression on me as a 15-year-old boy in that library was the fact that the daily newspapers were “hung” on a newspaper stick (I had to look it up to see how to describe it. Turns out, those sticks are also called “hangers.”) and read that way. I had never seen something like that before, and at the time, it just seemed strange. Over the years, I got used to it, as my friends and I would go up to the library to read the newspapers while joking around in hushed voices. The library also had subscriptions to magazines in English, published mostly in the United States and Britain, which also attracted our interest.
As far as the books went, I do not remember too much about their collection, to be honest, although I remember it to be quite large, especially for a high school. One book I do remember borrowing was a biography of Dostoyevsky in English, presumably during one of my “I should read the classics” phases. In general, though, that library in my high school was mostly etched in my memory as a quiet place where I would usually go during my free classes and look over the newspapers and magazines, as well as hang out with my friends.
Once I graduated high school and moved to the United States for college, my use of libraries both evolved and stayed the same. Naturally and perhaps inevitably, I started to perceive and use them more as a study space. At the University of Virginia, where I went to college, there were two main libraries that undergrads (except the engineering students since they had their own library, as far as I remember) mostly frequented: Clemons and Alderman. I preferred Clemons, mainly because of its silent study rooms with cubicles that I found ideal for doing my course readings, etc. It was also open 24 hours a day, which was convenient when I had to stay up late to finish one thing or another. Even though I do not recall pulling that many all-nighters (probably no more than a handful in my four years there), I do remember taking naps on sofas located in the study rooms, bringing two of them together, and lying down, after which I would just continue working on whatever I was doing.
One thing stayed the same, however, and that was the fact that the library was where I mostly socialized. After studying in the quiet rooms downstairs, I would go up to the ground floor of the Clemons Library (its architecture was weird) to hang out with my friends during “study breaks,” which would last anywhere between 5 minutes and 2 hours. It was also where friends came to look for me, knowing that I would most probably be there (another theme that emerges again and again in my life).
The most fun thing about Clemons for me, though, was its “media rooms,” where you could borrow DVDs (yes, it was a time when DVDs were a thing) and watch them. As you can guess, these rooms were probably there for academic use, but we did not care. We just used them to watch episodes of Friends and laugh our heads off. At the time, one Turkish friend whom I met at UVa hadn’t seen the show before, so I had the pleasure of introducing it to her. Now, whenever we meet, we fondly reminisce about the fun we had watching that show on the third ground floor of the Clemons Library.
You could also find me at the Clemons Library on weekends, but mostly for a different reason. I realize this may come across as a slightly unconventional way to use a library, but I would actually go there to watch the Turkish football league on the library’s computers because the internet there was faster than in my dorm room. Due to the 7-hour time difference with Turkey, my friends and I would be there at around 11:45 in the morning, find a computer as out of the way as possible, and wait for the game to start at noon. We would then watch the game while trying to keep our noises down, although I can’t say we always succeeded, drawing surprised, irritated, or angry looks from the other students. That was not all, though. Once the game was over, we would also watch the commentaries on Turkish TV while having our own simultaneous commentary session among ourselves, basically losing hours and hours of our lives that we were never going to get back.
I was actually kicked out of the library once because of this very passion that I had for football back then. Against all odds, this did not actually happen in Clemons but in the Alderman Library. Back then, they would sometimes broadcast the Champions League matches on mute on the TVs located in the reception area of the library. That particular day, my team was playing Chelsea in the quarterfinal, and the game was on TV in the library. Not surprisingly, I was there, too. The lady at the reception had already warned me once or twice during the game to keep my voice down but once my team got a 2-1 lead with this goal, I let out a short but loud scream, as a result of which the lady came back again, this time to escort me out.
Despite these fun memories, I look back at my time at UVa mostly with regret, as I have written before, mainly because I felt like I could have used my time there in a more efficient way to propel my academic and intellectual growth forward. And this was the mood I was in when I started my M.A. at King’s College London.
I was not a very good student during my years at UVa, so when I got accepted for a master’s at King’s College after getting rejected from every PhD program I had applied to, I took it like I was given a second chance to redeem myself and put my life on a better trajectory. My initial goal of getting a PhD still stood, and this time I was determined not to mess around. As a result, the way I used libraries also went through a dramatic change. While the socializing side went down (I was now actually annoyed when my friends came to the library to hang out), the study side went way up. I therefore started spending a lot of time in libraries by myself, including the weekends, which formed the beginnings of a habit that I carried over with me to my time as a Ph.D. student.
