While reading author Lev Grossman’s 2004 book Codex I came across a brilliant scene where the protagonist Edward Wozny, a “hotshot young banker” bizarrely drafted to catalog a client’s un-described, crated library, makes a number of common first time researcher mistakes. Before processing the books Wozney’s employers warned him to watch for a particular book by Gervase of Langford; not one to go halfway for a client, Wozney uses an old print catalog of English books published before 1501 to point him to the fictional Chenoweth Rare Books and Manuscript Repository.
The chapter begins with Wozney describing the library’s unassuming facade, his reluctance to surrender his Hermès briefcase, and the coldness of the room and people as he descends the stairs and enters the research room.
The following paragraphs are illustrative of research barriers common to certain specialist libraries and archives; they are also quietly amusing.
He strolled over to a computer terminal with an old-fashioned black-and-green monitor. A few xeroxed instructional pamphlets lay scattered around it on the tabletop. He sat down and typed the name “Gervase,” then hit SEARCH. Nothing. It took him five minutes with the xeroxed pamphlets before he discovered that the medieval holdings were cataloged in a separate database from the rest of the library’s collection. When he’d figured out how to access the medieval database, the two other Gervase, Canterbury and Tilbury, turned up right away, but no Langford. He went back to the pamphlets, where he learned that while 80 percent of the Chenoweth’s holdings had been transferred to the electronic catalog, the only record of the other 20 percent was in the old paper card catalog.
Edward crossed the room to one of the many wooden cabinets. Its face was studded with hundreds of tiny drawers with hundreds of tiny gleaming brass handles, each one with a neat little hand-lettered paper tag on it. He walked along thirty or forty feet of drawers before he got to the G‘s, and then the Ge‘s, where he found–again nothing. Finally he consulted a diminutive blond library page who informed him that he was looking in the books catalog, and that Gervase’s works, which were published before the advent of movable type, were written out in hand, and thus were not considered books at all, but manuscripts. Manuscripts were cataloged in a separate system in another part of the room.
It was there he found the card he was looking for.
Author: Gervase, of Langford, ca. 1338-ca. 1374
Title: Chronicum Anglicanum: (second part)/
Gervasius Langfordiensis
Published: London, 1366
Description: xvi, 363 p.; maps; 34 cm.That was all, plus a long call number. With a stunted, eraserless pencil stub he copied the number out on a slip of scrap paper, on the back of which was a fragment of what had once been a research proposal on John Donne and the English Revolution.
But where were the books? Three scattered bookcases, holding no more than a couple of hundred volumes each at most. He stood there holding the scrap paper, uncertain as to what to do next. He strolled around the room glancing casually at the other patrons, trying to deduce the local protocol on the fly. Nothing obvious presented itself. He peered through various doorways, none of which looked promising. The whole operation was a model of mysterious, gleaming efficiency, like some incomprehensible ultramodern public restroom.
When he passed the front desk for the third time, one of the attendants, a dark-haired, moon-faced young woman caught his eye.
“Is there something I can help you with?” she asked brightly.
“Yes,” he admitted. “I, ah–”
Flustered, he mutely proffered the slip of paper with the call number on it. The young woman examined it expertly.
“Gotcha,” she said. “Have a seat. We’ll bring it right out to you.”[Next page]
A hand touched his shoulder. It was the girl from the front desk. She motioned him to follow her out to the lobby.
“I’m sorry,” she said gravely, when they were outside. “The materials you requested are unavailable.”
Counterfactual Archivist 