How I Became a Librarian

My wife was ill.

More­over, she was the one who brought in the steady income.  (Old gag: What do you call an artist who has no part­ner? Home­less.) At the time, I was liv­ing in NYC and writ­ing plays, but there was lit­tle inter­est in my work, and absolute­ly no income.  I there­fore had a series of jobs.  Dra­ma instruc­tor. Car­pen­ter. Short order cook.  Clerk, etc., etc.  (Anoth­er old gag:  Real artists have day jobs).  But with my wife’s ill­ness and a loss of income, this was an emergency.

As I roamed the ear­ly Sep­tem­ber streets of New York, look­ing for pay­ing work, I wan­dered into the (42nd street) main branch of the New York Pub­lic Library, the one with the two lions. (“May­or Fiorel­lo LaGuardia named them Patience and For­ti­tude, for the qual­i­ties he felt New York­ers would need to sur­vive the eco­nom­ic depres­sion.”)  That worked for me.

Indeed, it turned out the The­atre Col­lec­tion had an open­ing for a clerk. There was no low­er posi­tion. Since I was in the the­atre pro­fes­sion­al­ly, and had a mas­ter’s degree in the­atre, they were will­ing to offer me the posi­tion. They also told me the Col­lec­tion would be mov­ing to Lin­coln Cen­ter in two years, and would be expand­ing its pro­fes­sion­al staff.

I took the job and would start in two days. The day before I began work, I applied for my library degree at Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty, John Dewey’s old insti­tu­tion. To get in I was required to get a rec­om­men­da­tion from a librar­i­an.  As it hap­pened, there was an old fam­i­ly friend who was a librar­i­an in Los Ange­les. She agreed to write the let­ter I needed.

One week lat­er I was work­ing for the New York Pub­lic Library, The­atre Col­lec­tion, and attend­ing library school at night. I con­tin­ued writ­ing plays.

Being part of the the­atre col­lec­tion was to be sur­round­ed by the­atre in every way. The whole staff was engaged with the the­atre. The The­atre Col­lec­tion was also on the list for free tick­ets for the­atre pre­views, and pro­duc­tions need­ing to paper the house, as it was called.

Not a bad job for an aspir­ing playwright.

In the course of my stud­ies. the NYPL pro­vid­ed me with some schol­ar­ship stipends. When I applied for these stipends I was asked: “If you have a hit play on Broad­way would you con­tin­ue to work in the The­atre Col­lec­tion?” Answer: “Of course.”

It took me two years and a full sum­mer to com­plete my MLS course work.  In New York State one had to take a Regents’ exam, which I did, bare­ly pass­ing, and was issued my license to prac­tice Librarianship.

I still have that license. Con­sid­er­ing the fragili­ty of the writer’s pro­fes­sion, I might have to put it to use again.

As for my library life, it con­tin­ued, as you will read soon.