My library of choice at this time was the Maughan Library. It is an absolutely beautiful building from the mid-19th century, constructed in the neo-Gothic style. While I was doing a quick search on its history for this piece, I was reminded that the building had been used as the British Empire’s Public Records Office, before being acquired by King’s College London in 2001. One of its main attractions is its “Round Reading Room,” where, as legend had it, a couple of scenes from the Harry Potter movie were filmed (which turned out not to be true).
Harry Potter or not, the Round Reading Room was always very popular with the students, making it impossible to find a place. This, among other reasons, was why I usually preferred to find myself a seat by the library stacks (the bowels of the library, if you will) where I could just delve into whatever I was working on at the time without being disturbed (talk about my need to be alone).
On a more positive note, though, the stacks made me discover the beauty of the open-shelf system. Libraries in my high school and college also had open shelves, but I never made use of them. I mean, let’s face it, I did not even give it a thought. At King’s, though, while doing my research for the papers that I was writing, I would sometimes look up where a book was located on the computer, and instead of ordering it through the online system and picking it up later at the issue desk, I would actually go to the shelf and pick it up myself (mostly because it took less time). In the process, though, I started to discover new titles that I did not know were there, which made the whole thing a little bit more fun and interesting while also taking me in new directions.
Finally, the Maughan Library has a special place in my memory for another reason. It was there that I received my first (and, as it turned out, only) PhD acceptance letter. I remember the exact date because it was my mom’s birthday. It was towards 6 p.m., and I was preparing to wrap up for the day when I saw the email from Ohio State. I was so happy that I actually cried since no one was around. It felt like my efforts had finally paid off. In a sense, I felt that I could finally redeem myself and that my life would finally be on the path I always dreamed of. Things, however, turned out to be more complicated than that.
When I moved from London to Columbus, Ohio, for my PhD, I brought this newly found discipline with me, and my life continued to revolve around the library, probably more than ever. My “home” this time was the Grand Reading Room of the Thompson Library. It was a quite beautiful room with big windows and a replica of the Nike of Samothrace overlooking the rows of desks.
Even though we, as grad students, had an office in the department where we were assigned tables that we could use, I never went there. I did not want to mix with anybody; I did not want to spend time with anybody. I just wanted to do my work by myself. This was probably fueled by my grandiose illusions of trying to become the best historian I could be, as well as my anxieties about comparing myself to others and finding out that I was falling short.
So I just went to the library and tried to work myself to my limits, and hopefully beyond. I had an insane tempo, with the Grand Reading Room of the Thompson Library right at its center. After working out in the morning, I would leave for the Grand Reading Room before my seminars and return there after they had ended. Most days, I would stay in the library until 11 at night, working, with only a dinner break in between.
The weekends were even more intense. My usual routine was to go there at around 10 in the morning and stay until 9 at night, again with only short breaks for lunch and dinner. It got to the point where if people wanted to find me, they would just come to the library, knowing I would be there. I remember one time a friend of mine was actually annoyed because he had come to the Grand Reading Room and could not find me in my usual spot. Considering how much time I spent in that place, I really could not blame him.
I’ll end this (rather long) piece by coming full circle and talking about the British Library, which is where I am right now, typing these words. The first time I came here was during my dissertation research, and I visited it intermittently over the years until I finished my PhD in 2020. Since I moved back to London for work, I have started using it more or less as my office. Put another way, I once again made another library the center of gravity of my life.
This time, however, I think I am doing a better job of establishing a balance between my work and my needs for socializing. While I continue to pursue my academic interests and freelance work, I don’t impose a kind of self-isolation on myself anymore. As a creature of habit, I usually come and sit in the same reading room and more or less at the same desk, which, over the years, has had the pleasant side effect of enabling me to meet other regulars of the library, people from different academic backgrounds, whom I now call my friends and with whom I enjoy hanging out, whether it is a short coffee break or a dinner at a restaurant.
I’ll take that as a step forward.
Until next time!
So many great libraries, Doga. Glad you are enjoying the British Library in its new(ish) home.